Get the best of both worlds
If you are faced with the prospect of having to replace all your teeth with dentures in Richmond, there’s a good chance you are feeling pretty miserable about it.
Not all that long ago, in the mid-20th century, getting a full set of dentures in Richmond was all the rage. Young people in their 20s and 30s would actually get all their teeth removed so that they could wear dentures for the rest of their lives. It was seen as the modern way to save a fortune on dental expenses. Unfortunately, back then it was not yet known that we need our teeth to stimulate bone cell renewal and that having all your teeth removed quickly results in a pointy-chinned, sunken-faced look.
Thus a few generations of people then had to cope with teeth that wobbled around on thin jaws, sliding around instead of staying put, whistling when their owners were trying to talk.
The stimulation the jawbone needs comes from the tiny tremors that go down into it through your tooth roots. No tooth roots, no tremors, no cell renewal. To be honest, it’s worse than that. It’s not that your jawbone sits there, not renewing itself. Oh no. It goes into active resorption of the bone, melting it away to use the nutrients elsewhere in the body. Your lower jaw shrinks and becomes less dense, and there is no longer anything for your dentures to grip onto and they start sliding around in your mouth like you stole them from the bedside of a much bigger person.
In Richmond, dentures may not be able to stop your jawbone from shrinking, but dental implants can, however.
At Sheen Dental Implants, we can put a whole arch of teeth onto between four and eight implants. Or we can stabilise your dentures using between four and six implants.
When we stabilise your dentures, you will still have the false gums covering your own gums. Under the gums there will be either a ball fitting or a bar fitting and this snaps onto the implants. You can take your dentures out to clean them and rest your gums, but they will be much more stable while in.