Denture Care

When you lose a tooth or an entire set of teeth to injury or disease, it can be a traumatic event in many ways. Your smile is something that is important to daily life, and a missing tooth can completely wreck it. Having a gap between teeth can also cause problems of tooth misalignment as they begin to shift with all that extra space. It can also complicate your hygiene by being a trap for food bits that grow bacteria in your mouth.

Dentures have been the traditional way to replace lost teeth, and they promise to significantly eliminate the problems arising from missing teeth. However, they are not without their own specific issues. Dentures care is a crucial part of having dentures. There are several things you need to consider when caring for your dentures.

Hygiene is one of them. Though dentures prevent food from being trapped in the gap they fill, they can still accumulate bacteria through daily use. It’s recommended that you wash your dentures at least once per day. The best time is usually right before you put them on. To clean dentures, use a suitable cleaning paste designed for dentures (they don’t have the same requirements as regular teeth) and a good denture brush. Be sure to cleanse all surfaces of the denture and focus on areas where staining may occur. If you use denture adhesives, you must make sure that all of it has been removed before applying a new patch of adhesive.

Before you sleep you should remove your dentures and place them in a cleansing fluid. This helps maintain cleanliness while giving your gums and oral tissue time to be exposed to air and saliva. You shouldn’t leave dentures in for more than 16 hours without taking them off for at least 8 hours.

You should always be monitoring the fit of your dentures. It’s easy to forget that you’re even wearing them, but the fact of the matter is that you can do serious harm to your mouth if you wear them improperly. Dentures should be snug and comfortable. Regular chewing of soft to moderately hard food should not jostle or shift the dentures out of position. If you like to eat harder foods on a regular basis, an adhesive is probably the best way to go. If you find that your mouth is sore from wearing the dentures, and if sores begin to develop, this should not be corrected by applying more adhesive. This is a sign that your dentures may no longer fit your mouth correctly or that they were never done properly in the first place. At the first sign of any misfit, you should consult your dentist for a new set.

Dentures are a great solution to the problem of missing teeth. However, you should never neglect dentures care just like you shouldn’t neglect proper oral hygiene.

Source: PPS