If you've lost all of your natural teeth, whether from periodontal disease, tooth decay or injury, complete dentures can replace your missing teeth and your smile.  Replacing missing teeth will benefit your appearance and your health.  Without support from the denture, facial muscles sag, making a person look older.  You will be able to eat and speak - things that people often take for granted until their natural teeth are lost.

     There are various types of complete dentures.  A conventional full denture is made and placed in the patient's mouth after the remaining teeth are removed and tissues have healed which may take several months.  An immediate complete denture is inserted as soon as the remaining teeth are removed.  The dentist takes measurements and makes models of the patient's jaws during a preliminary visit.  With immediate dentures, the denture wearer does not have to be without teeth during the healing period.

     Complete removeable dentures often have a stigma of being hard to adjust to, due to mobility.  Since patients who need complete dentures have no teeth, the denture is held in place by their soft tissue.  Some patients refuse to wear complete dentures because they don't feel confident when eating and talking with them in their mouth.  Due to advancements in implant dentistry, complete dentures can now be secured tightly to your jawbone with implants.  This is commonly referred to as an implant retained over denture.  

     Even if you wear full dentures, you still must take good care of your mouth.  Brush your gums, tongue and palate every morning with a soft bristled brush before you insert your dentures to stimulate circulation in your tissues and help remove plaque.

     If you have lost some of your natural teeth, whether from periodontal disease, tooth decay or trauma, partial dentures can replace those missing teeth and your smile.  When one or more teeth are missing, the remaing teeth can drift out of position, which can lead to a change in the bite, the loss of additional teeth, decay and gum disease.

     Partial dentures are made from molds of your jawbone.  The denture will then be placed in your mouth and held into place by hooks referred to as clasps.  These hooks can be tightened and loosened to allow for a customized fit for every patient.  Advancements in dental materials now allow for these hooks, which are commonly metal, to be replaced by flexible gum-colored hooks known as valplast.  These dentures allow for greater esthetics in areas where hooks have to be placed on front teeth.