Dental Implants Existing Partial
By combining dental implants with an existing partial denture, you will enjoy an effective, long-term solution for stabilizing your teeth. By anchoring dental implants to the underlying jawbone, your dentist can create a sturdy foundation to which your denture can be securely attached.
If you currently have full or partial dentures, then you understand the daily challenges. Questions like how much denture adhesive is necessary to secure your dentures? Will anyone hear that annoying clicking sound when you speak and chew? Will you be able to chew the foods that you want? When you remove your dentures for cleaning and maintenance, how do you remove the denture glue from your tender gums?
Dental implants provide root-like stability for dentures, making them more secure and comfortable. Other important benefits of combining dental implants with dentures include increased self-confidence and improved facial appearance.
Dentures are designed to fit snuggly over a ridge of soft tissue, but as your jawbone experiences constant atrophy over time, it leaves your dentures little to hold onto. Implants used to retain the dentures provide both a better fit and a much greater level of functionality.
Improved Stability and Simplicity
Combining your removable dentures with dental implants involves two or more implants being placed to secure your dentures. This gives you the restoration of permanent dental implants alongside the simplicity of a traditional denture appliance.
Since the overdenture is now fixed to the implants, you will not have to worry about them slipping out when you are talking or eating.
How Dentures and Implants Complement Each Other
The process for integrating dentures and dental implants is completely customizable. If it is possible, your existing denture can be modified to snap onto the new dental implant attachments. If your dentist is unable to alter your existing appliance, a new denture will need to be created with the necessary attachments by your dentist and a dental lab.
To determine your treatment plan, a complete consultation will be necessary. During this initial exam, your existing denture will be evaluated, and your medical history will be reviewed to ensure that you are indeed a viable candidate for the implant denture procedure.
Dentures are designed and created in a dental lab from impressions made of your arches. They are usually used when all or most of the teeth have been lost. There are two versions of dentures: full dentures and partial dentures.
Full dentures are when an upper tray fits over the roof of the mouth, and then a lower tray accommodates the tongue with a horseshoe-like shape. A partial denture will rest on a framework that attaches to your remaining natural teeth and basically a removable alternative to a dental bridge.
A dental implant is a small titanium post that is placed into the jawbone to create an artificial tooth root. With sufficient healing time, the surrounding bone tissue grows around the implant, which will then become a permanent part of the bone. Dental implants with an artificial crown fitted onto them can replace a single tooth, several teeth or all the teeth. They also act as a stabilizing support structure for dentures.
Implant-retained dentures are preferred for the lower arch, where traditional dentures can be unstable. You can still benefit from having an implant-supported denture in your upper arch. The dental implants are usually inserted in the jaw at the front of the mouth, where there tends to be more jawbone density than in the back.
The Benefits of Combining Dental Implants with Existing Partial Dentures
Besides stability, there are other benefits of implant-retained dentures which include:
- Permanent solution- Implant dentures offer a permanent restorative solution to your tooth loss because the implants become part of the jaw. Other methods of replacement, including traditional dentures and bridges, will need to be replaced over time.
- Improved functionality and appearance- When your natural teeth have been lost, nearby bone no longer needs to support them, so your body starts to lose the bone. This can significantly affect your facial appearance and oral functionality. Traditional dentures cannot reverse this problem, but implants do help preserve the structural integrity of the jaw.
- Clearer speech- Improperly-fitting dentures can slip, causing you to mumble or slur your words. Implant overdentures dramatically improve your speech ability.
- Reliability- the fit and performance of an implant-supported denture is predictable such that denture adhesives are completely unnecessary. You will enjoy eating the foods that you want while never having to remove denture adhesive from your gums again.
- Affordability- Implant-retained dentures are more cost effective compared with getting individual implants. With their increased life expectancy, you will not have additional replacement costs.
Bone Loss Issues with Standard Dentures
Traditional dentures will over time gradually become loose through shrinkage of the bone structure. This bone loss happens because regular dentures, unlike implant overdentures, have no artificial roots and cannot direct the bite function to the jaw. This results in the bone recession or atrophy.
Extended use of a poorly fitting dental appliance can cause further bone loss, and traditional dentures will need to be realigned and replaced. Dental implants are unique in dentistry because they promote bone growth and have a bite pressure as strong as that of natural teeth.
The titanium in the implant fuses with the jaw in a process called osseointegration, which bonds the titanium post and bone into a solid, single unit. The results in providing the stimulation that the bone need to thrive. Without it, the jaw will degenerate over time.
Enhanced Self-Confidence and Functionality with Implanted Supported Dentures
Combining dentures with dental implants improves both functionality and aesthetical appearances. These implant- supported dentures enhance your facial appearance while enabling better nutrition by allowing you to bite and chew normally. Implant-supported dentures will restore your smile and your self-esteem while giving you a bite function far more powerful than that of regular dentures.
Dental implants have a success rate of near 98 percent, and implant supported dentures, when cared for properly, can last a lifetime. Your dentures should still be taken out daily for cleaning and at night before you go to sleep. You should also always clean your gums and the implant attachments daily.