An interview with...

Dental implants offer denture wearers lots of benefits. Dental implants stabilise their dentures and hold them firmly in place. This greatly improves the patients ability to bite and gives greater enjoyment of food. Digestion is improved and well-being. Also, speech becomes clearer as there is less denture base, which improves taste. Dental implants generally make dentures more comfortable with no pressure points or sore spots and allow denture wearers to live a much happier life.

There are a variety of reasons why people may not be able to wear a traditional removable denture. In the lower jaw total tooth loss leads to the loss of jawbone, which continues over time. If a substantial amount of bone loss occurs, the lower jawbone may not be able to support a denture. Two implants in the lower jaw will provide a solid foundation for a full denture that otherwise a patient may not have been able to wear.

In the upper jaw some patients have difficulty wearing traditional upper dentures because their jawbone has shrunk away. Patients can also have a sensitive gag reflex and cannot tolerate the denture base in the roof of their mouth. Having dental implants placed in the upper jaw allows the size of the denture base to be reduced making it much more bearable for the patient.

Implant retained dentures are dentures which are functionally assisted by dental implants. Most often patients choose them to hold loose full dentures in place.

Implant retained dentures can be either removable or fixed. Removable versions can be removed from the mouth by the patient as they have components within the dentures that provide the retention by clipping on and off an component attached to the head of the implant.

The fixed type of denture is firmly attached to the dental implants. It is often known as a fixed bridge, All on 4 or permanent teeth in a day and can only be placed and removed by a Dentist.

Whether implant retained or not, dentures are usually made from a pink coloured plastic resin, which the artificial teeth are bonded to. It is generally considered that injection moulded denture bases fit better and are stronger compared to normal plastic denture bases so are used for implant retained dentures.

The denture teeth used in implant retained dentures should be durable enough to allow for the greater bite forces and are made from several layers of plastic or from a more durable composite material. Often alloy frameworks are encased within the dentures to give extra strength and to hold the denture together if it were to ever fracture. In the All on 4 technique or permanent teeth in a day, a titanium framework is encased within the acrylic gum and fixed by an Implant Dentist to the implants.