Removable Restorations

Removable dental prostheses are a kind of indirect dental restorations. It means that these prostheses are not placed in the tooth right after an examination, but are made somewhere else with special technique, and located at their places some days after the examination. Removable dental prostheses are made to replace teeth rather than just to be placed in or on the tooth or teeth.

Removable dental restorations are usually dentures, and we use them if there are several teeth missing in a row, and we cannot use a bridge. It can happen if the molars are gone, or the space to be filled is too big. Removable dental prostheses are in fact alternatives to dental implants, so there are many types of them, and all have to meet the requirements that dental implants fulfil. We are of course far away from the beginnings, when dentures were made of gold, ivory and human teeth. Today dentures are made of acryl or porcelain, and we need only in a few cases metal frameworks: usually there is no metal in the prosthesis at all.

Pros and cons of dentures: with a high quality and well made partial or complete denture you will be able to chew like with your original teeth, you will be able to pronounce words right again, you will support your cheeks and lips, and of course you will get back your smile. But denture is not a panacea, and having a complete or partial denture, or to be precise: neglecting it, may cause troubles: bad breath, gum disease and infections. It is very important to take care of your mouth and denture to avoid these problems.

There are other problems that may show up: your denture may seem to be food, and your brain starts to produce saliva even if there is no food around (it can happen only in the first day). Either the partial or the complete denture has to find its place, so in the first days a few adjustments may be needed to avoid friction and pressure on your gums and tissues.

Of course having a denture does not mean that you can neglect your own teeth. The original, natural teeth and tissues must be taken care of, or otherwise their condition will worsen, and besides the pain they may cause other problems may occur. The most serious of them is that your teeth fall out, and the denture has to be replaced, because it won’t fit anymore.