Dentures – Temple, TX
A Traditional Way to Recover Your Smile
Despite modern advances in oral care, tooth loss is still a common issue. As many as 120 million Americans today have lost at least one of their permanent teeth. For this and other reasons, we at Dr. Fossum’s office provide quality dentures in the Temple area. These traditional tooth replacements can bring back your whole grin, boosting its health in the process. Read on to learn more about them, or book a consultation with us soon!
Why Choose Richard Fossum, DDS for Dentures?
- Two Dentists with Far-Reaching Skill Sets
- Customized Treatment Results
- A Dental Team That Puts Patients First
Who is a Good Candidate for Dentures?
It doesn’t take much to qualify for dentures, as most healthy adults with missing teeth can get them. That said, not every patient who’s suffered tooth loss is well-suited for the treatment. Someone may get better results with a different restoration if they still have teeth along an arch. Meanwhile, another person may have weak gums or jaws that can’t support a denture.
Given these facts, please consult our dentists before committing to dentures. They’ll give you a close oral exam to see if the restorations suit you. From there, they can draft a custom treatment plan tailored to your smile and its unique needs.
Types of Dentures
Our office may suggest one of three different dentures after your consultation. These three types are:
Partial Dentures
Partial dentures (per their name) only replace a few teeth. Made of acrylic and metal frameworks, they rest on your gums and hold artificial teeth that blend with your smile. Each one also uses suction force or clasps to stay secure in your mouth, providing a lifelike smile as a result.
Full Dentures
Unlike a partial kind, a full denture replaces an entire arch at once. That means it only uses suction force (without clasps) to remain secure and doesn’t alter your remaining teeth. However, the device still uses the same basic materials as a normal partial denture. Its base relies on gum-colored acrylic, while its artificial teeth are made from porcelain or ceramic.
Implant Dentures
If you want permanent or lasting results, you may want to try implant dentures. These kinds rely on dental implants – metal posts that slowly fuse with your jaw’s bone tissue. By doing so, any given implant denture should remain secure over time; it won’t slip or fall like others can. The final restoration will also keep your jawbone strong and prevent facial collapse.
The Benefits of Dentures
Teeth are crucial to daily life, so losing them can make even simple tasks daunting. That said, you can trust dentures to help you overcome the challenges of tooth loss. With these prosthetics from our own Dr. Fossum, you can fill your smile's gaps and make everyday living easy again. We'll even tell you about the specific benefits of dentures in detail. To that end, just keep reading or call our office soon.
Psychological Benefits
Since tooth loss worsens appearance, it tends to harm your mental health. Knowing you have major smile gaps can lower your self-esteem, cause depression, and more. The good news is dentures prevent (and treat) such moods by restoring your grin. By filling the gaps between any remaining teeth, they bolster your confidence and help you feel self-assured. The prosthetics will also keep you from worrying about your ability to speak, eat, etc.
Clearer Enunciation
Losing teeth makes talking hard, as you need them to enunciate words. Just missing a few can result in slurred speech, a severe lisp, or worse, ruining conversations. Still, dentures help you avoid such things by replacing your lost teeth. That means they support your tongue enough to let you form words, ensuring you can speak properly. You simply need to practice with them first, as it takes time to talk clearly with dentures.
Improves Nutrition
Long-term tooth loss often results in a poor diet. Since the condition keeps you from chewing tough-but-healthy foods, it greatly restricts your meal choices. However, dentures would solve this issue by providing strong and sturdy substitute teeth. These prosthetics let you chew tough foods more effectively, so they’d expand your range of potential meals. That effect would lead to a higher level of nutritional health over time.
Preserves Oral Health
Oral health suffers when you go without teeth, as smile gaps make your smile tilt, house harmful bacteria, and erode your jawbone. Such spaces even put you at risk of further tooth loss. However, dentures can protect oral health by filling those nasty smile gaps. Without those empty areas in your mouth, your nearby teeth won’t tilt, and bad microbes won’t gather. Using dentures would also slow the rate at which your jawbone erodes.
Expands Opportunities
Good first impressions depend on a pretty smile, so lacking teeth makes relationships tricky. A grin with too many gaps can make you miss out on friendships, romances, etc. Of course, today’s dentures are natural and lifelike enough to make your grin gorgeous. They’d restore your ability to form good impressions, expanding your range of social opportunities. You’d then see many long-term benefits with your friends, family, colleagues, and potential romantic partners.