Dentures

Are false teeth now history?

August 16, 2010 By Andrew 1 Comment

How old, dodgy dentures have given way to beautiful, permanent replacement teeth

Truly transformational: the full arch titanium/acrylic fixed implant bridge:

before treatment after treatment
Times (they are) a changing. I’m actually not listening to Bob Dylan as I write this, but times are definitely changing in the world of UK dentistry, and where dentures are concerned, the change is accelerating.

20 years ago if you had lost all your teeth, false teeth or ‘falsies’ were your only option. Cheap and cheerful, available free on the NHS…and utterly hopeless as a functioning pair of teeth. Some of them looked ok and even stayed in when you were talking, sometimes!

20 years ago dental implants were in their infancy, only a few brave dentists with hugely rich patients ventured into such unchartered territory..

Fast forward 10 years and things had changed dramatically:

10 years ago if you had lost all your teeth (or a complete top or bottom set) then it was possible to find a few dentists with the ability to replace a whole set of top or bottom teeth - but the costs, although vaguely affordable for those with serious property equity, were still somewhat eye-watering. A full set of porcelain teeth needed 10 implants to support them and each tooth was lovingly crafted – the dental technician would spend days or even weeks making them.

Some dentists realised that there must be ‘another way’ and started to use fewer implants to fix dentures in place: the implant-denture was born. The beauty of the implant denture is that instead of needing 10 implants to hold a complex custom made porcelain bridge in place, with the extra support that the implant denture gained from resting on the gums, the implant dentists could use fewer implants to hold these teeth in place:

Result! Dentures that stay put and can be used for eating most food without any fear of them falling out when discussing the latest episode of the Simpsons [Grandpa should have implant-retained dentures by now surely? -ed]

The only problem with implant retained dentures is that in patients’ eyes they are still dentures! They need to be removed for cleaning purposes every night….and no matter how well they stay in with their super-duper implant-connectors, they still have the ‘false teeth’ label.

2010

Enter the new era of ‘full arch’ implant dentistry [full arch: aka a top set, bottom set or complete set of implant-teeth].

Combining the ease of construction of implant-dentures with the satisfaction of having a set of fixed teeth that really feel like your own, without resorting to using 10 implants at a time and without the days and weeks of painstaking construction time at the dental lab…..it has become possible to completely replace a top set, bottom set or both for a rather less eyewatering fee than those huge ceramic bridges….

How?

This has been made possible by using digital scanning/CNC technology to produce titanium ‘backbones’ with micro-tolerances that are screwed into place on as little as 4 implants for a full set.

Top quality acrylic teeth are then firmly attached to the titanium backbone and the full arch titanium/acrylic fixed implant bridge is complete.

How do they look? The photographs speak for themselves.

Lower dentures are utterly useless

April 14, 2008 By Andrew Leave a Comment

I well remember my first denture lecture as a keen young trainee: The denture-department head stood up in front of us at the top of Guy’s Tower and said:

“Before I begin, don’t you lot ever forget one thing: dentures are only ever better than nothing at all!“.

And this from the head of the Prosthetics dept. (the top specialist in false teeth – ed.)

Lower full dentures are bottom of the barrell.

With the tongue muscles getting in the way the poor old lower denture hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in hell of staying put. Meanwhile the patient struggles to speak and eat while it jumps around in the mouth with a life of its own.

Patients can’t eat solid food, they can’t speak for embarrassment, and often the movement of the denture causes friction-sores on the gum. What utter misery.

What’s more, there is absolutely nothing the concerned practitioner can do about it. Try as he might, adjusting adjusting adjusting, remaking, relining and rebasing – it just won’t fix it.

Miserable patient, miserable dentist.

But aren’t the alternatives too expensive?

Not necessarily. Enter the well proven implant-retained-denture.

Essentially the patient’s own denture can be modified with special fixings which then attach to 2 or 4 implants inserted in the lower jaw. The real beauty of this method is that it keeps the cost right down. There is no expensive bridgework and only 2 or 4 implants are required to hold that denture right where it is needed.

The treatment costs a fraction of implant-bridge treatment where up to 6 implants may be required, (coupled to 10 or 12 porcelain bridge units bonded to a metal framework.)

The implant retained denture can be removed for cleaning, but when placed in the mouth it is fixed solidly. This method can also be used in the upper jaw but more implants are required – but it’s not as great a problem as these useless lower dentures.

I’m sure that patients should rather be worrying about where to go out to eat!

Filed Under: Dental Implants, Dentures Tagged With: Dental Implants, Dentures

Not all dental implants are created equal

February 18, 2008 By Andrew Leave a Comment

The field of dental implantology is in its youth. The first implants were put in only 25 or so years ago – and many of them are still giving good service to this day.

But being a relatively new treatment (compared to say, fillings which have been around since the turn of the century) implant treatment methods and component construction is moving fast. Just like any other technology it is up to the implantologist to keep up with current developments.

This generally means looking at methods and systems that have been around at least a few years to ensure that they are well proven. The responsible implantologist would not use his patients as guinea pigs!

Again, as with other emerging sciences, implant systems get out of date….they can still be purchased, and in most cases they will still function. But how do they look?
[Read more...]

Filed Under: Dental Implants Tagged With: , ankylos, ceramic teeth, dental implantology, Dental Implants, Dentures

Are false teeth now history?

Lower dentures are utterly useless

Not all dental implants are created equal

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