Advantages Of Dental Implants Over Dentures and Partials, Part I

By Richard Hughes, DDS, FACS

During this age of the internet, space travel, medical miracles, GPS, and yes, smart phones, people still suffer with dentures and partial dentures. Other than the materials, the methods to make dentures have not changed since Wellington defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Complete dentures are not your teeth.

They are a prosthesis made for appearance and very limited function. Complete dentures at best have no less than 30% mobility for the upper and the lower is worse and lifts up from the lower jaw by as much as 10 millimeters during eating. Partial dentures function a bit better, but they too move.

This movement acts to abrade teeth, slowly extract teeth and cause an increased rate of dental decay, due to the clasps acting as plaque traps. Both complete dentures and partial dentures destroy supporting bone. As for function, they are like wearing a pair of flip-flops in a foot race. They are basically for show and not for go.

Dental implants offer a superior solution to the above mentioned problems. The following will compare dental implants to dentures and partial dentures.

Dentures require a training period, implants do not. During the implant insertion appointment, you may receive a temporary bridge that will not come loose. When you get your permanent bridge, you will be able to eat, laugh, and talk just like normal.

Implants will not make your face look sunken in or change the shape of your face. In other words, you will not have the denture look. There is no such thing as an implant look. Many times, implants can improve the appearance over one’s own natural teeth. They can improve the shape, color, gaps and crookedness often looking much better than ever. Denture wearers and those with partially missing teeth usually have an improvement of their facial appearance, much better than any plastic surgery.

Dental implants usually improve ones speech, because you do not have the movement or slippage that you get with dentures. So you don’t get the lisping, clicking or sucking sounds that you have with dentures.

Save this article, as it leads into part two in your next Your Health Magazine issue.