Dr. Chal,
I’m now 60 years old, and I have been wearing complete dentures for 35 years. I use a lot of denture adhesive, but it has gotten so I can’t keep a denture in, now. My dentist tells me I have practically no ridge left. What can I do?
- Lucille in Ohio
Lucille,
This is a common problem. When you have no teeth, your body resorbs the bone that used to support those teeth. It’s a gradual process, and after 35 years, you would have practically no jawbone left.
Your case is a good teaching opportunity for people who think that having all their teeth extracted is the end of their problems. If you want to know more about this, please see my web page about collapse of the face.
The good news is that there are solutions for you. It is a little complicated and time-consuming, but with careful surgical bone grafting, your jaw can be restored. And you may have to look around to find a dentist comfortable with treating these severe cases. We do a lot of them in our office in Phoenix. You may have to look around in Ohio to find someone who will do this for you, and it may take some travel to get just the right dentist.
Then once you have your jawbone built back up, there are a number of options. The simplest would be to just have another removable denture made. The problem with that is that you would get back into the cycle of bone resorption starting all over again. The placing of dental implants will prevent bone resorption. The more dental implants, the more bone you will retain. But even doing two with a snap-on denture would be much, much better than what you have had for many years. A denture/implant hybrid restoration would work much better. This is securely attached to the implants and replaces missing gum tissue besides replacing teeth.
Good luck.
Other links:
Read about dental implant failure or teeth-in-an-hour