11. Methods To Replace Missing Teeth — Removable Prosthesis

In the topic #10, the ben­e­fits of pre­ven­tion and treat­ment of peri­odon­tal dis­ease, the unfavourable con­se­quences of “bad” tooth loss and the three basic meth­ods of tooth replace­ment was dis­cussed. In this topic, we will go into more details about one of the three basic meth­ods of replac­ing lost teeth. Each method of tooth replace­ment has its own advan­tages and disadvantages.

One method of replac­ing miss­ing teeth is the remove­able par­tial den­ture or full den­ture. Depend­ing on your point of view, the fact that an appli­ance is remove­able can either be an advan­tage or a dis­ad­van­tage. Many peo­ple do not like any­thing remove­able in their mouths and only want fixed ( non-removeable ) restora­tions to replace miss­ing teeth. There­fore many peo­ple view any­thing remove­able as a sig­nif­i­cant dis­ad­van­tage to this method of replac­ing teeth and would not con­sider using a remove­able appli­cance on a long term basis. This appli­ance is also larger than the other options to replace miss­ing teeth, which is often viewed as a dis­ad­van­tage by many people.

How­ever because this replace­ment of teeth is remove­able, it is an advan­tage when it comes to clean­ing one’s teeth in cases where a per­son lacks the man­ual dex­ter­ity to clean around the fixed options of replac­ing teeth. If a tooth is lost, it is often easy to add a replace­ment tooth to the appli­ance, which is an advan­tage. How­ever the gums under the remove­able den­ture shrink over the years and requires relines (addi­tional of mate­r­ial under the den­ture to com­pen­sate for the gum shrink­age) every few years, which may be viewed as a disadvantage.

This option is the least costly option in the short term, which may or may not an impor­tant fac­tor, depend­ing on the per­son. Some­times this option is used as a short term tem­po­rary replace­ment of teeth in prepa­ra­tion for one of the fixed options of tooth replace­ment. Also this option is often eas­ily reversible, mean­ing that in many cases, a per­son can change to one of the other fixed options of tooth replace­ment, which is an advan­tage. How­ever the remove­able option of replac­ing teeth does not have the poten­tial to pro­vide as good a cos­metic result than the fixed options of tooth replace­ment can poten­tially provide.

Unfor­tu­nately a lower com­plete den­ture has the high­est fail­ure rate of ser­vices in den­tistry, mean­ing that many peo­ple can not adapt to a lower full den­ture regard­less of how well it is made and sim­ple do not wear the full lower den­ture often. It is a dis­ad­van­tage in that not all peo­ple can adapt to remove­able den­tures, which can be loose.

Nor­mally there are also adjust­ments needed after the remove­able appliance(s) are inserted in the mouth, which requires addi­tional office vis­its for the den­tist to make these adjust­ments. How­ever that dis­ad­van­tage can often be over­come through the use of implants to sta­bi­lize a remove­able den­ture and reduce the num­ber of adjust­ment appoint­ments needed after the inser­tion of the remove­able appliance(s). Implants will be dis­cussed in a later article.