Are there Soft Dentures?

Question submitted by: Emma

I have dentures and I’m having trouble adjusting to them. The lower ones are okay, though I don’t love them. It’s been harder to eat than expected. My big problem, though, is that the upper dentures make me gag. I think it is the hard plate. I’m wondering if there is any chance there is something like a soft liner, so that I don’t gag?

Emma

Dear Emma,

I’m sorry you are having some trouble with your dentures. You are not alone in this. Many people struggle with their dentures. Even the best fitting dentures will reduce your chewing capacity by 50%. While there is a solution for your problem, there is no such thing as soft dentures. There is a soft liner which is meant to fit inside the dentures. This is meant to help with patients who have developed sores on their lower arch from the lower dentures resting on the bone.

What you are dealing with is the denture plate on your upper denture. Your upper denture is kept in by suction. The denture plate has to be hard in order to keep the upper dentures in place. What you can do is get dental implants placed and have your dentures anchored to them, such as the image above.

That being said, it is even more important that your lower dentures are anchored to dental implants. This is because from the moment your teeth were extracted, your body began resorbing the minerals in your jawbone to use elsewhere in your body because they are no longer needed to retain your teeth. The unfortunate side effect of that is your jawbone slowly shrinks, making you look years older than you actually are.  Eventually, you will not even have enough jawbone to keep in your dentures. In dental circles, this is known as facial collapse.

Getting dental implants signals to your body that you still have teeth to support and, as a result, it leaves your jawbone intact.

This blog is brought to you by a friendly prosthodontist in Tucson, Dr. Howard Steinberg.