Light Dental Studios

Patients missing multiple or all their teeth have many benefits of replacing their missing teeth with partials or dentures. Not can you gain full chewing and speaking function, but you will look great with your new full smile. The two appliances are described below.

If a patient is missing several teeth in one arch, a partial denture can be a very cost effective way to replace these teeth. Partial dentures are built with a metal base that has clasps that "hook" on the existing teeth to stabilize the appliance during speech and chewing. The teeth and gums are made of acrylic, which is like a plastic. They have a very natural appearance and our lab technician does an amazing job creating these beautiful and functional smiles. In comparison to full dentures, they have much better stability because they have teeth to hold on to. Being an appliance, partial dentures are removed at night to soak in a cleaner. Another benefit to partial dentures is that if a tooth is lost in the future, it usually can be added to partial at a very low cost.

Full dentures replace all the teeth and natural gum appearance for a full arch. Due to the fact that we are replacing ALL the teeth in the arch, we can create a younger looking and whiter smile if a patient so desires. Dentures help to fill out the lip area to reduce the wrinkled and puckered lip that can occur in patients missing many or all of their teeth. If a patient is still needing some teeth to be extracted, we can coordinate your surgery with the delivery of your denture so that you do not have to go a day without teeth. Being entirely made of acrylic, and sitting on soft gum tissue, there can be some movement during chewing and speech. There is a learning curve to train the muscles of the lips, cheeks, and tongue to hold the appliance(s) in while eating and talking. In the event that a denture doesn't stay in very well (due to poor shape of the existing gums), implants are an option for stable attachments.