Implant Supported Dentures
The Problem With Regular Dentures
Of all of the services that dental implants provide, one of the best are implant supported dentures. In general dentures are horrible. Granted, they provide a person with teeth and the basic ability to eat, when they lack teeth. However, they are a foreign body, sitting in 
the patients mouth. They sit right on the gums and as a result, putting any serious pressure on them while eating, can be very painful. Some say that a patient with dentures can put only 10% of the pressure on them that can one with natural teeth. If a person with dentures were to bite your finger with all their might, it would barely hurt. In addition, they tend to slide around in the mouth, fall out, and cause “denture sores” or pressure sores from pushing on the gums.
What Are Implant Supported Dentures ?
Implants have solved these problems. How? well they allow us to support the denture on the implants. Here is how it works.
Implant placement
The first step is to have the implants placed. The dentist will anesthetize the gums, and
the implants are painlessly placed into the patients jaw. It takes about 8 weeks for the
dental implants to fuse with the bone of the jaw. At that point, the work like anchors. If enough implants are placed, we can either provide the patient with permanent teeth, like crowns . If less are placed, we can also give them a permanent denture that is screwed into place by the dentist.
A better option from my perspective is the implant supported denture that is removable. We use between 2-4 implants, in these cases. Once they are in the mouth, a denture is
Underside of lower denture to clip onto the implants.
made for the patient. Screwed onto the top of the implant is one have of the snap
mechanism. Glued into the underside of the denture is the second half of the connector. The denture is then snapped into place.
What are the advantages of an implant supported denture?
* very esthetic
* rigidly held in place, no pain and the ability to eat
* stable- they don’t wobble around
* a less expensive option to permanent teeth on implants
* Easy to clean and take care of
* Easy for the patient to remove them for comfort and sleep
