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Denture Care
When you lose a tooth or an entire set of teeth to injury or
disease, it can be a traumatic event in many ways. Your smile is something that is important to daily life, and a
missing tooth can completely wreck it. Having
a gap between teeth can also cause problems of tooth misalignment as they begin
to shift with all that extra space. It
can also complicate your hygiene by being a trap for food bits that grow
bacteria in your mouth.
Dentures have been the traditional way to replace lost
teeth, and they promise to significantly eliminate the problems arising from
missing teeth. However, they are not
without their own specific issues.
Dentures care is a crucial part of having dentures. There are several things you need to
consider when caring for your dentures.
Hygiene is one of them.
Though dentures prevent food from being trapped in the gap they fill,
they can still accumulate bacteria through daily use. It’s recommended that you wash your dentures at least once per
day. The best time is usually right
before you put them on. To clean
dentures, use a suitable cleaning paste designed for dentures (they don’t have
the same requirements as regular teeth) and a good denture brush. Be sure to cleanse all surfaces of the
denture and focus on areas where staining may occur. If you use denture adhesives, you must make sure that all of it
has been removed before applying a new patch of adhesive.
Before you sleep you should remove your dentures and place
them in a cleansing fluid. This helps maintain
cleanliness while giving your gums and oral tissue time to be exposed to air
and saliva. You shouldn’t leave
dentures in for more than 16 hours without taking them off for at least 8
hours.
You should always be monitoring the fit of your
dentures. It’s easy to forget that you’re
even wearing them, but the fact of the matter is that you can do serious harm
to your mouth if you wear them improperly.
Dentures should be snug and comfortable. Regular chewing of soft to moderately hard food should not jostle
or shift the dentures out of position.
If you like to eat harder foods on a regular basis, an adhesive is
probably the best way to go. If you
find that your mouth is sore from wearing the dentures, and if sores begin to
develop, this should not be corrected by applying more adhesive. This
is a sign that your dentures may no longer fit your mouth correctly or that
they were never done properly in the first place. At the first sign of any misfit, you should consult your dentist
for a new set.
Dentures are a great solution to the problem of missing
teeth. However, you should never
neglect dentures care just like you shouldn’t neglect proper oral hygiene.
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