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Soft Dentures and Flexible Dentures
When it comes to dentures the most common source of agony is
a bad fit. It’s something that’s hard
to avoid since your gums are between a rock and a hard place. The rock is your jawbone, and that hard place
is the hard acrylic liner that holds the prosthetic teeth.
While some people can wear dentures without a single
complaint, most denture wearers feel some discomfort while chewing foods. Even slight shifts back and forth can
translate into serious gum problems over time.
Reasons for discomfort and denture misfit are related to the
ever-changing conditions in the mouth.
As you age, gum tissue shrinks along with the jawbone. Hard dentures don’t adjust to new shapes and
hence most long-time denture wearers end up using some form of adhesive to
increase stability while wearing their dentures.
There’s now a new wave of soft dentures, or flexible
dentures, that promise to eliminate the problems associated with hard acrylic
liners. They require no adhesives, will
adjust to irregularities in your mouth, and stay in place even under harsh
chewing conditions.
The secret to these soft dentures is the undercut of the gum
ridge. Flexible dentures hook into
these undercuts to provide the stability needed to eat tough foods like apples
and even hard nuts.
A flexible denture is really just a traditional denture with
a flexible resin coating as the last inner coating. It’s the flexible resin that locks into your undercuts and acts
as a buffer between your gums and the hard base. More flexibility can be added by constructing the entire denture
out of this flexible material.
These flexible resins are more expensive but also
longer-lasting than your traditional soft liner. However, the material used happens to be non-porous so that no
bacteria can build up within it. Even
though it’s non-porous it can retain a small percentage of water to help
interface with adjacent tissues.
Another advantage to a soft denture is that the trial
fitting can be used as part of the final denture, meaning that the overall
production time of a soft denture is shorter than that of a hard acrylic
denture.
If you’re tired of the pains of wearing a hard denture,
consider talking to your dentist about the possibility of a completely soft and
flexible denture. Though it is not for
every patient, it’s worth looking into because the results can often make a
world of a difference.
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