Dopers with Dentures - your input needed!

In My Humble Opinion
1

Well, the day has finally arrived when I must seriously consider my dental options and full dentures, upper and lower, seem to be at the top of the option list.

Please share anything and everything you deem fit for public viewing about your experience, the positives as well as the good, the bad, and the ugly.

I’m in a lot of pain and must make a decision soon. I’m done a bit of research on the net and am not finding very many first hand accounts of personal experience that aren’t in the testimonial line of thinking.

In addition to anything else you’d like to add, please specifically answer the following:

How long from the time you made the denture decision was it until dentures were in your mouth?

How much did it cost?

What’s your opinion on same day dentures?

Were you relatively pain free after dentures?

What are the downsides of dentures?

How many teeth did you have extracted?

Can, and will they, work with dental weenies like myself who must be heavily medicated due to extreem anxiety?

Thanks so much for your input! I want to have a painfree :smiley: smile sometime in the near future.

2

My mil regretted it terribly, partly because she didn’t really feel like she had a choice due to $$ considerations.
She had a terrible time eating for a while. I guess you are supposed to go in almost biweekly for a while to get relines as the gums shrink. She didn’t ($$ problems again?) and couldn’t hardly eat for about 6 months.
On the other hand, my father didn’t really mind his a bit. But he wasn’t a dentistphobe and had the cash to pay for good dentures.

I do think you get what you pay for.
Can you just do upper or lower for awhile? It’s less adjustment.

3

My first comment would be to do anything you can reasonably do to avoid having a denture. I have had a full upper denture for more than 20 years now and not a day goes by when I wish that it were otherwise.

I had my back, upper teeth out and a couple of weeks later the front four teeth were removed and a temporary denture inserted that day.

Nothing.

My ‘same day’ denture was temporary.

Not really. The denture took a lot of getting used to and rubbed in places, which caused ulcers.
If you have any alternative at all to having all your teeth removed and replaced with dentures, do so.

Appearance. I feel they look like dentures. The feeling of a foreign body in my mouth is one I’ve never liked.

There are things which I can no longer eat or can’t eat in public.

All my upper teeth. I’d had a couple out when I was a teenager because of problems with space. Also I had the wisdom teeth out because they were impacted.

4

What about implants? That’s what my aunt had done.

5

I suspect a lot of the answers are going to depend on how much pain you are in now. I have both upper and lower partials. There was some discomfort at first, but my teeth were so loose that the denture discomfort was les pain than I had before. Don’t remember how much they cost exactly, but they were over $1000 for each (upper and lower). I did get a both temporary and a permanent so that if I need a tooth added or some other repair, I can use the temporary. They don’t look like dentures, becasue they are not the bright white Ive seen on other people. They match they color of my natural teeth. There are certain foods I can’t eat, but there were more foods I couldn’t eat with the wiggling teeth I had before the dentures. I think it took about a week from the decision before I got the temporary, and then a couple of more weeks to get the permanent. The impression for the permanent wasn’t taken until after I had the temporary for a week or so, and my gum had healed. Biggest downside is that food particles sometimes get caught under the denture.

6

Well, the offending teeth were hurting so badly that I had them pulled this morning. Then I went over to Dentures Plus and had them take impressions for my dentures. I will have all of my teeth pulled and new teeth on December 20th!

I’m so scare I’m sick to my stomach.

7

I don’t have dentures, but my mom does. Her teeth were ruined by a (lifesaving) medication she had to take as a child so all her life she was really self-conscious.

She was about 50 years old when she got them and says she would have done it when she was 20 if she’d been able to. She’s never regretted it.

A dentist told me once that if you need dentures, try to save a couple of molars on the bottom. The upper part of your mouth naturally has suction. If you can keep a couple of teeth on the bottom, it’ll help keep them in better.

How long from the time you made the denture decision was it until dentures were in your mouth?

About a month or two, maybe? She had just gotten insurance at her job and she made the appointment as soon as possible.

How much did it cost?

Hmm. Anywhere from 2-4k (I can’t remember exactly), but then they had to knock her out, yank all of them out and whatnot. She had REALLY good insurance that paid for most of it.

What’s your opinion on same day dentures?

I can’t remember if she had hers put in right away or if they gave her a temporary set. I’ll ask.

Were you relatively pain free after dentures?

I can’t remember if she was. I know she definitely wasn’t in a LOT of pain. Maybe sore for a few days.

What are the downsides of dentures?

Eating popcorn is a pain.

How many teeth did you have extracted?

She had most of them yanked. I think she had lost a couple over the years but definitely 20+ teeth.

Can, and will they, work with dental weenies like myself who must be heavily medicated due to extreem anxiety?

I would think they’d knock you out. I don’t see why they wouldn’t work with you, they’ve had wimps in there before.

If you get good dentures, nobody will know you have them unless you tell them. As far as how well they fit, you’ll probably have to have a bit shaved off here and there when you first get them but after that you’ll be alright.

Don’t be scared. Any pain you have from dentures will be temporary and you’ll look great!

8

I clarified some stuff with my mom:

  1. She didn’t have temporary dentures. They put in her real ones as soon as they woke her up from the surgery.

  2. She had 13 teeth yanked. I never realized she had lost so many teeth, I guess because she always had partials.

  3. It didn’t cost 2-4k, it was more like $1800 or so.

9

My dad had dentures from when he was in his thirties. He seemed to be okay with them. That said, I had them temporarily while my implants were healing (6 months) and I wondered how anyone could possibly live with them the rest of their life. My advice is to have (like me) implants put in and a fixed bridge placed, upper and lower. If you don’t have the possible $75,000 that will cost, the next best thing is implants to fasten the dentures to. The dentures snap in and can’t move. At first, when your gums are shrinking, you have to have them relined frequently and you will have sores in your mouth all the time. After you finally get used to them, your gums will continue to shrink and the dentures really should be replaced every few years. The snap-in type can avoid a lot of this. Also, when you don’t have teeth in your gums, the bone deteriorates and after a while it will be very difficult to have implants because there is nothing to anchor them in. You can have bone grafts, but again, very expensive. Also, never, never remove good teeth. Absolutely nothing can replace real teeth, despite what dentists say. Consult a cosmetic dentist about the implants. You would only need four or so, two upper and two lower, to hold the dentures. Beg, borrow or steal because this can make a world of difference in comfort. You can talk to others on a forum I will post in the next message because if I go there I will lose what I have written already. Good luck.

10

http://members5.boardhost.com/CosmeticDental/ A dental board where you can ask questions.

11

That’s a typo, right?

12

No typo. It’s insane what implants cost. Of course they do involve minor surgery and you usually need two dentists, one for the implants and one for the teeth. Individually, implants cost about 2500-3000 each. It cost me less because I went to Canada, about $28,000 for the lower teeth. I was figuring for upper and lower at U.S. prices, about $75,000. The funny thing is that the process a lot of dentists use, where they put in the implants, and then the dentures right away, was developed for low-income elderly in, I think, Sweden.

13

I read up on them earlier today, I had no idea they were so expensive.

Do they hurt?

14

My SO is going through this right now. He has been to the dentist about 6 times in the last few weeks, and will have about another 6 or 7 visits. They are keeping six of his lower teeth, they all had to be worked on and capped. Then they will attach the lower denture to those teeth with hooks of some kind - not quite sure how, but that is what they plan to do.
All of his upper teeth will then be removed and he will get a full upper denture.

Cost? $15,000 plus some change. We even priced a couple of dentists and, well, that is what it costs. It could have cost $28,000 to have implants, but reading up on those lead us to believe there was no guarantee that the implants wouldn’t fail in 5 or 10 years and he would have to go the denture route anyway.

I have the opposite problem…great teeth, horrible gums. Went to perodontist last Wednesday, and go again in the new year. Cost? $5,200 and then I get to go back to a dentist to have one crown ($950) and a couple of fillings.

Wish I had gone to dental school. Then I could buy that Ferrari I have my eye on, so I could drive to my beach house and…