Aftercare

Immediate Replacement Dentures

  • You should keep denture(s) in a place after dental extractions for 24 hours. This will help to correctly reshape the area where your teeth have been removed. The next day rinse your mouth with plenty of hot salty water. Also ensure you wash all traces of blood and food from your denture with a toothbrush before you put it back in your mouth.
  • Your jawbone will shrink after extractions and your immediate replacement denture may become loose. Its fitting surface may need to be relined around 3 months at additional cost if you pay NHS charges to improve the fit. This will involve technical work by the dentist and technician and you will be without the denture for several days while this is done. The denture may even need replacing within the first 3-12 months.
  • Rather like “wearing in new brakes on a car” a denture needs to bed into the mouth. Follow up appointments may be necessary to relieve persistent sore spots. This is quite normal and the dentist will advise you about this further.
  • Denture breakage may sometimes occur if marked differences arise between the jawbone and denture-fitting surface. Additional smoothing of the healing bone may also sometimes be necessary to help the denture fit better.
  • Dentures can only contribute 20% of the normal biting force of your natural teeth. Much determination on your part is required to make the adjustment. Despite the best efforts of the dentist and technician it may be necessary to seek specialist advice in a minority of cases.

Please regard your dentures as fragile glass. Clean them daily over a basin of water (to prevent breakage if dropped). Use washing up liquid and a separate toothbrush or nailbrush. This will not wear down the plastic. Never use toothpaste which is abrasive on acrylic teeth. Sterilize your dentures every 7 days in a weak Milton solution (baby’s bottle strength) which will remove germs