Getting All Teeth Pulled at Once for Dentures: What to Know
Having multiple bad teeth is a common dilemma for many people who’ve avoided routine dental care for a large part of their lives. Bad teeth not only affect your overall health, but they also prevent you from fully engaging in social situations. Covering your mouth while you talk or laugh is no way to live.
Whether the result of years of neglect, fear of visiting the dentist, or some other underlying health issue, many people find themselves sitting in a dental chair facing dental problems that have eventually caught up with them. They’ve reached a breaking point because they have put up with bad teeth for far too long. One course of treatment to alter this trajectory is to have all of the teeth removed at once and replaced on the same day with dentures, totally eliminating the embarrassment of being without teeth. What are the pros and cons of doing this? What can the patient reasonably expect from immediate denture treatment?
See Also: Immediate Denture Steps: Process and How to Plan
Why Pull All Your Teeth at Once and Get Dentures?
When you get down to it, the only purpose for immediate dentures is to avoid walking around with no teeth. Otherwise, the more predictable route of transition from natural teeth to dentures involves going without teeth for a period of time while the gum tissue and bone heal. Many people object to being without their teeth. Some can’t be without teeth because they must interact with others to perform their job. Immediate dentures allow them to get on with their lives without missing a beat.
Whether you choose to get immediate dentures or want to allow healing before getting dentures for the first time, either option has both benefits and trade-offs. What is right for you may not be the right treatment for someone else. Don’t let the experience of others taint your decision.
The best candidates for immediate dentures have realistic expectations and the ability to roll with the punches. They acknowledge that their current situation is temporary and keep the end goal in mind. Getting all teeth pulled at once and immediate dentures is a process, not a single event. If you are the type of person that expects perfection from yourself and everyone else, temporary dentures will prove to be a trying and frustrating experience for you.
One of the biggest negative consequences of immediate dentures is their fit is less than ideal. To wear them takes real commitment. After all, guesswork is involved in predicting the changes in the patient’s anatomy after the teeth are removed. The denture technician and the denturist do their best to make an educated guess based upon years of clinical experience. But make no mistake about it—it is a guess. Immediate dentures will cause sore gums from time to time that requires you to return to the dental office for adjustments and follow-up treatment.
Due to the amount of bleeding resulting from having multiple teeth removed at one time, patients with certain health issues may not be appropriate candidates for immediate dentures. Your overall health is paramount and always takes precedence over any personal wants or desires.
See Also: Options for Temporary Tooth Replacement
What Does This Product Look Like?
The process begins by having an initial consultation with your dentist or denturist. This allows the dental professional to review your medical history and present options that are individualized for your specific needs and situation.
After you have reached an agreement on the treatment plan and its cost, the denturist will take impressions or digital records of the current state of your mouth with your teeth in place. These records allow temporary dentures to be manufactured in advance of extractions.
When your natural teeth are removed, the completed temporary dentures are inserted immediately afterward. Detailed care instructions to improve your comfort and prescriptions for medicines to control any post-operative pain or swelling are provided. Your condition will start to improve with each passing day, and within three or four days, you begin the acclimation process to wearing dentures.
Since your gums change shape over time, and not uniformly, it is not unusual for temporary dentures to rub sores on your gums. This is normal, and it is expected for you to return to the dental office a number of times during the first few months of treatment to resolve sore spots and improve the fit of the dentures. The denturist may suggest a series of short-term relines to keep your dentures as comfortable as possible as your gums continue to shrink.
Between the second and sixth months, immediate denture wearers have their dentures refitted with a laboratory-processed reline so that the denture base material will fit uniformly against the gums.
Most immediate denture wearers get their final set of dentures made anywhere from six to twelve months after extractions, depending on individual healing factors. The longer you wait for the final dentures, the better they fit. The process of getting final dentures involves starting all over with new impression records, this time of the current shape of your mouth without any teeth present. Depending on the type of dentures you have chosen, it may take a few days or weeks for the final product to be delivered.
Learning to eat, speak, and laugh with dentures requires time, patience, practice, and determination in order to master the technique. The entire process from the initial appointment to the delivery of the final dentures takes anywhere from eight to twelve months.
I Need All of My Teeth Pulled and Dentures: What’s Next?
With over 20 years of experience, the dental professionals at European Denture Center are true experts when it comes to immediate dentures. They understand your questions, fears, and concerns and can walk you through this life-changing transition with ease and compassion. To learn more about our immediate denture solutions, contact European Denture Center at 866-428-0505 or visit us online today.