Denture Alternatives

Series Summary

Many people today want a whiter, brighter smile. Some of us can achieve it with proper oral hygiene—regular brushing, flossing, and using mouthwash. Some of us need a little extra help to get our yellowing teeth to return to the land of sparkling white, especially us smokers and coffee drinkers. There are a number of products out there that will help turn our teeth a few shades whiter, including bleaching agents and toothpastes that contain whiteners. For some, these do the trick; for others, over the counter solutions are often hit and miss, with temporary results. In this free video series, a dentist will discuss dentures, partial dentures and false teeth and why they're needed. Alternatives to dentures will be described, as will different types of partial dentures, problems with dentures, the cost of dentures and instructions on how to eat with false teeth. With these tips and techniques, people with dental problems will soon find themselves with a new reason to smile.

Video Transcript

"I'm Dr. Joe Neely. I practice with the Barton Oaks Dental Group. We're going to talk about what the alternatives to dentures are. The three alternatives to wearing removable dentures would be first, to do a bridge, to use the teeth on either side of the missing teeth, to support a single unit that bridges the gap between those teeth, depending on the size of the teeth on either side of the missing teeth. Sometimes one tooth on either side is adequate or the teeth are very small, which in this case they are. It would be necessary to have support from a couple of different teeth. If you can think of the fact that once this is in place, these four teeth right here will do the work of six. If you were to go all the way from cuspid to cuspid these two teeth could probably do the work of six. But it's very unlikely that these two small teeth here could do the work of four. So that's a fixed bridge. The second alternative to dentures would be to put an implant, a root tooth substitute in the bone, put a ball attachment on top of it, put the female portion of the ball attachment into a denture and then have that denture snap into place to where now the denture is supported actually by the bone. The other two anchors that are here. The only other alternative to dentures is nothing. Simply wearing nothing for teeth at all."