Who Is a Good Candidate for Overdenture Dental Implants?
By Richard Klein | Published on April 5, 2011 | 0 Comments
Patients who have dentures that are sitting on gum tissue alone no longer have to worry about their removable appliances wiggling out of place. According to Dr. Richard Klein of Now Dental of Suffolk in Smithtown, NY, dental implants are having an impact on the way that some patients wear their dentures. Specifically, Dr. Klein says that overdenture dental implants are an excellent option for any patients who do not have dentures that are retentive.
An overdenture dental implant is a device that a dentist can recommend to a patient who is wearing a full set of tissue supported dentures. The term “tissue supported” is used to describe situations in which a person will bite down and have no teeth – thus, his or her dentures must be supported by gum tissue alone. All that biting pressure eventually transmits through the dentures and then out to the soft tissue, says Dr. Klein, which can become troublesome over time.
Going back a bit, Dr. Klein is a dental implants specialist in Smithtown, NY who explains that a person who loses his teeth and doesn’t do anything about it will eventually lose the bone in his mouth. When a person loses a lot of bone – which is normal for people who have lower tissue supported dentures without any implants – then it becomes normal for his dentures to lose retention as well.
In cases where a dentist recommends an overdenture dental implant, the dentist will usually place somewhere between two and four implants in the patient’s mouth. These implants are be individually placed, says Dr. Klein.
Once the dental implants are placed, the Smithtown, NY, dentist says that he will put on an attachment system that goes from the implants to the dentures and connects the two appliances by snapping directly onto the denture. Patients with tissue supported dentures who are in overall good health are almost always considered good candidates for overdenture dental implants.
Patients with overdenture dental implants can still remove their dentures if they wish. However, what happens with overdenture dental implants is that the denture now becomes retained or held in place by the snap, and thanks to the connection between the denture and the dental implant, the patient can feel much more secure. Rather than needing lots of adhesives and glues, patients with overdenture dental implants can rest assured that their dentures are being held in place by their new implants, and that they are not going to be moving out of place anytime soon.
*Disclaimer: The information on this website is not intended to substitute for the medical expertise and advice of your healthcare provider. We encourage you to discuss any decisions about treatment or care with an appropriate healthcare provider.