Implant Supported Dentures

Implant supported dentures aim to reduce a lot of the disadvantages that traditional dentures have, but are much more affordable than full implant bridges. They are also great in cases where there is not enough bone for implant bridges and the patient wants to keep treatment simple (avoid extensive bone grafting).

Traditional full denture success depends largely on your ability to adapt the muscles to keep them in. Many people can never adapt to them. 50% of lower dentures do not get worn. Studies have shown that people who wear full dentures actually chew differently and only have  7-25% bite force compared to teeth. By necessity (because they use suction to stay in), they are bulky. They often interfere with speech and tongue function. Using implants rather than suction to keep your dentures in increases the comfort, bite force and means we can make the denture more minimal.

The biggest disadvantage of dentures is that they accelerate the loss of good bone and gum (which is why you need to get dentures relined). The bone continues to shrink away after the teeth are extracted, so the dentures will have less and less to hold them as the years go on. This is worse on the lower jaw. On the upper jaw, with age and with tooth loss, the sinus floor gets lower and lower which makes it harder and harder to put implants in in the future. Implant supported dentures do not stop bone loss but slows it down a lot compared to wearing traditional dentures.