Due to a non-Dental hygiene related illness, I lost all my upper teeth.  Over the last five years, I have learned a lot and wanted to share it with you.  

Now there's enough myths about this topic to sink a battleship and because everyone's experience is going to be different I'm not going to go there.  Let's just say the cold facts are dentures have 1/10th the biting power of real teeth so if anything in life is a solution of last resort, this is it.  Anyone else telling you different is fooling themselves or don't know what they are talking about.  That's the facts Jack.  

This same short coming is responsible for a lot of dissatisfaction that is a real interference if not a real hurdle that has to be overcome because nobody in the industry is going to believe you if you tell them the dentures you have are terrible.  It will always be your fault and told enough, you will believe it.  It took me five years to resolve my issue because of this.  

Here's what normally happens.  For whatever the reason, the patient reaches the point they need or want all the teeth pulled.  The dentist will then pull all the teeth, scrape the bone flat as possible, and stitch them up.  So far so good, here comes the Catch.  Though all people heal differently, Dentist have set times of giving the gums time to heal, swelling to go down.  If they are not completely healed, once the cast is made, then the denture will be ill fitting, loose. Their typical solution is a soft lining to fill in the gaps, that though increases the comfort level still doesn't hold well.  Then it wears out over time and you're right back to square one.  

To tell you how bad this is, the entire glue, gum, powder, and pad industry is around ill fitting dentures.  I've tried them all and eventually went with the glue pad which is like your own daily temporary liner that sticks so hard, you think your brain is going to be sucked into your teeth.  

Good fitting dentures, like the old folks tell you, should fit not like a glove but paint with no linings and no glues.  The question is how does one get there?

The obvious answer is time and new dentures.  Sounds easy enough but it really isn't because most dentists don't have labs so they are limited in what they can do.  They can do an impression, send it off, then some lab somewhere makes the denture and you may or may not get lucky.  

First advice is suffer.  Get your gums to the point they are hard and not about to swell or shrink.  Now if you still use the family dentist with no lab then its still hit or miss.  

Taking the longest time to figure this out, I sought another answer, going directly to the lab.  What do you know, there's a place that does that.  Its called "Affordable Dentures" and because they by pass all that shipping cost and time, are not only half the price but can do things a dentist can't.  In one day, they can take an impression, make a wax mold, fit the mold, modify it to your bite even as they put it your smile, adding length where you want it or even gaps, then make the permanent denture that is going to fit.  Because its same day, you can travel many miles and I did to have this done.  

Now here's the really neat part, If you go the whole nine yards for new teeth, you can take in your old dentures and they can use the old teeth and do the same thing using your new fitted mold for under $200. That's all new plastic not just a fix.  Its basically $600 for the new denture and $200 for the fix the old to new plastic, and now you have two sets of teeth, both identical as they can make them and both fitting better than an average dentist can possibly do due to his constraints of time and distance.

You learn there that what we pay for at out dentist is the "economy" denture at the "premium" price.  There's just no way an average dentist can do an actual mouth fit because they don't have the lab.  

For a denture wearer, the answer to SHTF dentistry is pull out your spare set.

Anyway, after all these years, I can not believe this fit.  I guess i owe those old fogies I thought liars an apology.  I mean nothing is going to feel like your own teeth but there's it sucks and then there's it sucks not so bad.  Believe me the later is much better.  You guys who have been gumming for years, you know who you are, your gums are right and a good fit can not be hit or miss.  

Do this. Eating nuts again is cool as hell.  

Tj

I didn't want to go there, but I will say this, my lower teeth I'm guarding like a hawk.  I'll also mention like in my case dental hygene often is not the root cause.  I went 50 years without a single cavity.  Going regular even if you don't have a cavity or obvious problem is very very important.  

Tj

I can't really say.  Bone loss was my problem and why I lost my teeth, a therapy I was taking.  I've since changed all that.  I actually changed it before all my teeth were lost but what you can stop or reverse on bones, you can't on teeth.  That's why I still have my lower teeth.  

My gum height did not change much, but the width did and in a very fast time period, weeks.  I now know my dentures were loose as a goose and fitted way too early.  People who have inflmation issues are prime candidates for bad dentures and don't fit the two week mold.

Tj

Sounds like your dad is a prime candidate.  

Like I said, so many people have problems with dentures, its hard for dentist to ferret out what is a problem denture and what is a problem patient and they lean problem patient.  

Affordable Dentures entire theme is to help those poor or no insurance to get dentures.  They don't take insurance at all but their prices are lower than what I paid out of pocket to my Dentist that took insurance.

This was not my reason for going to them though.  Because they are a lab, their method insures a proper fit.  

In all, it was the most unique dentist experience I ever had.  Because these dentists do no dental work other than denture related, they have more time to spend with the patients.  I never had a dentist talk to me that long or explain things to me is such detail.  They just don't have that type of time in a regular dental office where their time is taken up almost entirely by procedures.  I totally expected to talk to nothing but dental technicians.  I figured I already had dentures, just needed new ones, and no reason to see a dentist.  Instead I saw him twice, once to advise me on what way to go and then to insure the fitting and advise me on maintenance and break in.  It was quite different and this is quite a worthwhile thing these people are doing.

Their offices are typically in more rural areas and the patient base at this one was heavy with farmers and retired people etc.  Other than lunch, I was there from 8 AM till 3 PM and being mostly rural folk made all kinds of acquaintances, talked to a lot of folks, and the time passed pleasantly and quickly.  To my surprise, it actually was a pretty good day.  

To my extreme pleasure, I actually left with two dentures that fit like a glove, so comfortable compared to jiggling denture and brain sucking glues, I now wear my denture without giving it a thought.  That was radically different from my can't wait to get home to take the damn things out of the last few years.

Tj

I'm not expert on this at all but did hear the dentist talk to another patient on this subject.  Apparently dry mouth is about the hardest condition for dentures.  The saliva not only acts a lubricant but the seal.  

What advice he gave was to take them out every night and soak them in a cleanser and to use gum like adhesive like Poligrip.  The nightly soaking keeps the denture lubricated so it doesn't dry out.  When they dry out, they will bend hold that shape instead of bend back and eventually crack, which I think was the reason my ill fitting dentures broke.  I live with Crohn's disease every day but those old dentures I couldn't wait to jerk them out when I was alone.  They were on my mind the entire time they were in my mouth.  These new ones, I forgot they were in there within minutes of getting them, a new world for me.  

Anyone who wears dentures even like me and just the tops will tell you the bottoms are the worst.  The bottom doesn't have the pallet that acts both as a seal to provide suction and structural support to the denture.   Implants or implanted steel studs are extremely common in lowers to make up for that shortfall.  That problem with the lowers is a big influence on my doing everything humanly possible to keep my bottom teeth with an ultimate goal at worst I get a partial using permanent teeth to anchor.  My wife's actually following the same plan and by spring (insurance is setting the timing), she'll have her bottom partial.  We are using our family dentist to do all the dental work, fillings, root canal, etc. but will use Affordable Dentures to do the partials.  

Dentures being all they do, they do them real well. Having the lab on site is a real plus.  They have a much better shot at getting them right, especially right for that day, and if you wear them then the fit will keep because any shift your gums will adjust to the denture.  You start ill-fitting then its a crap shoot of whether they may fit or not.  Mine were so off, I now know they never did and worse I never knew.  Its not like I had had them before so had no reference.  (I do admit a few people told me they were wrong but like I said, there's so much mis-information its hard to tell what is and what isn't.)

Though I will admit now that all those people who told me a denture should fit snugly was telling the truth, it only took me a few weeks to realize those who told me they were as good as real teeth or better were flat out fooling themselves.  Its amazing what people can get use to, but definitely a decision to get dentures should not be taken lightly.  Its not a walk in the park as some people paint it.  It is a solution of last resort at best and I've now discovered done right is a hell of a lot different than done wrong.

I now think old George Washington and his wooden teeth had it better than me with my first set.  At least, he could take out his pocket knife and adjust them.  

I wish your wife well and she will be in my prayers.  Have patience with her,  This can be a trying thing.  The way the dentist explained it is your mouth is not like your foot.  You can have a pepple in  your boot and hardly notice it, but a grain of pepper under your denture can drive you nuts.  

Tj

That's a good approach to someone with their first set and is something almost impossible for a regular dentist to do that doesn't have a lab.

There's a lot of confusing terms in this stuff.  There's lined and relined which can mean two different things.  One is completely change the plastic that holds the teeth and the other simply applying the two part rubber pad like you can buy at the drugstore and do yourself.  The rubber lining is temporary and starts wearing thinner the day you first use it.  Completely replacing the plastic base is something Affordable Dentures offered that wasn't offered at my personal Dentist that had no lab.  

I now feel like a fool that I kept paying $80 a whack to repair my old dentures over and over again.  I now know, like your plan, had I gotten a new plastic base after one year, I would have been a lot more satisfied.

When it comes to dentist communication, trying to save my teeth over the last ten years, I've gone to many.  If there is one thing that has frustrated me is unlike a medical doctor, they typically will not work with you to develop a plan.  Its been like going to a garage where they fix this or that but any scheduled maintenance plan, you're on your own and expected to know that.  It can be quite frustrating.

Tj

I went with Affordable Dentures because I had a number of personal references from folks who had used them here.  There was one other, not a chain, lab denture clinic in my area.  Just a fast search looks like the only Affordable Denture office in your area is Vegas or LA.  IMHO, the key thing to fit other than your gums have to be solid is having a lab on site and same day fitting, making, and adjustment.