If you’ve suffered from significant tooth loss, dentures are a great way to restore the appearance and function of your smile. Unlike the dentures you remember your grandparents wearing, modern dentures are customized from high-quality materials, so they fit perfectly and have a natural appearance. However, they will eventually need to be relined to remain comfortable and stable in your mouth. Continue reading to learn more about this process and whether or not it’s something you can do at home.
Can You Reline Your Dentures at Home?
There seems to be a DIY kit for just about everything. However, it isn’t recommended or advisable to reline your dentures at home. A dental professional is best able to examine your unique situation and direct you accordingly. It is ideal to trust your dentist to help with the relining process. This way, you are less likely to end up with a damaged denture that fits even worse. A damaged denture can lead to numerous issues, like inflammation, irritation, and blisters.
Why Do Dentures Require Relines?
Dentures are customized to fit your mouth perfectly. This is why you had to go through the process of having impressions taken and trying them on when you first got them. However, you will notice that after a few years, your dentures won’t fit quite how they used to. This isn’t because your dentures have changed. Instead, your mouth changes over time. When you are missing teeth, the jawbone is no longer being stimulated by the tooth roots, causing it to change shape over the years. Ultimately, your dentures need to be relined to accommodate these changes in your mouth. If you don’t get them relined timely, you could end up with some of the following issues:
- Gum inflammation and irritation
- Blisters, cuts, and scrapes in the mouth
- Headaches and earaches from abnormal jaw pressure
- Difficulty eating, leading to indigestion
How Do Denture Relines Work?
Relining dentures involves adding new material to the inside surface of a denture to improve how it fits in the mouth. Generally, the first step of a permanent reline is getting a thin impression inside your existing denture. Then, the denture is sent to the dental laboratory where the acrylic material is used to fill the gaps where the gums have changed.
As opposed to a permanent reline, a soft reline is used when a patient has very sensitive tissue or excessive bone loss. This type of reline acts as a cushion to the denture, but it doesn’t tend to last as long.
Relines are necessary when you have dentures, but they aren’t something you should attempt on your own. With the help of a dental professional, your teeth will be fitting just as they used to!
About the Practice
At Salmon Brook Dental, Dr. Kenneth Endres and Dr. Gunveen Chawla work together to treat patients in the Granby community. With their combined experience and expertise, patients can get pretty much anything they need under one roof. If your dentures don’t fit like they used to, they’d be happy to help you. To learn more about dentures or to schedule an appointment, visit their website or call (860) 653-4551.