Hi, I'm Dr. Khodabakhsh. And thank you for joining me today. My patients that are losing their
teeth and come in for a consultation, or people who are already in dentures, they're looking for
something better. They always ask what makes one device better than another device? And also,
why would one device be more expensive than another? Now, one of the first options that
patients will consider is a denture. And dentures are very popular, because they've been around
almost, literally centuries. And this is probably my least favorite option and just want to discuss
why they are. When a patient is losing teeth, due to various reasons, the first thing that happens
in your jaw is that you start to lose bone very quickly. What a denture is, is basically a plastic with
teeth on it, that basically rests over your jaw bone, and rests on the tissue. And, you know, you will
continue to lose bone over time, the fact that, your chewing ability is decreased by by a lot, the
bite force I usually get is about 20% with denture, versus someone with all their teeth, being at
100%. So that's one of the main things. The second main thing is the fact that your profile
changes over time as well. We've all seen patients who've gone, you know, when they take out
their dentures their face kind of sinks in, they get wrinkles much faster, they probably look older,
more than their age should be. The other thing is, when you have a denture, it's bulky, the
retention is not great. Also the fact that sometimes you have to use adhesives to keep them in.
Over a period of few years, you have to keep getting relines made to get the denture to kind of fit
kind of like you did when you first got it. So for that reason, usually, denture is not my favorite
option. But some patients that cannot afford any other option, it's better than nothing. But this is
something that we want to discuss further with you. The next step above a denture would be what
we call an Implant Supported Denture. The idea about this is the fact that you have several
implants, anywhere from two to four implants per arch. A denture will actually fit over those
implants and snap over them. It looks like something like this, this is a model, and then you have
the denture and the denture inside of it has inserts that basically snap over the implant parts,
that's basically going to be inside the mouth. You wear this throughout the day, you do have to take them out at night as well. The maintenance on these are a little higher than, the regular
denture, because these snap ons, these inserts that you have, wear out every time you're chewing
on them, and biting on them. So over a period of time, your cost could be anywhere from $400 to
$500 per year, from switching these out. Some people wear them out every six months, sometimes
a little longer, but there's definitely more maintenance involved. And the third option is also the
best option is what we call a fixed implant bridge, also known as an All on 4 prosthetic. This is a
fixed procedure that you know, this does not this device does not come out of your mouth. Usually
patients who have this surgery done most often can walk out with teeth the same day that it stays
in their mouth. There are a lot of benefits to this. One is the fact that you know the bone around
the implants remains strong, you don't lose bone like you would with a regular denture. But you
know with an implant supported bridge, and in some cases with also the overdenture the bone is
more stable. The chewing surface of an implant supportive bridge is going to be very similar to
the same bite force and eating, chewing habits as a person with a full dentition (their natural
teeth). So there's many benefits, it's customizable. We can change the color, we can pick any color
you want. We can you know shape the gum tissue to match your natural gum shade. There are
different grades of this. You have basically one that's made out of titanium bar with denture teeth
over it. So it's similar to a denture but much stronger and it's fixed. And then we have one that's
actually one big step above that is made out of zirconia. Zirconia is a very strong substance. It's
one of the strongest substance that we have in dentistry. It is actually milled so we can add more
character and more it's more customizable than even titanium bar with denture teeth. With
denture teeth they do wear over time, they do stain. With the zirconia that doesn't happen. So,
long term that maintenance costs on a zirconia will be a lot less. So why would one person pick
Zirconia Implant Bridge versus titanium acrylic. One would be because of the look, you know, it's
much more natural looking because the zirconia is milled, we add the character to it, you know, in
the staining with a titanium bar, it's close to what a denture looks like. It does look very pretty, but
because of the nature of the acrylic, they do stain. It's porous. Over time you'll have some
darkening of the material. And they wear on a denture tooth is going to be a lot greater. We don't
really see that wth zirconia because it is very strong. It's one of the strongest substance we have
in dentistry. Up front, it may be more expensive to get Zirconia but long term it's actually going to
end up probably being cheaper for you.
My patients mostly prefer to have the fixed option either to snap on or fixed implant bridge or the
least option, like we discussed with the the denture. Everything is customizable depends on your
needs and financial needs. If you have any questions and you're interested in any of these
procedures we discussed, we welcome you to visit our website at SummitPointDental.com and we
look forward to helping you, thank you.
