Dentures. Why do so many olde people have dentures?

[Fordian]

It has occurred to me a couple of times.

I work in health care and see The Ages of Dentition 😊

No one under 40 has a filling. Everyone from 40-70 has a face like a Cornish tin mine. Everyone older has dentures.

Why?

Please, I'm not looking for any 'Well, I'm 80 with a full set of natural teeth'- I'm generalising 😂

But given that the older folk didn't encounter a grain of sugar on their entire youth (if you were to believe my mother, RIP, b. 1933)... why?

What changed? What factors came into play?

I'm mid 40's and have all my own teeth and no fillings and as @Ozgirl75 says it's definitely quite unusual as dentists always comment.
Unfortunately during each pregnancy I suffered with terrible gum problems so I'm dreading/expecting similar when the menopause hits as it was clearly hormone related so will probably lose all my lovely teeth anyway which is depressing

@Ozgirl75 my mum takes the credit for my teeth saying it's the amount of milk she made me drink

I was born in the early 1970s and we definitely had regular dental checkup appointments, encouraged to brush teeth twice a day, there were dental health visits at school...we were given those plaque disclosing tablets to chew and they stained plaque pink...
However we also had lots of sweets and puddings available, a sweetie jar at home and every weekend spending 10p on sweets at the newsagent.
My dad has worn a partial denture from quite a young age, I think he ran into a lamp post and knocked out a tooth when he was around 11 or 12. But my parents on the whole both have fairly good teeth. I have only a couple of fillings, our dentist must have been fairly restrained for the 1970s.
There wasn't much orthodontic work though, it was fairly unusual for a child to see an orthodontist or to have braces. My teeth are a bit wonky/crowded, I remember mum asking our dentist if I needed braces and he was quite shocked and said no. These days I expect I would have been sent straight to an orthodontist.

Also in my 50s with several missing teeth , a couple where I initially had a root filling but got further infection and the others due to gum disease .

I think a combination of reasons, like PP my teeth got worse following pregnancy in my late 30s, but I'm also guilty of eating a lot of sugar, sweets as a child and more recently frequent snacking on sugary cereal bars and soft drinks , even if no added sugar I'm not sure they are that good for your teeth . Interesting to see comments re menopause as my dental issues have increased rapidly since age 50 and I've had a lot of periodontal work in attempt to save my teeth too.

I also wonder if I inherited poor teeth from my father who wore dentures for as long as I can remember . Although my mum in her 80s still has all her own teeth .

@Rangoon interested in your comment re dental cleaning techniques as I have been told very different things growing up to more recent advice when my son was growing up, and different advice yet again at recent visits to dental hospital .

• nutrition (remember school milk?)
• flouride toothpaste
• flouride treatments (when I lived in germany as child we had a special high flouride toothpaste once a week)
• dental hygienist appointments

and yes, seeing a dentist early for fillings rather than have a tooth pulled when it got too bad for repairing.

regarding dental hygienists in different countries - I found it very 'soft' and superficial in uk, very different in nl and de where I left with a sore mouth but with every square milimeter of my teeth and gums having been scrubbed and polished.

but I am not sure which approach is better.

My mum had her teeth taken out as her gums were bleeding during pregnancy. My sister and I found out that women in pregnancy suffered from bleeding gums and to extract all the teeth wasn't necessary at all as the problem would right itself after pregnancy.

My parents both had all their teeth out as 21st birthday presents.

My eldest sister had dentures at 12, front top and bottom, she's 65 now.

Both my other sister and brother have crowns on their front teeth.

I have my own teeth, but lots of fillings. I'm in my late fifties.

People back then were terrified of the dentists, they were commonly known as butchers.
Less knowledge on how to brush, what toothpaste to use, plus toothache or bleeding gums were ignored until it deteriorated into losing teeth.
These days we have fluoride toothpaste, mouthwash, floss, if we have bleeding gums there’s special mouthwash or toothache etc we don’t hesitate to make an appointment at the dentist.

You work in health care but it's genuinely never occurred to you that there was a time when NHS dentistry didn't exist? A time when people didn't have flouridated toothpaste and advice on regular brushing?

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2021/10/06/woman-pulled-11-of-her-own-teeth-out-when-she-couldnt-get-dentist-appointment-15368572/amp/

It's going to start happening more because of the shortage of NHS dentistry, especially in some areas. Not everyone can afford private. I know many younger people who have had to have extractions because of Covid, and because of not being able to get routine NHS care.