Dentures

[Dentures101]

Hi all. So I am in need of a talk down. I am so worried about my teeth. I have had 4 kids in, eldest is 6.5 years. Youngest 7 months. Each pregnancy has resulted in awful sickness up to 12 times a day for the ENTIRE pregnancies. It was awful. Anyway. The last 2 pregnancies really ruined my teeth. I finally found an NHS dentist so went for a check up. Was told I need 5 teeth removed and 4 fillings. I burst into tears. Accepted it and made an appointment. Said appointment was cancelled 8 times by the dental practice.

Gave up went to a private dentist who said no we can do root canals but they are 400 each and a couple of fillings at 100 each! Can't afford that.

So found another NHS dentist! So lucky and going for a check up next week. Am I being unreasonable in thinking they can just take them out and then maybe I could have some partial dentures. I'm still young. Only 27. But I have been in pain for 6 months and no dentist I have seen has actually helped! I don't want to keep going back for root canals that may or may not work as I can't get the child care for the two younger ones. Aged 2 and 7 months. So I would rather pull them and get dentures sorted. Or would this be stupid?

Thanks

@SquashedFlyBiscuit dentures can be great, but only for a period of time due to bone loss.

So if you had dentures in your 30’s, you will just continually lose bone over the year and your dentures will become loose and ill fitting, you can have more made, but again after more bone loss the same will happen and eventually you will have next to no bone ridge for a denture to sit on, therefore you will have to put up with ill fitting dentures for life unless you choose to have an implant retained denture, provides you have enough bone to get an implant in there which isn’t always possible.

That’s why we like to keep our teeth for absolutely as long as possible. The teeth we were born with are the best ones we’ll ever get. :)

Thankyou. I have an implant retained denture. I'll keep my fingers crossed for my kids.

Ooo what's an implant retained denture? Are they expensive

Its used in my case for the situation sexless mentioned, - if you have no teeth they can put an implant in the denture slots onto it. Im quite unusual though and it was done via nhs in hospital.

It sounds like you will have teeth left though? Some people go for individual implants instead of dentures but I assume thats really expensive.

Good luck.

Ah thanks for explaining. Yes its only my molars at the back top and the pre molars too.

Implant retained dentures are absolutely fab, but only necessary if you have a whole arch with no teeth really. Implant retain bridge would be a better option for having several missing teeth but not all, or individual implants.

They are expensive, and require a huge commitment to oral hygiene and maintenance, otherwise you risk the implants failing and that is a nasty situation to be in.

If money wasn’t an issue then an implant retained bridge to replaced your molars and premolars would be ideal. But does cost a substantial amount more than root canal treatment or dentures.

You have lots of options OP, you just need a good dentist who is willing to explain them all to you and if necessary refer you to someone who can do it even if they can’t.

Also if they do root canals do they out a crown on top or filling?

If I had 4 upper molars removed would it be very bad? I'm just thinking of the options if they say no to root canals. Had to cancel all 4 kids and me have come down with a nasty virus! Every time I get a dental appointment something happens! Going to try and get an emergency appointment for the temporary filling toothe next week. They can take that tooth out. It's on the bottom and the only bad tooth on that row

Sometimes they put a filling on top of the root canal, but often a crown is used, because a tooth that requires a root canal is often quite badly decayed to begin with, so it may not be practical to place a filling there.

You ask about removal of 4 upper molars and how bad it might be. Well, if two or three of them are in a row, that would leave quite a big gap, so could mean that you can't chew effectively on that side of your mouth, even after it has healed, because gums are obviously not much use for breaking up food (though I know someone who had a full set of upper dentures, but could not get on with the lower set, but got on OK chewing food as her lower gums hardened over time). If the molars are towards the back, but not all on one side of your mouth, you could get by with 3 or 4 gaps, once your mouth has fully healed, and you will get used to chewing more carefully and slowly in time.

Your teeth might well have been affected by 4 pregnancies - I understand that calcium gets diverted to the unborn baby, hence why pregnant women get free dental care. Anyway, hopefully your family is complete now, so maybe if you get these issues sorted out and take good care of your teeth you won't need such a lot of treatment once it's done.

I don't recommend getting 4 extractions done at once, due to the difficulties of eating while the gaps heal, but 2 at a time is doable. You will be given advice on aftercare - follow it carefully, as it's important not to disturb the blood clot which forms over the socket, or you could end up in a lot of pain afterwards. Healing can take 3 to 4 weeks and you might need painkillers for a couple of days. Root canal work, crowns, extractions - they all cost money, but if you qualify for some free/discounted work on the NHS at the moment then it makes no sense to delay, so once you're over the bug please start your course of treatment. Each time you leave the surgery make the next appointment, so you are moving things along. Think ahead to a time when all the rotten teeth have been filled or extracted, and you can eat without pain and brush your teeth without flinching. That is a much nicer place to be than the one you're in now.

I've no experience of implants, but they are very expensive. As a single parent of 4 children, is this really an affordable option for you? Is it worth going into debt for? You have 32 teeth and might have 4 or 5 extracted - leaving 27 or 28. That is plenty to get by on, provided you take care of the rest and have no obvious gaps at the front. Let us know how you get on, I hope you get it sorted soon.

Thanks for your advice. I am going today with an emergency appointment for my filling.

Husband is at work. He is self employed so struggled to be able to come and help.

Hopefully getting this treated and the wheels in motion. However I now have a sinus infection.i get them a lot due to my upper teeth. So we will see what they say today

Well I'm a happy bunny. I had a root canal done and going back for the filling in 2 weeks time. Decided to go private with this one as they are much more affordable. Going back after to get a treatment plan sorted. And he was really nice too so I'm not worrying any more. He managed to do it in 25 minutes plus 15 for the LA. Quite amazing

What are these "consequences" of having dentures everyone keeps mentioning

My poor late mum lost all her teeth in her early 40s. She had been meticulous in looking after them but kept getting recurrent dental abscesses, which she attributed to me and my sibling sooking all her calcium supplies when she was pregnant (?!)

Prior to the dentures, she was extremely pretty and looked very young for her age (photos taken of her in her late thirties with my father looked like a kidnapping). After the dentures, she lost a lot of facial height and her face acquired a kind of “collapsed” look.

Functionally, she couldn’t eat all the foods she had been able to do before treatment. Biting into an apple and such like was out of the question.

Wow. Ive had dentures since my 20s and can eat an apple... They're implant retained though if that makes a difference.

Im 40 now and hope my face doesnt look collapsed ☹. My children will be the same...

Wow. Ive had dentures since my 20s and can eat an apple... They're implant retained though if that makes a difference.

Might do, I don’t know as I still have my own (touch wood). My mum had bog-standard NHS issue.

Mine are NHS but odd because... well Im odd!

Great news OP. Well done for making a start... hopefully that tooth won't be giving you any more pain now! ☺
That was pretty impressive work, to get the roots drilled out in 25 minutes! Sounds like he's very adept, and didn't encounter curly roots (something that runs in my family, making root canal work extra tricky).
Just keep going with the treatment, whatever plan you sort out between you. You could compromise and have a couple of the molars near the back extracted, on cost grounds (cheaper than root canal and crowns), and save the ones towards the front (easier access for dentist, plus avoiding visible gaps). You will feel so much better with this behind you.

There is another thread running, where someone's DH has toothache but is avoiding the dentist. Somebody posted a story about a man who'd had severe tooth pain for 4 weeks and would not go to the dentist. One day he suddenly collapsed with sepsis, and died! Horrifying to think that tooth problems can kill people. A couple of gaps in your mouth are nothing compared to what can happen if you delay treatment. Keep us posted, so pleased you're making progress.

I actually missed your second uldate there OP. Congratulations! So glad its getting sorted. I know how stressful dental work can be.

Thank you. Yes I saw that thread and it scared me to death! But he was very good and yes I think I might be lucky with my roots. I actually stopped him and said I might have to come back as I have to go to school and he said oh only 5 minutes left. It's nearly stopped draining blood and pus (not envy) popped some antibiotic stuff inside and a temporary on top. And going back in 2 weeks to be filled. Hope it won't take too long. Managed to get DH some free time off work and he came to watch the kids. Dentist gave me antibiotics too. For that tooth but also for my sinus infection. Think he felt a bit sorry for me. He charged me £65 today but think I have to pay 240 next time but I can save for that. Then going for a check up to decide what to do. But yes j agre I might ask for the back ones to be taken out. Then have a root canal on the others if possible and need a couple of fillings. But he said those aren't an emergency. He said I don't know how your not screaming in pain, it was severely infected and not sure why the emergency dentist didn't take it out instead of just filling it at the time. But he said let's get you healthy then if you want to change the materials to white instead of metal later we can. But I'm not worrying about that