Few people want to walk around for more than a day or two without teeth. It’s not only challenging to speak and chew, but it can have a significant impact on your self-confidence, too. You can get dentures at any age, but before you proceed with having your teeth extracted, it’s important for the practitioners at our Surrey denture clinic to discuss your tooth replacement options with you. You might be an eligible candidate for an immediate denture, or you might be advised to wait a few weeks between the extraction and the smile makeover they’re expecting. Here’s how long our patients typically wait for dentures after their tooth extraction procedures.
The Waiting Period
The amount of time patients usually have to wait before their dentures are fitted depends on the type of denture being made. Custom-made dentures can generally be fitted between three and six months after extraction. This gives the gum tissue enough time to heal and ensures that the dentures fit correctly.
In some instances, our dental clinic in Surrey, BC, will provide you with temporary immediate dentures to wear during this time, mainly for eating or when you need to appear in public. However, it’s crucial to ensure the gums not only heal but that all swelling is gone before fitting a new permanent denture, or you’re likely to experience more pain than you’d like.
How Immediate Dentures Work
An immediate denture is a temporary set of artificial teeth, consisting of either an upper or lower denture, a partial or a complete set. To get you fitted with immediate dentures, our Surrey denture clinic might recommend extracting all your teeth and fitting a temporary denture immediately. This denture will then likely need to be relined or adjusted as your mouth heals and the gum tissue swelling subsides.
Alternatively, our dental practitioners might suggest a phased approach, which means first extracting your molars and allowing those areas of your mouth to heal while your remaining teeth do the work.
Under this method, once a period of approximately six weeks has passed, you’ll come in to have impressions taken of your mouth. Your immediate dentures will be developed from these impressions. After this, your remaining teeth will be extracted, and the immediate dentures fitted into your mouth. Our dentist may recommend sleeping with the dentures in your mouth for your first one or two nights to help stabilize and protect the gum tissues where your teeth have been extracted.
Getting Your Permanent Dentures
After the gums have healed from the extraction, our Surrey denture clinic will prepare a permanent denture crafted to fit your mouth perfectly. Your mouth will continue to change for the first six months to a year after receiving your dentures. This factor could cause gum irritation to occur in new areas of the mouth and result in the need to adjust or reline the denture periodically.
Contact us today to schedule a consultation and find out whether you’re a candidate for immediate or permanent dentures, and enjoy the best tooth restoration and smile makeover options we have to offer.