Caring For Your Dentures

 

Dentures profit most from a good scrubbing. This can be best done with a soft toothbrush or one specially made for dentures. You may use soap and water or a little tooth paste. effervescent cleaners may be used but should be supplemented with good brushing. This should be done after meals when possible and at bedtime. If you take your dentures out at night, they should be kept moist.

 

Tartar Buildup: Tartar or calculus, a white chalky material, will trouble some people. It is a deposit from your saliva and is usually found on the upper denture in the area of the molars and the lower denture on the inside surface of the lower front teeth. These are places where you have salivary duct openings. An interesting observation is that the deposit is usually heavier on the side you sleep.
To remove tartar that has hardened, soak your dentures overnight in a solution of half vinegar and half water. This will usually soften the tartar to the point where it can be brushed away. Extremely hardened deposits may have to be removed with a sharp instrument. Your denture specialist will professionaly clean your denture for a modest fee.

 

Stains: Tea, coffee, tobacco smoke, well water containing heavy iron deposits and often just breathing through your mouth in a dusty environment can cause stains. Those stains which cannot be brushed away occasionally need help from special cleaners.

When cleaning your dentures, you should always fill a basin half full of water, then brush your dentures while holding them over the water. This way, should you drop your denture, it will fall into the water and be protected from breaking. All denture and denture teeth materials may be prone to breakage if dropped on any hard surface such as porcelain, terrazzo, or tile. It is also advisable to hold the lower denture by one side at a time while brushing. Some people may squeeze harder as they brush harder; holding both sides of the lower denture puts undue pressure on the appliance which could crack or break the denture in half.

A sonic cleaning machine is a great instrument along with a cleaning solution to remove tartar and stains.

Chewing Gum: Most chewing gum sticks to new dentures: some brands of gum are worse than others. This problem appears to be inherent in new dentures and most people report that the problem disappears after a few months. Sugarless chewing gums, however, do not seem to be a problem at all and many people use sugarless gum to practice getting used to new dentures.