Snap on dentures

Unfortunately, our bodies don’t get better with age, we all get aches and pains, and parts of our bodies start to fall apart. Our mouths and teeth are no exception. In the past, when we lost teeth, our only option was to get a set of dentures, but we now have ways to make them fit better. With implants we can fix dentures in place, so they don’t fall out and are more secure. Snap-in dentures use implants to secure a loose fitting denture using snap-in locator attachments. 

Snap in dentures will usually have two or more implants for the lower, and at least four for upper. After implants are placed and healed, we will either add snap-in attachments into the patients current denture if there is enough room or will create a new denture with the attachments. The top is an example of a patient that after years of trying to nurse along broken down teeth, we decided to remove his remaining lower front teeth and place three implants and use another implant he already had in place for a snap-in denture. We could have done two implants, but the patient has a desire to a truly fixed denture in the future. 

Unlike snap-in dentures that the patient can remove, All-on-X dentures or “teeth in a day” restorations, the patients cannot remove them. The “teeth in a day” phrase is a little misleading because everything is not done in one day, it’s a process, but you do leave with teeth the same day as the implant surgery. Sometimes the best approach was to remove all the teeth and wear traditional immediate dentures for healing. Then once bone healed from the extractions, we placed the implants and converted the dentures to attach to the implants. Other times, we can have the extractions, implants and attached healing denture done all in the same day.