The golden rules to properly caring for your dentures
First and foremost, dentures and false teeth are designed restore and care for your smile, so that you’re always looking and feeling happy and healthy smile. That means it’s important to make sure that you’re treating them correctly too! If you’re already a patient of ours, you’ll know that when you come in for any of our brilliant core dentistry treatments, we’ll always take care to explain the details to you anyway. If you’re looking for some quick answers though, this week we’re giving you a quick recap on the essential ways to care for your dentures and false teeth.
Day-to-day handling of your dentures
Be careful when handling them
Two key things to remember about your dentures is that they’re both extremely delicate, and specially designed for you. Both those factors taken together means that dropping them can be a disastrous mistake, as they can break very easily and replacing them can be a bit of a trial. You can sidestep most of the risk by standing over a folded towel or basin of water, which will soften their fall and help them avoid serious damage.
Don’t adjust them yourself
For much of the same reasons, don’t try and adjust your dentures yourself, even if you think there’s a problem with them. You could end up causing further issues with them, causing you pain or damage when you try and put them on. Instead, get in touch with our dentistry experts here at AP Smilecare, and we’ll be happy to sort out the problem for you as soon as we can!
Cleaning your dentures and brushing your mouth
Make sure you’re doing it daily
You probably know this already, but we’re still going to mention it as it’s one of the most important bits of advice we can give you! In terms of your brushing routine, you need to be equally rigorous with your dentures as you would with your normal teeth. If your dentures aren’t properly clean, you could be risking your oral health to all sorts of germs and bacteria, which can lead to infections and other equally horrible consequences. To avoid that, make sure you’re cleaning your dentures every day using a specialised denture brush. You’ll need to use clean, warm water to do the job properly, before soaking them in a cleanser solution to keep them pristinely white.
Brush your dentures gently!
You obviously don’t want to damage the plastic or metal parts of the denture, so don’t overdo it too much when brushing. As a further precaution, it’s often a good plan to moisten the brush slightly by holding it under running water before you start cleaning.
Don’t forget to brush your mouth
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if your dentures are clean, you don’t need to be brushing the rest of your mouth. You do! Your gums, tongue and any natural teeth should all be brushed with a flouride toothpaste to remove plaque, stimulate your circulation and keep on top of your oral health. Round it off by rinsing off with mouthwash, which should give you a fresh feeling before you re-insert your dentures
And finally… store your dentures carefully
You’ll likely already know that you need to keep your dentures moist when you’re not wearing them. Otherwise, they can dry out and lose their shape. That means that in order to take proper care of them, you need to keep them immersed in a denture-cleanser soaking solution, or just in plain water. An important note here, though – don’t use hot water. Water that’s boiling or otherwise at too high of a temperature can easily damage the material, which could warp your dentures.
Of course, if you’ve got any specific questions, we’re here to help. Fitting dentures and false teeth are just one of a range of core dentistry treatments we offer here at AP Smilecare, and we know exactly how to keep your smile looking and feeling amazing. Why not give us a call on 01254 297 000 or stop by our dentist clinic in Blackburn, and see what we can do for you?