Sharif Islam discusses the difficulties denture wearers experience and highlights one possible solution to denture movement.
Perseverance usually pays off.
Unfortunately, in my case, perseverance has sent me down a spiral of despair. I believed that I could become used to my denture, and that the slight instability would eventually diminish, and it would nestle comfortably into my mouth. I hoped that I could stop tasting my breakfast three hours after eating it because the denture had made a larder underneath the flanges. And I wished the motion of the denture would quit scratching my gums and giving me ulcers.
It didn’t.
Denture issues
The denture itself is beautifully made, with wonderfully contoured pink acrylic gums and naturalistic teeth. The bite is even and interlocks perfectly.
But losing my teeth gave my jawbone a licence to retreat. It leaves a rather anaemic ridge upon which this denture has to balance with more effort than a drunken trapeze artist.
My tongue and cheek musculature have trained hard. But they’ve exhausted their ability to keep it in place.
Crunching my apple is as about as easy as shaking an actual apple tree with my teeth. And my speech has gone on elocution safari.
Sticking to my guns sadly didn’t result in my denture sticking to my gums.
If I’m honest it’s all a little embarrassing. Especially having dinner with my family, who are entirely sympathetic to the chattering clatter from my mouth, but probably hoping that the desert course doesn’t lure my denture to escape and embed in the sticky toffee pudding.
If I’m condemned to living on soft foods, I may as well be fed with an intravenous drip. That’s more likely to stay in place.
Fixodent Professional
Well, my denture, we gave it a shot. My mouth showed you as much hospitality as it could, but you wouldn’t settle in.
Maybe it wasn’t meant to be. Maybe some mouths aren’t suited to the symbiotic companionship of a removable prosthesis.
My dentist, however, wouldn’t accept defeat. A rather stubborn fellow, but after much pressing and wriggling of the denture around my mouth even he dropped back into his saddle chair.
On the verge of capitulation, a light bulb suddenly flashed on.
It was the surgery light. The nurse had simply flicked a switch. But the proverbial bulb of an idea lit up my dentist’s face too. He bent down, reached into a lower cabinet and extracted a small tube.
This is the fix, he assured me, as my tongue danced a tango with the denture, rattling it around my mouth like a gobstopper sweet.
As he held out his hand to receive it, I reached up to extricate the denture from its dance. But before I could it shot out of my mouth and took flight across the room. I now believe my dentist is a professional baseball player in his spare time. He somehow bounced up from his saddle and caught it.
Resigned to a desultory stoop I watched as he carefully extruded a vibrant pink gel from the tube labelled Fixodent Professional, laying it onto the fit surface of my denture.
As he handed it back to me, I looked at both the denture and my dentist with a palpable uncertainty arranged upon my face. He nodded reassuringly and I returned the denture to my mouth.
And there it was. Sticking to my gums. At long last.
Sticking to my gums
I waited. And waited. But nothing moved. The denture was steady and secure. Fixodent had formed a soft adhesive cushion without any strong taste.
I couldn’t find the words to describe my elation. For the first time since wearing it, my denture felt like a part of me.
My dentist and his nurse must have thought me a little odd as I sat there for several moments simply chomping my teeth together. But nope, nothing moved.
Thus, there was clearly only one thing to do once I returned home from the dentist. Eat a giant apple.
It must be a rather significant pleasure centre in the brain that activates when you enjoy your food. Perhaps evolution deemed it necessary to ensure we would keep ourselves fed.
This was the first time in a long time that I was able to eat a juicy apple without feeling like it had marbles embedded in its flesh. The marbles being my denture, of course, as it tried to become part of the bolus of food.
Not this time. I ate the whole thing, and not a single solitary morsel of it snuck under the denture. The antibacterial adhesion soothed my gums while keeping out tiny gastronomic gate-crashers.
And hours later the denture was still securely in place. So, naturally I had to invite my family over for dinner again. And regale them with the virtue of perseverance. Of sticking to one’s guns.
Because, thanks to an unassuming miracle called Fixodent, my new teeth are most definitely sticking to my gums.
For more information visit www.fixodent.co.uk/en-gb.