Are metal dentures better than plastic ones?

[Parkar]

Hi

I have been wearing a plastic top jaw denture for three years now. I lost four teeth after they became loose through gum problems and my dentist made me a plastic denture to cover the gap.

The plastic denture is always loose and I have to use denture glue all the time to keep the denture in. It also covers the roof of my mouth and I cant taste food as well as I used to before I had the denture.

I would like to know, if I had a metal denture made, would be less loose than my current denture and does it also need to cover the roof of my mouth?

[Dr Mohsen J. Esfahani]

Thank you for your post.

Metal dentures can have a horse shoe design, so that they don't cover the roof of the mouth, so you will be able to have taste sensation from your palate whilst eating your food. Plastic dentures cover the palate in many cases and so you will lose much of the taste sensation from that region because the plastic denture will cover the palate.

Looseness of the denture can be reduced by adding clasps (hooks) to the denture that attach around your remaining teeth. clasps can be added to both plastic and metal dentures.

Generally its easier to add more teeth in future to plastic dentures than metal dentures. So if your remaining teeth are loose and their long term prognosis is not great, you may decide that a plastic denture is the better denture for you.