How To Care For Your Dentures

Removable dentures do not decay, they don’t hurt from not being brushed, look relatively the same, and have no nerve endings in them to send signals to the brain. But this does not mean that they can be neglected. The dentures are located inside your mouth, and are atop living tissue, and you may even have a partial denture in which case there are still teeth to be taken care of. Because of this, the dentures are part of a living system, a biome, and as such, they need to be cleaned and looked after. Failure to do so will result in the destruction of the biome, and in very nasty diseases, like periodontitis, inflammations, tooth decay, and also oral fungal infections similar to oral thrush. In order to prevent these from occurring, a few simple rules need to be obeyed. This article is about removable dentures only.

Rinse, rinse, rinse

The most important thing that you can do that will lessen the chances of a bacterial or fungal infection is to rinse your dentures constantly. You should pop out and rinse your dentures after every meal, but it may be a good idea to pop them out and put them under some water even after a snack, if you are at home or in a situation where this is not strange. It is also important that you rinse your mouth after eating food, as this will break up the biofilm that forms on your gums and on your remaining teeth. Putting a denture on top of them may leave them to incubate and become stronger, so make sure your oral cavity is clean when you put your dentures back in.

Denture solutions

At night, you should place your denture in some water and a denture solution. These solutions kill bacteria, but also leave mineral deposits on your denture that can aid your gums and your remaining teeth. Before placing the denture in your mouth, rinse it off with cold water after the denture solution, as it may be abrasive to bring the solution into direct contact with your gums. Many solutions are toxic and the dentures need to be rinsed thoroughly before being put back in the mouth.

Scrubing and brushing

While it is not entirely intuitive, dentures to be brushed and scrubbed just like regular teeth, except they can be scrubbed less often. A scrub once a day is absolutely mandatory for maintaining proper oral health. Your gums and remaining teeth also need to be brushed, and this is very important. Even the cleanest dentures may have some kind of microscopic microbe on it, and these will germinate if the oral cavity is not thoroughly cleaned.