Having Difficulty Chewing With Your Dentures? Consider Lingual-Bladed False Teeth
Dental restorations, like dentures, can be great blessings since they restore speaking and eating functions. Because improvements in dental technology, the false teeth on the dentures can look incredibly realistic, which can improve your confidence when smiling.
Despite the many benefits of dentures, some patients may wonder why they still struggle when eating certain foods. Read on to learn why you may be struggling and how to address the issue.
Why Are You Having Trouble Eating if Your Dentures Fit Comfortably?
The enamel that covers natural teeth is stronger than bone and is made incredibly strong because of its high mineral content. In fact, natural teeth can exert an average of 200 pounds of pressure when a person bites down.
As you can imagine, when you lose your natural teeth, some of this biting power is also diminished as well. While the false teeth in dentures are made of durable materials like plastic, acrylic, metal, porcelain, etc., nothing can beat the strength of enamel. You may have trouble eating certain foods that require tearing motions, like meat or stringy veggies, not because the denture is defective, but because that natural chewing strength is diminished from missing teeth.
Furthermore, your jaw bone naturally decreases in density when teeth are lost, so this aspect can also diminish biting and chewing strength.
How Can You Improve Biting Strength?
Some denture services in your area may offer dentures with lingual-bladed false teeth, which could help your bite strength. The word "lingual" is an anatomy term that means towards the tongue. So lingual-bladed false teeth contain small metal brackets on the biting surfaces of teeth that are close to the tongue.
These lingual-bladed teeth aren't used in the front of the denture, so you don't have to worry about aesthetics. They are purely functional, so they are applied to back teeth, like molars, where you may have difficulty chewing. The metal brackets aren't sharp—they are known as bladed teeth because they can slice and tear through difficult-to-eat foods. And they lock into opposing teeth to imitate cusps of natural teeth.
According to one study's abstract, there are many benefits of lingual-bladed dentures. They can make it easier to chew hard foods or foods that need shearing motions—like biscuits or fish. Because it is easier to eat foods with lingual-bladed dentures, your jaws won't feel as sore when you eat and your denture's lifespan will increase.
These types of dentures work best in people with good alveolar ridges; but if you have an unstable bite, they may not be the best option. Reach out to a denture clinic in your area to learn more about this type of denture and whether or not you'd be a good candidate.
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