Save Your Teeth: The Real Truth About Dentures, Implants & Tooth Loss

Why People Consider Full Mouth Replacement 0:00

Are you just sick and tired of constant dental work, constant dental problems and feeling like you're just never getting ahead? It's costly and money and time and just even embarrassment for your smile. So many different reasons and people come to me and they say things like, I just want them all out. Just take them all out. It's just time to get a new set or Am I at that point? They'll ask me this question very earnestly. Am I at that point? Is it time just to take them all out and get implants or dentures or whatever it might be?

So let's jump into this a little bit and talk about what are the pros and cons of both of those approaches? And what do you really need to know to make that decision? So why might you be at this point? Well, maybe some of the things that I've already mentioned. You feel like you're on a constant just treadmill of dental work, never getting anywhere. You're constantly having new decay, new whether it's a filling or a crown or a root canal or something recommended. And You're just not knowing how to get off of the treadmill.

It's expensive, right? Dentistry is expensive, especially if you're constantly having to work on things. Maybe you don't love the way your smile looks. Maybe you're embarrassed or you want to cover things up or, you know, cover things over when you're smiling. I get it. A lot of people talk to me about these same concerns. Maybe it's painful. Maybe you've had abscessed teeth or other issues. Maybe you're just really overwhelmed and don't know where to start, don't know where to go, and don't know how to stop this train.

Pros and Cons of Removing All Teeth 1:35

First of all, let me reassure you that we have a lot of answers for you here at Total Care Dental and Wellness because this is what we do. We look at people just like you and we say, why are you where you are today? What has been missing? And most dentists, they're going to point to you and say, you aren't brushing your teeth well enough. You're flossing enough, whatever it might be. You're using the wrong toothpaste. I'm going to tell you right now that that's probably not the reason. There might be a little piece of that, but it's actually probably not the reason that you're in the situation you are today.

So we have a lot of answers here that actually have to do with a lot of other things besides just brushing and flossing your teeth. So some of the positives of just a fresh start, right, getting everything out. Well, obviously, we can start fresh, we can take everything out that's been causing you issues that's unsightly, that's painful, that's failing, that's broken, that's not chewing well, we can take everything out. And a lot of times we can actually replace everything with less implants than you had teeth.

So let's say if you lose all the teeth on the top, we can replace with four implants and something that snaps into that, a denture that snaps in. There's a lot of options to replace things in many different ways. But there are a lot of negatives that go along with this. First of all, you're never going to get back to the same chewing efficiency you had when you had a full set of natural teeth. Now you might tell me, well, I'm not there right now anyway. I've already lost all my back teeth or whatever your situation might be.

But even if you have a few teeth left that are functioning, that are healthy, I really, if possible, recommend that you keep them because those teeth do a lot of things for you. They tell your body where the jaws belong. They tell your body where things should close to from a height standpoint, even just the position of your bite. It also recharges whatever organ system those teeth are on. So if you lose all of your teeth, you've actually lost a lot of potential for charge for your cells, which is going to result in an energy loss.

You also are never going to chew the same way again. Dentures with no implants underneath, you really are going to be down to about 20% chewing efficiency. So a lot of times people will tell me things like, you know, I want to eat the healthy foods. I want to eat things like salads and carrots and foods that I know are good for my health and my cells and my body. but my teeth don't allow me to do that. And that's really what dentures are often leading people to is this diet of real soft mushy foods that they don't love and really their body doesn't love either.

So you never get that chewing efficiency back.

Why Bone Loss and Ongoing Disease Matter 4:20

The other thing that happens is your bone resorbs. That's a big fancy word we dentists use to basically mean dissolve. Literally, your bone dissolves over time if it doesn't have a job to do, and the job it had was holding the tooth in. So as soon as the tooth comes out, the bone resorbs in fairly drastically and quickly. Within the first six months or so, you are going to lose a significant amount of bone that used to be holding teeth in. Why does this matter? Well, it matters hugely because, number one, if you're going to do any kind of a dental implant, there has to be bone there to put the dental implant into.

It's just like a piece of wood and a screw. You can't just put a screw into space and expect it to stay there. It has to anchor into something, and that's the jawbone. So if the jawbone goes away, you now have lost the opportunity to replace the missing teeth. The second thing is any kind of a denture or removable tooth appliance is held in by that bone. It looks kind of like a horseshoe and so it fits around this horseshoe. It also fits by suction on the top but on the bottom especially it has to have bone to hold on to because there's the tongue in the way.

we can put a denture on the top we can create some suction with the roof of the mouth but there's no suction down below remember the tongue moves all the time so it has to have something to hold on to and the longer you wear a denture the longer you use a denture the more that bone dissolves so the looser and looser it gets this is why people are often absolutely needing to use denture adhesives. You know, the glue that they put on their teeth to glue them in, because there's just no bone to hold them in anymore.

These are real scenarios. Those dentures also wear out. They're made of acrylic, they're made of other materials like that, and five to ten years down the road, there's been significant wear on the teeth themselves, and they're not chewing the way they used to, they're not looking the way they used to, and most likely you're going to have to need to get them replaced anyway. So at the end of all this, really, the answer is there's no good answer, meaning you're never gonna have any more maintenance.

You're never going to have to have something to take care of and nothing's ever gonna change again. It's going to continue changing even if you get dentures. Dental implants are a little bit better, but there's still maintenance required because this is the thing that people often don't understand is the thing that got you where you are right now If it's not addressed, it's going to continue happening even after your teeth have been removed. So for example, if you have rampant gum disease and literally the bone and the ligaments and everything around the teeth are inflamed and infected and the bone is going away, You might lose your teeth from that.

You also will lose dental implants from that. There's something called implantitis or periodontitis. It's just like periodontitis, which is gum disease. It's gum disease around implants.

Finding the Root Cause Before Choosing Treatment 7:10

So the disease doesn't go away just because the tooth goes away. If you are having nonstop, just a revolving door of tooth decay and we keep a few teeth, let's say, and we do a partial denture, well, that's not gonna really go away with these teeth that are there or have them all removed. The same problem that's happened to the teeth is going to continue happening to the bone, and that is usually a nutritional deficiency or a gut absorption problem. That's most likely why you continue to have tooth decay, why you keep having cavities.

It's because your gut is not absorbing nutrients properly. Either you're not getting enough in or it can't absorb it, so it can't get into the cells. The same minerals that you need to keep your teeth healthy are the minerals you need to keep your bones healthy. so the problems don't go away sometimes it's an overall body health issue like undiagnosed diabetes that's actually taking its toll on your teeth on your mouth health on everything else well that same disease is still going to be there if your teeth go away and it's going to affect your bone it's going to affect implants it's going to affect anything else we do so what i want you to understand is You can get off of this revolving door of dentistry.

You can find an answer to stop the problem. And I talk about this with people all the time. My goal is for you to never have a cavity again. I tell them and they laugh like, like that's even possible. But then it is possible. We do it. They do it with the right answers. So that is the starting point. How did you get where you are today? Why do you have gum disease? Why do you have tooth decay? Why do you have dental infection? Why are these things there? That's the place to start. Let's get that addressed first.

Let's get your nutrition right, your gut absorption right. Let's figure out the gum disease issues. Let's find out if there's something in the entire body that's affecting all of this. Once that's resolved, then we figure out together what the next steps are. Maybe it is removing all the teeth and replacing them with dental implants or some sort of removable denture appliance. That may be your option, but we need to figure out the reason you're here first. That's the starting point. So please, if this sounds like something you need to know more about, subscribe here.

Subscribe to the channel and make sure you're getting all of the information that I share about how to stay well. And if it's time for you to have this overall top to bottom comprehensive look at things, then come and join us here at Total Care Dental and Wellness. Or you can also find one of our other practitioners on the directory at livingwellofdrmichelle.com. There's a free dentist directory on there. It's time to get some answers before you make a plan. That's the order of things. And that's the way you ensure that no matter what you do moving forward with your mouth and your health, is something that moves you towards being well.