Dentures and Bridges

Dentures

Dentures have many advantages, such as improving an individual’s overall appearance, reducing a ‘sunken’ cheek look, making it easier to talk and eat and generally improving self-confidence.  The main disadvantage is they are removable and need maintenance and regular cleaning.

More retentive and stable dentures are also available that are fixed to dental implants or other natural teeth. With modern dental implant dentures the fear of a denture coming loose is a thing of the past.

Depending on an individual’s mouth structure, we will recommend the ideal type of denture. If you cannot have a bridge due to a lack of anchoring teeth, we will advise on the type of denture best suited to you. Both partial and complete dentures are available.

Bridges

Dental bridges are customised fixed false teeth which bridge a gap created by one of more missing teeth.

A dental bridge can:

  • Restore your smile.
  • Enhance your ability to chew and speak.
  • Maintain the shape of your face.
  • Enable you to bite properly by replacing missing teeth.
  • Prevent other teeth from drifting out of position.

There are three types of dental bridge:

  1. Traditional fixed bridge, which is the most common, involves creating a crown for the tooth on either side of the missing tooth, with a replacement tooth in between – which is made from porcelain fused to metal or ceramics.
  2. Cantilever bridges, these are used when there are adjacent teeth on only one side of the missing teeth.
  3. Resin Bonded Bridges (also known as Maryland bonded bridges) these are made of plastic teeth/porcelain attached to a thin metal framework. Metal wings on both sides of the bridge are bonded to the inside of your teeth.