Living with missing teeth can have dire consequences on your daily life, impacting the types of food you can eat, your confidence, and even your mental health and wellbeing. Fortunately, tooth replacement treatments like dentures are available to help you rebuild your smile in its entirety. If you’re looking forward to starting your smile restoration journey, you’re probably wondering how long you’ll need to wait before you can start enjoying a full set of teeth again, or what you can expect along the way. Read below to walk through a step-by-step timeline of what you can expect leading up to your whole and healthy new smile.
Extractions & Healing
This part of the process may or may not apply to your situation. If it does, you can count on several additional weeks being added onto your treatment timeline. For many patients, before they can receive full or partial dentures, it’s important that their supportive teeth and gums are healthy. In some cases, this could look like extracting severely damaged or decayed teeth, and in others, it could mean receiving gum disease treatment.
Because each of these processes require recovery time, it’s likely that your denture process will be extended by up to six weeks. In some cases, patients may be eligible for immediate dentures that they can wear as their gums are healing from tooth extractions.
Taking Impressions
The next step of the denture process is having impressions taken of your gums and any existing teeth to model your denture after. This will be sent to your dentist’s laboratory that they work with. By choosing a dentist who captures digital impressions instead of putty ones, the process may be a little faster because they won’t have to mail your impressions to the lab; instead, they’ll send them digitally.
Once the laboratory gets your impressions, a skilled lab technician will begin crafting the prosthetic. It will go through several phases until they create a trial denture made from acrylic. From the moment they receive your impression to whenever they craft your trial denture, it can take between six and eight weeks.
Trying on a Trial Denture
In some cases, the dental laboratory may send the trial denture back to the dentist to make sure it fits your mouth perfectly. This will allow for a fully functional, more comfortable, and an easy-to-use prosthetic. Your dentist will call you back into the office and have you try on your denture to double-check the fit and appearance of it. They’ll then send it back to the laboratory with instructions on any changes or adjustments that need to be made. Pending any changes, this step can add a few additional weeks onto the process.
Getting Your Permanent Dentures
After your dentist’s laboratory has completed their finishing touches, they’ll send it back to your dentist for a final fit test! At your dentist’s office, you’ll be able to try them on, learn how to clean and maintain them, and receive additional instructions on how to use them. You’ll also have a chance to ask any questions you may have.
Overall, the process of getting dentures can take between six weeks and three months. Of course, this estimate depends on a number of factors that can differ drastically from patient-to-patient, like whether any adjustments need to be made and if you need to have teeth extracted. Your dentist will discuss all of these details with you during your consultation, allowing you to get a more accurate idea of how long your journey will take to a complete smile.
About the Author
Dr. Rafiq Hirji has over a decade of experience in the dental field and has helped restore hundreds of patients’ smiles with tried and trusted dentures. He even offers implant dentures for his patients who are looking for a more stable and reliable method of tooth replacement. To learn more about this process and schedule a consultation, visit Daily Smiles MacArthur Dental & Orthodontics’ website or call 972-546-4114.