New to Dentures? What the First Few Months Are Really Like

Nobody enjoys the first few weeks with new dentures. It helps to know which parts of that are normal and temporary, and which are worth ringing your dentist about.

Weeks one to two: everything feels wrong

This is the hardest stretch, and almost all of it settles.

Sore spots

New dentures rub. Your dentist expects this and will adjust them, often more than once. Do not try to file anything down yourself, and do not simply endure it. Adjustments are part of the process, not a sign something has gone wrong.

One tip that saves people a wasted appointment: wear the denture for a few hours before you go in. A dentist can see exactly where it is rubbing from the marks on your gum, and a plate you took out yesterday will not show them anything.

Too much saliva

Your mouth reads the new denture as food and produces accordingly. It passes within a week or two.

A lisp

Your tongue has to relearn where the roof of your mouth is. Reading aloud is the fastest fix, genuinely. Ten minutes a day of reading to yourself, out loud, sorts most people out inside a fortnight.

Gagging

Common with upper dentures and usually temporary. If it does not settle, say so, because the plate may be extending further back than it needs to.

Eating: start softer than you think

Chewing with dentures is a different skill, not a lesser version of the same one. Natural teeth are anchored in bone. A denture rests on gum, so pressure has to be spread rather than concentrated.

The sequence that works:

• Days one to three: soft food only, cut small. Eggs, fish, well-cooked vegetables.
• Week one onward: chew on both sides at once. This is the single most useful habit to build. Biting on one side tips the plate on the other.
• Do not bite with your front teeth. Cut things up and use your back teeth instead. Front-tooth biting levers the denture straight out.
• Introduce difficult foods slowly. Sticky, chewy and crumbly ones are hardest. Give them a few weeks.

Cleaning, which is not like brushing teeth

• Rinse after eating where you can
• Brush the denture daily with a soft brush and a denture cleaner, not regular toothpaste, which is abrasive enough to scratch acrylic
• Brush over a folded towel or a basin of water, because dropped dentures crack
• Clean your gums, tongue and palate too, whether or not you have teeth left
• Take them out overnight unless you have been told otherwise, and keep them in water so they do not dry out and warp

What is not normal

Call your dentist if you get:

• Pain that gets worse rather than better after the first fortnight
• Bleeding gums that do not settle
• A denture that has become loose after a period of fitting well
• White patches in your mouth, which can indicate a fungal infection
• Persistent bad breath despite cleaning, which can mean bacteria in the acrylic

The long game: your mouth keeps changing

Bone under a denture gradually reshapes once the teeth it supported are gone. This is normal and it never entirely stops, which is why a denture that fit at fitting will eventually need relining or replacing. Most people need a reline every few years.

If your denture has loosened, that is usually the reason, though dry mouth is worth ruling out first because it produces the same symptom and is much easier to fix.

Things that get better

Most people are eating comfortably by around three months and stop thinking about it entirely by six. The awkward stretch is real, but it is a stretch rather than a permanent state.

And gum is not off the menu, despite what you may have been told. Ordinary gum sticks to acrylic, but gum made for dentures does not, and chewing helps with the dry mouth and the cleanliness both.