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| They probably did fit OK when you first got the dentures.....but your bone changed and then they did not fit as well as they did before.
Natural teeth are held into your jaw by the supporting bone, called alveolar bone. When a tooth is lost, there will be bone resorption. Always. Essentially the alveolar bone has no purpose and it will will start to go away. So, when the denture is made, it is made to fit the present bone levels. As time goes on, the bone levels decrease and the denture starts go get loose because there is less bone to fill up the plastic denture. It would be like buying a pair of shoes and having your feet constantly shrinking. The "re-fitting" is called a reline and it essentially adds plastic to the inside to make up for the lost bone.
Resorption happens really fast after the teeth are lost and then slows pace in the later years. A denture made shortly after teeth are extracted might be loose within a couple months if there is significant bone change. Most people would benefit from a new denture (or at least a reline) every few years. More than 5 years is almost guaranteed that it is not fitting optimally. | |
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Update on the "rebuilt" dentures
