Six Benefits to Partial Dentures

A dental professional with over 30 years of experience providing care to entire families, Roderick Garcia, DMD, operates his own practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Roderick Garcia, DMD, offers a wide range of general and cosmetic dental services, including partial dentures designed to restore the appearance of smiles, replace missing teeth, and stabilize remaining teeth. Partial dentures feature a number of benefits.

1. Improved appearance. Partial dentures fill in missing teeth, which can improve the appearance of your face and subsequently boost your self-confidence.

2. Easier chewing. Missing teeth can impair your ability to chew food, but partial dentures can fill in missing teeth vital to chewing and restore your ability to chew.

3. Improved speech. Front teeth are vital to making certain sounds, such as V and F sounds, which are made as the bottom lip meets the edges of your central upper incisors. Partials can replace missing teeth needed for making these sounds.

4. Prevent moving teeth. Spaces left by missing teeth can cause remaining ones to shift and become misaligned over time. Teeth opposite the missing ones can overgrow and neighboring ones can tilt. Partials can fill these empty spaces and serve as prevention.

5. Less invasive and less expensive. In cases where patients are missing several teeth, partials are less invasive and tend to cost less than alternative tooth replacement methods. One partial can replace a single tooth or several.

6. Save remaining bottom teeth. If the dentist can save some natural bottom teeth, they may recommend partial dentures as opposed to full dentures.

Types of Gum Surgery

Roderick Garcia, DMD, heads his own dentistry practice in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In addition to performing cosmetic procedures, Roderick Garcia, DMD, helps patients who have problems such as gum disease.

Over time, many people develop problems with their gums. Pockets may form, for instance, a situation that allows bacteria to grow and makes it more likely that the person will experience more serious dental issues. In more severe cases, a dentist might recommend surgery.

There are various types of surgery designed to address unhealthy gums. For instance, if sizeable pockets have formed, a dentist might perform a gingival flap procedure. The dentist will operate on the gums in order to clean the affected areas and make the pockets smaller. In other cases, the patient might have too much gum tissue that is interfering with proper dental care and hygiene. The dentist might take out the extra tissue in a procedure called a gingivectomy. Finally, gingivoplasty, a surgery that modifies the shape of the gums, is an option for some patients. This procedure may address cosmetic concerns related to the appearance of the gums.