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DENTURES AJAX

PARTIAL DENTURES

ABOUT PARTIAL DENTURES

Partial dentures (and flexible partial dentures) are dentures designed to fill in a gap. Sometimes referred to as dental bridges, partial dentures are not supported by the gums but rather by healthy adjacent teeth. Successful supports can be created in a variety of ways, including metal clasps and even crowns. Partial dentures are very popular with over 14,800 searches a month on Google compared to only 880 searches for full dentures and 2,400 searches for implant-supported dentures.

ABOUT PARTIAL DENTURES (CANTILEVER)

Bridge dentures come in three main varieties, fixed bridge dentures, implant-supported dentures, and cantilever dentures.

​The one thing each of these different bridge types has in common is the use of end supports to hold prosthetic tooth replacement in place.

Bridge dentures bridge a gap in your teeth. However, how the bridge replacement tooth is supported differs from one type of bridge denture to the next.


Traditional fixed bridge dentures, for example, require the use of crowns on both sides of a replacement prosthetic to provide adequate structural support. The prosthetic is connected to the crowns, which are placed over existing adjacent teeth. This usually means that the adjacent teeth must be filed down to accommodate crowns.

If there are no healthy adjacent teeth, a prosthodontist may recommend the use of implant-supported dentures. In this case, dental implants at either end of a dental bridge prosthetic are used to support the crowns. Implant-supported dentures are sometimes called Snap-on dentures since they connect onto implant abutments on both ends.

Sometimes, a patient with just a single missing tooth may not want a conventional fixed bridge denture or implant-supported denture. There are several reasons you might not want a fixed solution.

First, fixed bridge solutions often require the removal of existing healthy dental material. With a conventional fixed bridge, for example, both teeth adjacent to missing teeth must be meticulously filed down to accommodate supporting dental crowns. Meanwhile, investing in dual dental implants can also be more expensive. In response, some dental clinics also offer cantilever dental bridges. What this means is that the replacement tooth prosthetic is only attached on one end and supported by either a single crown or a single implant. Cantilever dental bridges are an easier, faster, and less expensive solution. However, they come at the cost of durability. Without end-to-end support, cantilever dental bridges can be prone to breakage.

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