Dentures are supposed to replace your teeth. Ideally, they should fulfill all the functions of your teeth. Often, if you think about the function of your teeth, you might think about chewing. We’ve often talked about the challenges of chewing with dentures.
However, your teeth do much more, including their many contributions to your attractiveness. Dentures should fulfill this function, too. Unfortunately, most dentures just don’t. And when they don’t you might experience a number of changes to your appearance–none of them for the better.
Look Fake
One of the most common problems people notice about their dentures is that the dentures themselves look fake. Most dentures aren’t made with cosmetic dentistry principles. They use materials and designs that make them look more obviously like fake teeth.
Fortunately, dentures don’t have to look fake. They can be made with the same quality materials and designs that are used for veneers that people seek out to get a smile makeover. In fact, people with FOY® Dentures often experience the best smile of their lives.
Alter Facial Proportions
An attractive facial appearance has certain proportions. Although there are many attractive face shapes, these all have specific proportions that make them attractive. If dentures don’t fully restore the facial proportions, it can detract from the appearance of your face.
FOY® Dentures are designed to restore the proper proportions of your face.
Thin, Rolled Back Lips
Healthy lips have a certain appearance that conveys youth and tells of the proper relationship between the parts of the face. These teeth are supported by your teeth.
Dentures should also support your lips, but they rarely do. Because most dentures are too short, they cause your lips to contract. In addition, most denture teeth are set back too far, which lets the lips sink in and roll back. This also contributes to the appearance of wrinkles around your lips.
Incidentally, this is more than an appearance problem. It can make it hard for your lips to close properly, which can lead to drooling and cheilitis.
Weak Chin
Your teeth support your chin, keeping it in proper relation to the rest of your face. As teeth and bones get worn down and removed, the jaw moves back and up, into a receding position, commonly described as a “weak chin.”
Most dentures aren’t able to move your chin back to its proper position. They let your chin remain in a receding position. This is partly because they are too small and partly because they’re not stable enough to move the jaw fully forward.
Facial Imbalance
Your jaw performs an important role in helping to balance and stabilize your head. The jaw muscles are the largest muscles in the head, and they partner with other muscles to keep the head in its proper position. In this task, they use the jaw as a stable anchor point.
When you lose teeth, your jaw becomes unstable. This is often reflected in the way you hold your head, which can tilt left, right, or downward.
Ideally, dentures should make your jaw a stable anchor again. Unfortunately, most dentures just don’t, which can make the head tilt even more severely than without dentures.
Sunken Cheeks
Our cheeks are one of the soft tissues that depend on our teeth for support. When the teeth are gone, cheeks get impacted in two ways. First, the cheeks hang down below the jaw, becoming what we call jowls. Second, the cheeks can sink or even fold inward.
Dentures should fully support your cheeks, but they often don’t. That’s because dentures are often too unstable to have their teeth in a natural position–they have to be put back inward, toward the tongue. This lets the cheeks stay sunken.
Turkey Neck
The skin of the face and neck develops along with the teeth. The two are in proper relationship, so the teeth support the skin, which in turn just covers the structure of the face, including both the teeth and bones.
When the teeth are gone, the volume of the face and chin shrinks, which lets the skin hang down loosely. This contributes to the appearance of having extra skin hanging down, which is often called “turkey neck.”
Dentures Don’t Have to Look Like Dentures
Although dentures can cause all these problems, they don’t have to. Properly designed and fitted dentures can fulfill all the roles your teeth used to perform, including maintaining an attractive appearance.
To learn more about dentures that don’t look like dentures, please contact a local DFOY® Dentures dentist.
