Upper Denture Options

 Before

 After

In most cases an upper denture is a reasonably successful prosthesis.  With age and advanced bone loss, the ridge form can atrophy to the point where what was good retention and stability is no longer available.  The denture adhesive industry is a multi-billion dollar business.  The problem of denture stability only gets worse with age.

There are a few alternative that are available.  The simplest is ridge augmentation.  Dense Hydroxy Apatite is inserted under the gum tissue, next to the bone, to plump up the ridge and offer greater resistance to denture movement and more suction. 

Before

After

A better solution involves placing multiple implants in the upper jaw to hold a gold bar, which in turn locks in an upper denture.  Because the bone in the upper jaw is softer than the lower jaw, more implants are needed to engineer enough strength to maintain the implants under load.  It is not unusual for bone grafting procedures to be required prior to implant placement.  Seven to ten implants are ideally required to adequately support an upper bar Overdenture.