OT: does anyone have a "partial"

[Emmas Mom]

My Mom is having some dental work done & is considering a partial. I'm not even sure what it is exactly....a partial denture or something?? She lives in a small town & the one "good" dentist there is trying to tell her she will not like it so she should have an implant or something about a crown on the "good" tooth she has (she's missing one next to it I think). Anyway, she's trying to find someone who has one or who has knowledge about them to give her more information. She thinks she'd like the partial better but the only dentist she's been to in about 15 years is telling her otherwise. TIA.

[psophia17]

My mom has had a partial for many years - she had a lot of dental prolems for as long as I can remember, and when our old dentist retired and the new, absolutely wonderful one took over, she told him she'd wanted the bad teeth pulled out and he agreed it was the best plan.

With a partial the good teeth are left in the mouth, the bad ones are removed and replaced. In my mom's case, she doesn't have her two front teeth and several on one side, so that's what her partial fills in. A U of some kind of metal (probably stainless steel, but I don't know) with teeth attached to it just where they need to fill in spots. My mom doesn't do anything special with hers - she takes them out and brushes them with regular toothpaste every night, and every so often gives them a long soak with baking soda. My mom has blessed every day since getting her bad teeth removed, and an added bonus for her was that after they were pulled a whole host of joint problems she had, including knees so bad she couldn't make it up the stairs to put her kids to bed, went away. For all we know, her fillings had been causing her joint troubles for years.

Another thing to consider is if the partial is for the top or bottom - for the top I believe that it's not as bad to pull teeth because the bone doesn't recede as much, but if you pull out bottom teeth eventually the jawline will recede (think Mr. Magoo), so crowns and implants are probably better for the bottom.

I'm no expert, though - I've just heard my Mom repeat what our dentist (who I love) told her.

HTH!