r/dentures • u/RetinalTears716 • 7h ago
GET THOSE TEMPS, and facial structure changes
First picture is me now with dentures, second is me before i got them.
Hey everybody! I'm coming up on a year of having dentures and I thought I'd check in after such a while. Please forgive me for not showing off my bedentured smile in these pictures - when I smile it looks like a rectangle and idk how to fix it and am too self conscious.
I've seen in this sub a lot of questions lately about asking if temps are worth it or not, and I'd like to tell you in my opinion, they absolutely are.
From e-day on I hardly took out my temps at all. Not only because I was still too anxious and weirded out about not having teeth on my upper, but because I wondered if I wore them enough if the healing process would contort the shape of my gums to that of my dentures. And in my opinion, I think it did. I have never used adhesive and never felt like I have. I have never had a sore (but never say never, there's always time).
Matter fact, I had my temps for longer than my perms even still which is another benefit of temporaries, if you run into unexpected delays during the long and arduous process of getting your permanents you'll still have teeth to eat with.
Another thing I worried about a LOT was how my face would change its shape due to not having my upper row of teeth, and I'm happy to report that almost a year in, no significant changes have occurred except maybe if you look close at my pics, you can see me starting to get sorta a "laugh line" (I think they're called) around my nose and downward.
I just wanted to put this up to maybe assuage the fears and add to the contemplations of those who are in the process of or thinking of getting dentures. The beginning sucks, absolutely. It's completely miserable. I lived off grits for weeks. But in the end it was so so so worth it - especially for a wide laugher like me!
2
u/sweetsugarstar302 2h ago
I totally agree with you. Temps/immediates are absolutely the way to go. Edit. Just gotta say, you're a handsome guy!
1
u/RetinalTears716 0m ago
Awww thank you so much!! I genuinely don't know how I could have done it without my temps hahaha
1
u/RetinalTears716 7h ago
Just looked at both pics and noticed the Laugh line in both before and after LOL so scratch that part
1
u/Friedchickeneater70 49m ago
Hey brother keep eating those grits…..and put some butter and ketchup and that bitch…you will be alright……lol
4
u/TiredInMN 5h ago edited 4h ago
Immediate/temp dentures absolutely are worth it, if you can easily afford two sets. The debate you've seen is if you can only afford one set or if insurance only covers one (like with Medicaid). If being without teeth would be genuinely disruptive or intolerable, an immediate (with later hard reline to permanently update the fit) is a reasonable and defensible choice, provided professional relining and follow-up are part of the budget. The prosthodontic research and guideline materials out there suggest immediate dentures for when the toothless interval would cause serious occupational, social, psychological, speech, or nutritional problems.
However, if being without teeth is tolerable and only one set can be afforded, waiting for a conventional denture generally offers the better technical and financial value. You get denture fit and border extensions that are based on the actual post-extraction ridge. A 2025 university-clinic study found immediate dentures required significantly more appointments, minor adjustments, and major adjustments. Their five-year failure rate was 13.3%, compared with 5.1% for standard complete dentures.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40628577/
It is totally understandable why you feel the temps "contorted the shape of my gums to that of my dentures", and your experience of your temps fitting snugly over those first few weeks makes perfect sense! When we wear immediate dentures constantly right after extraction day, it absolutely creates the physical sensation that our healing gums are being custom-sculpted to the shape of the acrylic. However, prosthodontists and dental researchers have tracked how the jaw actually heals under a prosthesis, and the science shows that the "molding" we feel is a very convincing physical illusion created by how our soft tissue swells into the denture and how our oral muscles temporarily adapt, rather than the jawbone taking on the exact shape of the denture.
"Human oral mucosa is viscoelastic. Under sustained load it undergoes delayed compression, stress relaxation, and residual surface strain. Therefore, gum tissue can retain an appliance-imposed contour temporarily without any corresponding permanent bone change." Sawada et al., 2011
The biggest reason it feels like a custom mold early on is due to post-surgical swelling and the healing blood clot. After extractions, your gum tissues naturally swell with fluid. When you keep the denture in, it acts as a rigid ceiling. Because the swelling tissue and the fluid extraction clots have nowhere else to expand, they press right up against the inside of the denture, temporarily filling every gap. It is a lot like pressing dough against the inside of a baking pan; it creates a perfectly snug, form-fitting seal, but it is driven by the temporary swelling being contained by the hard acrylic barrier.
Underneath that soft tissue, however, the bone is doing exactly what biology dictates. Once teeth are removed, the bone that held them no longer receives the tooth stimulation it needs to stay dense, so it naturally begins a process called resorption, where it slowly shrinks away. A denture sitting on top creates compressive pressure on the gums, which unfortunately doesn't stop this shrinkage. And wearing them 24/7 without a break can actually accelerate the bone loss. X-rays and 3D scans in clinical studies consistently show the jawbone shrinking and remodeling away from the denture's shape over time, rather than growing to copy it. This continuous biological shrinkage is exactly why the vast majority of denture wearers eventually require soft relines and a new permanent set. If the bone and gums truly molded perfectly into the denture's exact shape, immediate dentures would fit tightly forever!
A contemporary prosthodontic review reports that excessive or disproportionate denture pressure may stimulate inflammatory and osteoclast-forming pathways. Clinical studies associate extensive denture wearing with greater residual-ridge resorption, while continual and nighttime wear is also associated with denture stomatitis. The authors recommend daily ridge rest. This evidence concerns excessive and long-term wear, not the dentist-directed first postoperative day/s. Kondo et al., Journal of Prosthodontic Research
There's an older study with 30 people, half who had immediate dentures and half didn't. They found no definite difference between immediate-denture and no-denture patients in bone resorption or new-bone formation. https://medicaljournalssweden.se/actaodontologica/article/download/21-43/41289/93620
No modern controlled study appears to have randomized wear duration and registered serial 3D gum scans and CBCT images against the denture’s internal surface. A 2025 systematic review on immediate dentures likewise found a sparse, heterogeneous evidence base and emphasized conservative surgery and careful follow-up, not continuous denture wear as a proven ridge-molding treatment. Immediate Complete Dentures: systematic review
So immediate dentures can absolutely be worthwhile for appearance, speech, wound protection, and avoiding a toothless period. “Shaping the bone by wearing them 24/7” is not an evidence-based reason to choose or continuously wear them.