Here's What Smoking Can Do to Your New Dentures

Dentist Blog

It's all too easy to make mistakes with your new dentures. Some of these mistakes are pure accidents, such as dropping your dentures onto the floor while you're cleaning them. Others are bad choices, or even miscalculations, like attempting to eat something that is too chewy and may pull your dentures out of position. Call it a miscalculation if you like, but smoking while wearing dentures is more like a bad choice. But why?

Extreme Temperatures

The temperature inside a cigarette can reach up to 900°C during inhalation (while taking a puff). This isn't to suggest that you'll automatically receive a superheated 900°C cloud of smoke in your mouth, but the temperature can be extreme. This is bad enough on natural teeth (as well as the soft tissues of your palate), so just think about what those temperatures can do to your acrylic dentures.

Immediate Heat Damage

Smoking while wearing dentures can result in immediate heat damage to the denture's acrylic base plate, as well as the prosthetic teeth attached to it. These teeth may also be acrylic, but can also be porcelain — which may be more heat-resistant than acrylic but is still vulnerable to heat damage. Additionally, the rapid increase in temperature across the acrylic base plate may scald the soft tissues of your palate.

Reduced Functionality

The potential for injury aside, any heat damage to your dentures can render them unusable. Dentures are precisely calibrated to fit in your mouth, and any damage to them can ruin this precise fit, reducing their functionality, as well as (negatively) altering their appearance. Partial dentures are particularly problematic in this regard, as they work in conjunction with your remaining natural teeth. Any changes to the denture base's shape, such as changes caused by heat damage, can result in excessive, unnatural pressure being placed on your remaining teeth, which may in fact cause further damage to your dental health. 

Urgent Repairs

Of course, the best solution is to give up smoking. But the best solution isn't always the easiest. If you should smoke, you must remove your dentures beforehand. If your dentures are already heat-damaged after smoking, don't continue to wear them. You must make an appointment at your local denture clinic to have this damage assessed. It might be possible to repair minor distortions of the denture base caused by heat damage, but replacement may prove to be unavoidable.

Smoking is bad news for anyone's dental health, but anyone who wears dentures needs to take the heat of the cigarette smoke into careful consideration. Talk to a dentist to learn more about dentures.

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25 February 2022

Travel With An Australian Dentist:  The Best In The World

Miranda Raff here. My brother is a stressed-out dental student, so I'm starting this blog on his behalf. I work in a travel agency and my brother is mortified by the number of dental tourism stories I bring home. I book short holidays for people who seem as though they are going to enjoy some relaxation in an exotic country, only to learn that they plan to have cheap dental procedures. Whilst there are good dentists in developing countries, according to my brother, the complex procedures these people plan to have simply can't be finished in such a limited time. This blog is an attempt to inform you about the high skill levels and advanced technology found in Australian dental surgeries. New techniques are being developed every year and Australian dentists are at the forefront of offering these solutions. I really hope this blog helps you to appreciate our dentists.