WINTER WEATHER & ITS EFFECT ON DENTURES
Have you ever noticed that your dentures don’t fit quite right in winter? Don’t worry, you’re not imagining things. Your dentures are actually at their most vulnerable during the colder months and it’s got nothing to do with Christmas. The real culprit is the winter weather and it’s responsible for a big spike in denture breakages at this time of year.
Cold weather has two main effects on traditional acrylic dentures:
1 – It makes them brittle
2 – It can cause them to come loose
Today we’re explaining how this leads to broken dentures and what we can do about it.
How to clean cold dentures
When they become brittle, cold dentures lose what little flexibility they had and are far more susceptible to breaking. This makes cleaning a tricky task, extra care needs to be taken when brushing them over the sink as they could fall and break against the hard porcelain. For a small bit of added safety, partially fill your sink with water before beginning to clean the denture. This way if it falls it will land in the water instead of smashing against the sink itself.
For best results, we recommend always using a secure dedicated cleaner like Dr Mark’s HyGenie. Don’t be fooled by the low price, this patented 3D cleaner is housed within a protective cage to keep your denture secure during cleaning and storage, even preventing damage from accidental drops.
If you don’t have a HyGenie yet, order one now over at the Dental Composite Store.
Why dentures come loose in cold weather
All materials can contract or shrink slightly when exposed to cold or expand when warm. The same goes for our teeth, gums and dentures but they all expand/contract at different rates. This means that dentures can go from being a perfect fit in the warm to suddenly feeling loose and uncomfortable if the ambient temperature around them changes.
As the mouth-breathers among us can tell you, inhaling cold air after being in a warm environment or sipping a hot drink while out in the cold can quickly change the temperature in your mouth, causing fit problems. And poorly-fitting dentures are much more likely to break. To help keep your denture secure, it’s worth using a quality fixative or liner like Dr Denti Sof-Grip so even if the worst happens and your dentures start to loosen, they’re far less likely to fall out and break!
What if your dentures break?
If the worst comes to pass and your dentures break, don’t panic and stay well away from household glue! Acrylic dentures are easy to fix providing you use the right material. Our Superfix repair kit is easy to use and fixes dentures in around 30 minutes so you’ll be back up and running before you know it. Check out our instruction video on how to use it.
Our home-use range of denture care materials is available at chemists and stores around the country as well as through online retailers. If you’d like more information on our products and where to buy them, drop us an email at info@gapdental.com or call on 01474 560 618.