Dentures. I need advice. There, I said it.

I am shocked - and happy for you! - that the ibuprofen is keeping the pain at bay.  I've always thought that mouth pain was some of the worst.

I'm no stranger to dental pain, so I 100% sympathize. While a lot different, I waited until age 41 to have my 4 wisdom teeth extracted. Pro Tip: don't wait until age 41 to have your 4 wisdom teeth extracted!

With all the COVID delays, it took me a very long time to finally get a consultation and appointment. The whole ordeal took years, not months. Meanwhile. the teeth had issues and infections were common. Dental pain is my least favorite; do not recommend.

Appointment day was back in mid-August of this year. And at the moment of my scheduled time, we got a crazy storm, and FIVE tornadoes touched down in the area, one being just a mile from the office! Tornadoes are very uncommon in MA, so I took it as a sign. It literally touched down right when they started the procedure. Unreal. They gave me nitrous, I got loopy, and then a "pit crew" worked on me and I was done in about 15 minutes. They gave me oxygen, a couple prescriptions, and sent me on my merry way. The sun was out at that point, too. Talk about nuts! 

A couple months later, no more dental pain! Once you get through the healing, it's much better. Full dentures is a different situation of course, but I'm glad you did what you had to do to stop the pain. Good luck, and I hope the recovery goes smoothly!

congrats!  After 48 hours post-op, it's all downhill  :) 

Hang in there.

Thanks all, so far today the jaw/cheeks/mouth still feels a little swollen but not much, and most of the pain/sores feel gone except one spot top left all the way in the back.  If I touch it with my tongue it's fairly sore, but otherwise not bothering me much.  (I've heard/read about "dry sockets" and as miserable as it sounds, I don't think that's it.)

I tried to put the temps in again last night and immediately removed, still sore spots.  Kinda bummed me out but otherwise I'm doing well mental health wise.  Hoping I can get the temps in for work Monday but if not, berkeley 'em.  I'll eat more soft E36 M3 until Wednesday morning for my 1st checkup.

My experience has dragged on for a few years with getting a partial on top because of the same reasons most share. Afraid, uninformed and anxious. 

I fitted my partial framing last Tuesday and get the final result on the 24th. 

Still afraid and anxious.

In reply to Jerry :

You don't have a dry socket.  Those usually happen on the bottom, 5ish days after extractions and hurt a LOT.

Who has two thumbs, no teeth, and decided to troop an event yesterday?  This guy.

I worked since April to get this event at the Dayton Philharmonic Symphony (playing the original movie) & Sunday morning I was feeling pretty well, so I went for it.  8 miles away, only about an hour, indoors, why not?  I was exhausted afterwards, definitely not 100% yet, but it was worth it.  See how this weekend coming up goes, two more big events & I'd LIKE to costume both.  But based on yesterday I may just help out vs costume.

Wednesday is my first checkup, and they better adjust these things because I can't wear them more than 5 minutes so far.

I had the first check-up yesterday morning, 1 week after surgery.  Everything is healing correctly, she said there's still some swelling and she saw a few sore spots.  Which she said is normal for 2-3 WEEKS.  Everything I read made it sound like 3-5 days later everything should be golden, so I was a bit concerned.

She modified the uppers slightly to try to avoid a few bone spurs left from teeth, it's better but not perfect.  She also reminded me there are no liners yet, which means I'm trying to put hard plastic against sore gums, no wonder it berkeleying hurts.  The next appointment is the 31st and that's the first soft liner, so at least then I should be making more progress.

Honestly I'm doing better than I expected I would be.  If I can keep the mental health up, and remember this is a marathon, not a sprint, I should be ok.  I knew going into this I would have limited food options for awhile, that's the toughest part so far.

You could have sore spots for months. 

Today was supposed to be the first soft lining, but that didn't happen.

She started to take them to add the material and I told her about the two spots on top with leftover bits.  She looked, went to talk to the dentist, and came back to convince me to come back and have them basically grind down the spots to more flush and even...  I had wanted them to just cut divits around the areas but she said long-term it would be better to smooth them out.  Avoids sore spots from every time I try to put them in, etc.  Ok fine.

It won't be anywhere near as traumatic as having them all removed, so if I lived through that (fully conscious) I can manage this. 

Well that was more than I expected.  they had said it was going to be a drill and basically just smooth them down.  After another delay with computer problems, he went to town with what felt like pliers again and was breaking pieces off.  Lots of blood, even more sutures than the first big surgery.  Another mouth full of gauze and felt like starting over again.  I ended up going to Meijer for the Rx rinse and went home.

But at least that's it.  They are done with surgery no matter what.  If anything else is a problem, work around it.  I'll take my Dremel and cut a chunk out of these dentures if I have to.

I thought I was just going for a post op check-up, but they put soft liners in my temporary dentures as well. Fought the urge to gag and throw up all the way to work.

Took them out to eat lunch because THAT wasn't going to happen yet. Back in again to get used to them, oof. A lot of plastic in my mouth, and having a hard time concentrating at work. But on to the next phase of #dentureadventure.

Look at that stud!!! 

Any progress is progress, glad to hear (and see) some finally! 

Yesterday I scheduled an appointment for 930am for some adjustments.  The lady I liked from both surgeries was the person so that made me happy.  Except after 3 attempts she said she wanted to redo the soft linings from last week, the lady made them too thick (also the same lady that berkeleyed up my first impressions).

But then she didn't like the results, tried another soft lining attempt.  Didn't like THAT either.  Ended up having someone else do the linings with more experience.  So after a bit over 2hrs I was finally out the door wearing them.  I have to say they fit better, wearing 2 hours so far and haven't felt like gagging yet so that's a big plus.

Now to figure out how to eat in them.  This is going to be interesting.

Yesterday I tried using an adhesive and eating with the dentures for the first time. Tried a Hawaiian roll first, awkward but it worked. Ok, let's try a simple dinner. Tuna casserole sounded easy. (Childhood favorite)

It was going OK until it wasn't. Almost finished a plate and the bottoms came loose. Then I couldn't get the adhesive off my gums and let's just say it got rough from there.

So, partial success? Just going to keep moving along, another day another step. Rewarded the attempt with a movie (Weird the Al Yankovich story) and ice cream.

Talked to my mom afterwards, she told me she prefers Fixodent Ultra something-or-other.  Ordered on Amazon today, but I love getting denture advice from my 76 year old mother.

Bit of an update, if nothing else for my records later...

I got the Ultra and tried it out that Sunday (the order got delayed and didn't arrive until Saturday 25th, post Turkey-Day).  I tried some Hamburger Helper stroganoff and manged without issue for the first time!  The following week I tried simple foods and mostly successful.

This past Friday I made my first restaurant attempt, a new Japanese noodle place (Mizzi Noodle I think) by the denture place with SWMBO.  Mostly successful but the long ramen noodles, a fork with no knife, and a ladle, in a weird shaped bowl, made it challenging.  I managed quite a bit without problems.  Ate the leftovers at home much easier.

Saturday I wore them from the morning on, trying to build up significant time vs 2-3hr shots.  Trooped in my stormtrooper for the 1st time with them, about 3hrs.  Finally ate dinner around 4pm, a large burrito and no issues!  Sunday I made chicken and noodles in the crockpot, the bottoms came loose early on.  Dammit.

Doing some reading today, I don't think I'm using enough Fixodent.  The box showed 2 small bits on either side of the bottoms, I noticed today the tube itself shows 3 spots.  And online stuff says 3-4 strips the size of a pencil eraser.  And a bit more up top, but that's not been much of an issue.

So, tomorrow I plan to use more and see how it goes.  Curious to see how dinner goes tonight first.

You should be putting a pea sized bit on the palate, then one in the "trough" where the teeth are on the sides of the back and one little one in the front.

Don't use too much of the stuff, as you discovered, removing it is a huge PITA

Can you sing better? Hit the high notes now? Jason Isbell says new teeth have helped his falsetto.

Friday was the next soft relining.  I was told the adhesive I'm using was a good choice so I'll stick with it, but last night mom told me how much she uses and perhaps I'm being too sparse.  I wore them last night to a family thing & was careful how/what I ate.  I could tell the bottoms were dicey but I ate small bites and took my time, made it through.

Trying to decide if I feel like dealing with them today at SWMBO's house for Xmas.

Also they told me the next reline would be Feb 2nd, and in April I would likely get the impressions for the nice permanent set.

Do you have full lower dentures?  If so, and if you can pull it off, two implants to help hold them in place will make a WORLD of difference.  Otherwise nothing really holds a lower in place, they'll just "float"

Tonight I left them in after dinner for a bit.  I ate a bag of potato chips for the first time since October.  Finally something not full of sugar.  Tasted so good.

Had the final denture reline scheduled at 1130am so I took my random vacation day today. But the lady said it wouldn't really make a difference so we skipped it, and she just cleaned them up a bit.

Scheduled the impression for my final/real dentures April 26, the test piece checking in 4-6 weeks, then the final product about a week later. So might have this done in time for my b'day in June.

April 26 was what I thought would be the last impressions. They did 3 different ones and said a wax test would be next, today.

Showed up today, after a 30min delay in the lobby to have them try one of the things they did last time (I think something to test side to side alignment). But then she laid out these guns and said they were doing more impressions.

She lined the upper and lower thing with something like a gasket and filled both with this gunk. Told me to bite down for 5 minutes. When she was done there was so much gunk embedded in my beard I almost had to cut it out.

Now I go back in 2 weeks for the test fit.

Monday was the test fit, finally.  Brought out this contraption that looked like it came out of a Saw movie, but inside was the actual wax test piece.

Glad she had warned me that they never fit right, because it was terrible.  Immediate pinching in mult places and worse than the temp dentures.  But it was really to check the size of the teeth, the color, and how the teeth and upper/lower pieces came together.  I signed off on all that (had to take her word for it they they aligned properly, I had no berkeleying idea).

A 45min wait in the lobby for a 5min sit in the chair.  She asked if June 3rd would work to come back, after a little thought I said how about June 7th?  That's birthday weekend, might as well make it a 3 day weekend (appt is 1230pm which doesn't work for going in early or leaving early).  This is the day of my actual real expensive permanent denture set.  I plan to make sure they fit well before I leave.

So I will likely have the real deal in time for my b'day and maybe celebrate with something I've been missing since October?  I'm not expecting miracles, I can live without corn on the cob and apples.  But a big crazy Red Robin burger and fries sounds really good right now.  (Followed by nachos and cheddar cheese Combos.)