All the TV ads about denture products would make you believe that dentures just don’t fit. They say you should use products to secure them but that’s not the case – they just haven’t had dentures made in Dental Tech Group!
Any denture fixative is only a temporary solution and it’s not even a good one. It comes at a great cost. As the fixative wears off the person swallows the material which ends up clotting the digestive system.
It doesn’t even address the problem head on which is an ill-fitting denture. The solution is to replace the denture with a good fitting one, not to fill the gap with sticky stuff.
The idea of any fixative is to aid retention on a poorly fitted denture but people use it to refill the gap caused by bone resorption. “I saw a lady today who uses it six times a day.” Mario said. Imagine every few hours adding more.
The effort should be put on fixing the problem not on looking for a temporary solution. If the denture is so loose that it needs glue, inevitably it will need to be replaced with a new one. The fixative is only buying time.
With the payment options that we have, starting from 8 euros a week and fixative costing 7 euros, I know which option I would choose.
Another reason why people use fixative is because a lot of partial dentures don’t have clasps, to save time and costs. At Dental Tech Group we always put clasps in our partial dentures. These aid retention and if they get a bit loose, we can tighten up. For people that have dentures with no clasps, when they get loose, there is nothing to tighten so the answer is fixative.
We also make dentures taking a second impression with a bespoke tray, made individually by hand to suit each person’s unique shape. This custom tray provides an even space throughout the tray which is impossible to achieve with a standard tray as they only come in three sizes small, medium and large. This second impression ensures that the denture fits like a glove. In addition, we add the clasps to improve retention and stability.
All this extra effort from both the clinic and the lab results in a very well-fitting denture that doesn’t move.
I know we could be cutting corners and we could just use the first impression taken with a regular tray. I know that we could not put clasps on. It will save us a lot of materials and man hours. But why settle for something that is OK when we can do some outstanding. “Our patients deserve the best. Making an average denture is easier and faster and cheaper but it doesn’t interest me. Making an outstanding denture excites me. It keeps me motivated. It gives me pride.” Mario confesses.
“I have always been very lucky with my teachers in the sense that all of them without exception have had their own business. This means that when they teach, they always do it from the experience point of view, not just from the academic side. I think that that makes a huge difference.” He added
I still remember to this day when I was studying in Madrid, I must have been 19 at the time. We had a mixture of theory and hands on practical work at the bench. This particular day, I was attending a theory lecture in a very imposing 18th century building in the city centre . I saw the professor arriving carrying lots of books. I thought he would be lecturing about some chemical formulas or difficult things to remember.
Instead, half way through a very passionate talk, he said this to us: ‘When you sit at the bench to make a denture, think that you are making this denture for yourself’. I was fascinated. I thought what a fantastic thing to say. That caught my attention. Best piece of advice I ever had. If I think that I am making this for me, of course I am going to use the best materials available, I am going to put all me attention. I am going to make look as natural as possible. What a brilliant idea!!!
I want to give every one of our clients the results that they deserve and I want every denture to be outstanding. I want people to think of Dental Tech when they think of good fitted dentures.
