Quality of life with dentures can be significantly impacted by changes in the way you eat, including changes to your sense of taste. One complaint that comes up sometimes is that there’s a metallic taste associated with them.
Understanding the cause of metallic tastes can help you get dentures that help you enjoy your life–and your food–fully.
Partial Dentures Have the Highest Metal Content
You’re most likely to experience a metallic taste if you have partial dentures. Partial dentures are in kind of a tough situation: they are being asked to hold up to the full force of biting with your natural teeth, but they don’t have any support from your bones. They usually need to be reinforced with metal to survive, and metal clasps are used to hold the partial denture in place.
Although these metals are generally safe and mostly inert high-quality alloys, they can still cause a metallic taste. But if the alloys used in dentures are actually high quality and relatively inert, why do they cause a metallic taste? It may be that your mouth is an acidic environment, which could be partly due to dehydration or maybe it’s related to the presence of oral bacteria or your consumption of acidic drinks and foods such as soda or sports drinks.
It Could Be the Fault of Fillings
But maybe the problem could be related to what is known as a galvanic current. This is what happens when you immerse two different types of metals in a mineral solution, such as saliva. So it’s not your dentures themselves, but the presence of other metals in your mouth, such as metal amalgam fillings, that works to loosen ions and may cause a metallic taste.
You might think that this can’t be the cause of the problems because you’ve never had trouble with your fillings before, but it’s not the one metal that’s the problem, it’s the combination of metals that causes problems, so they could be causing the metallic taste even if they’ve never caused trouble before.
Eliminating the Metallic Taste
So what can you do if you’re unhappy with the metallic taste caused by your partial dentures? We can try eliminating metal fillings and replacing them with ceramic fillings, but it’s better to address the problem more directly.
Replacing your partial denture with dental implants or an implant-supported dental bridge will not only eliminate the metallic taste–it will look better and function better, too. An implant-supported bridge can be made entirely of advanced ceramic materials, reducing the amount of metal in your mouth.
But, many people wonder, what about the implant itself, isn’t that metal? Can’t it lead to a metallic taste? It’s possible, but unlikely, for two reasons.
First, dental implants are covered completely by your bones and gums. They aren’t exposed to your saliva. The abutments, crowns, and bridges can all be ceramic.
And even if the dental implants or related parts are exposed, they are made of titanium, which is a highly noble metal and resistant to corrosion.
Are You Interested In Learning About An Alternative To Dentures?
– If you’re living with a removable denture, and it’s been a while since you’ve had a nice meal at a restaurant or you’re not able to laugh loudly or smile comfortably, full arch implant restorations are a great solution for them.
Traditional approach from dentistry has been to give patients something removable, something that comes in and out of the mouth, and oftentimes it’s a really miserable experience for the patient.
They can’t eat right, they can’t smile confidently. Many of patients that I meet tell me they’re afraid to go out. They’re afraid to socialize, to go to the restaurant because of the fear that when they are out and about having dinner, that their denture will come loose and they will be embarrassed. They forgot what the steak tastes like.
All of those things will affect not just how you eat but they will affect how you feel about yourself and how you see yourself.
So implants provide a great solution to avoid all the problems that comes with removable teeth. It allows us to anchor teeth, anchor restorations directly into the bone, very much like the natural tooth would be. And it provides you solution that is strong, that is permanent, that you don’t have to worry about yawning. You don’t have to worry about smiling, you don’t have to worry about eating. You can go about your life and not think about teeth.
Here at Advanced Dentistry, we’ll give you great options to get a healthy, permanent, strong smile.
Choose A Professional For Your Restoration!
If you would like to get dental implants in Westchester County to replace a partial denture, please call (914) 594-6824 for an appointment with our cosmetic dentists, Dr. George Sepiashvili and Dr. Wanda Mejia, at Advanced Dentistry of Mohegan Lake office in Mohegan Lake, NY.
