Dentures are an option for patients who have lost all their teeth (complete or full denture) or just some teeth (partial denture). While regular dentures rest on your gums, overdentures go over your remaining teeth. They serve as an anchor for your denture to provide stability and support and they are first prepared by your dentist, who cuts them down to a different shape, and then an overdenture is placed over them. Implant-supported overdenture, instead, is attached to several implants. Dentures are made of acrylic material, which is quite brittle, therefore reinforcing a denture is a good way to ensure its long service life.

Denture reinforcement

Getting a new denture is a lengthy process and if your denture fits you nicely, you will probably want to keep it as long as possible just to avoid going through this again. However, dentures can break. In fact, one in six dentures break within the first three years. This is the reason why reinforcing a denture makes perfect sense.

Getting a partial or complete removable denture usually takes several weeks and multiple appointments with your dentist. After making a series of impressions and taking measurements of your jaw, your dentist sends the impressions to a dental laboratory. A technician at a dental laboratory creates a wax model in the exact shape of the denture to be made and sends it back to your dentist. You will have to try on this model a couple of times so that your dentist can adjust it. Once it fits perfectly, a final denture is cast. 
However, dentures can break. They can break either because they fall on a hard surface or as a result of the consistent chewing forces they are exposed to. The pink denture base is made from acrylic material that is unfortunately fairly brittle. In order to make the acrylic less prone to fractures, it should be reinforced.
In the past, problematic dentures used to be reinforced with metal mesh. This was not only unaesthetic but also made the denture thicker. Furthermore, since metal does not bond chemically to the denture material, the denture would often fracture along the edges of the metal reinforcement. 

 

Glass fiber reinforcement

Denture reinforced with glass fiber material is more than just a guarantee that it will last – glass fibers are stronger, but far more subtle than metal reinforcement, which makes it more comfortable to wear.

Obrázek 1
Dentapreg Mesh is a glass fiber sheet reinforcement that ensures your denture will last. It is inserted into the denture material, which increases the toughness of the denture and prevents fractures – in fact, it is 3x stronger than metal mesh. At the same time, the glass fiber mesh is so thin and subtle that it does not increase the thickness of the denture and is very aesthetic, since it blends in with the color of the denture. Thanks to the resin matrix of the reinforcement, the Mesh forms chemical bond with the denture base. Obrázek 2