When you first receive your dentures they come well-polished and shined. Over time dentures can become discolored, dirty looking, and even start to smell. Often dentures may even start to feel rough, irritating your tongue. This is caused by the foods we eat, supplements, and our daily habits. Some of the most common foods to stain dentures are berries, wine, tea, and coffee. These foods will often leave are dark purplish or brown stain on dentures. People on calcium supplements often get a build-up of calculus on their dentures. It may start out white in colour, but may get stained further by other foods. Calcium build-ups on dentures can be rough feeling and will get bigger with time. Another common cause of denture staining comes from cigarettes. Cigarettes tend to leave a black/ brown stain on dentures.
What can you do?
Don’t panic, almost all denture stains can be removed professionally. We usually advise our patients to return once a year. At this appointment, we examine their dentures and mouth. We then clean the dentures and polish the dentures to remove any scratches, after this we put a high shine on the denture to help prevent new stains from forming easily. This high shine is almost like a glaze. It will also make the denture feel smooth to the tongue. The average set of dentures can be cleaned while you wait. This way you will never have to be without your teeth. A professional denture cleaning will make your denture feel new again.