Diane talks about Adapting to Dentures

How did you first interact with your dentures?

I remember it feeling so strange having this plate there because they couldn’t attach them in any other way to my other teeth because they were loose either side. It just felt really strange and I didn’t want to talk because I could feel my tongue hitting the back of the plate, so I was really, really, really quiet.

What routine did you adopt?

After I‘ve finished everything else, you know I’ve done my hair, I’ve washed, then I take them out of the solution, give them a good rinse and then put the fixative back on again.

Did your dentures affect the way you talked?

I did change the way I talked, because I could hear this lisp, and in fact I can still hear it a bit actually because your tongue hits the back of the plate. So I did change, I started to be a bit more articulate, articulating words.

Did they affect the way you ate?

To start with I didn’t eat anything really hard, I found it really hard to eat crusty bread so I think for the first year I lived mostly on softer things. I was worried about eating apples for example.

When did you start using a fixative?

I didn’t use the fixative to start with because when I only had two I didn’t really feel as though I needed them but then I realised I did, you know, if I was going to carry on eating, I’d need to fix them in.