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Care

Daily cleaning of dentures is recommended. Plaque and tartar can build up on false teeth, just as they do on natural teeth. Cleaning can be done using chemical or mechanical denture cleaners. Dentures should not be worn continuously, but rather taken out of the mouth during sleep. This is to give the tissues a chance to recover: wearing dentures at night is likened to sleeping in shoes. The main risk is the development of fungal infections, especially denture-related stomatitis. Dentures should also be removed while smoking, as the heat can damage the denture acrylic, and overheated acrylic can burn the soft tissues.

Deposits such as microbial plaque, calculus and food debris can accumulate on the dentures, which may lead to issues such as angular stomatitis, denture stomatitis, undesirable odors and tastes as well as staining. These deposits can also quicken the degradation of some of the denture materials. Due to the presence of these deposits, there is an increased risk of the denture wearer and other people around them developing a systemic disease by organisms such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), but research shows that denture cleaners are effective against MRSA. Therefore, denture cleaning is imperative for the overall health of the denture wearers as well as for the health of people they come into contact with.