If you’re making your denture debut, chances are you’re still acclimatising to your new set of teeth. It doesn’t matter if you’re breaking in a baseball glove or adjusting to an anatomical change — the transitionary period of anything always takes time. While you’re growing used to your dentures, you can’t just dive back into your pre-denture dietary habits. You need to go gentle on your dental appliance and work your way back to where you were.
When you’ve only had your dentures for a few weeks, you should treat them like ‘baby teeth’, never biting off more than you can chew. Here’s how to navigate the early stages of denture wearing — and eventually reintroduce the foods you love.
Adopt a Soft-Food Diet
During the first few weeks of denture wearing, you should adopt a soft-food diet. This ensures you won’t overload yourself while you grow used to the new way you chew.
On a soft-food diet, you can enjoy most of the classics at breakfast: porridge, pancakes, smoothies, and even scrambled eggs. Just ensure you avoid crunchy cereals — and serve your eggs without toast.
At dinnertime, soup, pasta, rice and mashed potatoes will be your best friends. You can enjoy any type of vegetable, really, so long as it’s mashable — perhaps a pumpkin and sweet potato mash is more your speed.
For dessert, feel free to tuck into yoghurt, pudding or cooked fruit such as applesauce. For a general snack, soft fruits like bananas can go down a treat.
This list is not necessarily exhaustive. As a general rule of thumb, stick to soft-textured or liquid foods that neither strain your jaw muscles nor compromise your gums.
Caution: Contents Hot
Fact: boiling water can damage dentures’ delicate structure. Ergo, be wary of food or drink that is too hot to handle. Not only can it compromise your dentures, but it can also burn your mouth — which you may not notice while wearing dentures, as they can have an insulating effect. To test if something is safe to consume, hold it to your lips first. This should help you gauge the temperature.
If you have hot liquid in your mouth, don’t let it linger like you’re sampling wine. Swallow it toot sweet to avoid denture damage or loosening.
Chew With Mindfulness
When you chew, do so with care. Take smaller, slower bites to ensure you can swallow easily. This is not the time to attack a snack; instead, engage in mindful eating. This is a somewhat unrelated point, but mindful eating enables better digestion — so everyone should try this, whether their teeth are artificial or natural.
Can you eat potato chips with dentures? During the early weeks, you should stick to your soft-food diet. While you can reintroduce them after this phase, it’s generally not recommended due to the shards that stick around in your dentures’ crevices. If you ever eat potato chips with dentures, keep them clean and remove all the remnants.
Transitioning Back to Solids
Once you’ve felt your way around your new dentures, you should feel empowered to chew confidently. This means you can begin the (albeit slow) transition back to solid foods! Here are some hints that should smooth that transition.
1. Your Tastes May Feel Dulled
If you experience a dulled taste palette, know this is normal. Your taste buds will resume regular programming with time.
2. Cut Your Food Into Pieces
When approaching any task, it pays to break things down into bite-sized pieces — in this case, that advice is literal. As you transition back to solid foods, don’t bite off more than you can chew. Play it like a parent preparing their child’s dinner — cut your food into digestible chunks!
3. Bite Evenly on Both Sides
When chewing, ensure you chew evenly on both sides of the mouth. This will keep your dentures more stable and prevent uneven wear.
4. Accompany Each Meal With a Drink
If anything gets stuck in your dentures — cereal or bread are particularly prone to this — a few swigs are sometimes all it takes to dislodge them.
5. Stick to Meat You Can Eat
As you’re reintroducing solids, steak and anything tough or gristly will be off the menu. If you eat meat, stick to something soft. We’re talking fish, poultry, or slow-cooked, stewed meat.
6. Use Denture Adhesive
A denture adhesive can hold dentures in place and prevent gum irritation. For bigger bites — or sometimes chewing gum — denture adhesive can provide extra security.
Get or Maintain Your Dental Appliance at Direct Denture Care
Do you need new dentures? Maybe you took too big a bite and need a little denture maintenance or repair. Whatever the situation, we can help you at Direct Denture Care. Contact us today, and we’ll support you through the first few weeks of wearing your new dentures. Call us on (08) 9440 1540 or submit and enquiry online.
