Complete dentures are done when all of the teeth in either or both arches are missing. Traditional complete dentures consist of an acrylic type base with plastic teeth bonded to it. The base is shaped to be a mirror of the patients remaining gums after tooth loss. As you can imagine, with acrylic simply sitting on gum, there is no way to create a set precise fitting point so patients often resort to adhesives to try to help the dentures stick. However, most denture patients still are not able to eat a complete diet and have to avoid chewy or hard foods or else the dentures will loosen. Lower dentures are especially a problem because at least on the upper jaw, there is always a firm hard palate that can be used for support no matter how much the ridge that used to hold in the teeth shrunk. On the lower jaw, when the ridge that holds the teeth shrink, it becomes very challenging to make a denture that fits well because there is a tongue behind the denture that cannot be interfered with, cheeks on the side that cannot be interfered with and a lower lip that cannot be interfered with. What we are left with is a shallow horseshoe of gum that cannot retain a denture well. The good thing is we have a solution to this problem.