Mandibular Denture Pain: How to Approach This?
Dr. WH asks:
I recently placed 4 implants in the anterior mandible for an 80-year old patient. The treatment plan is for ball retention for a mandibular overdenture. One week post-operative, the area appeared to have healed well without swelling or inflammation and the patient was asymptomatic. I relined the patient’s mandibular complete denture with a soft tissue conditioner and inserted. Now the patient is complaining of pain in his anterior mandible extending from the alveolar ridge to his chin. All objective the signs are still normal. How should I approach this? Should I tell him to stop wearing his mandibular denture and then re-evaluate? Are the implants failing because the denture applied pressure to the alveolar ridge before the implants began to osseointegrate?
