News + Issues

Receiving complete dentures at age 26

Kristi is not your typical “denture patient.” As a stay-at-home mother of four in Jacksonville, Florida, Kristi received her first set of upper and lower complete dentures at the young age of 26. Her story is unusual, not just because of her age, but that throughout her entire journey of full mouth extractions, placement of immediate dentures, and now with her new implants, Kristi has chronicled all of her struggles, accomplishments, and numerous dental visits on her blog and Youtube channel. Her videos and posts have provided a voice and string of hope for current and future denture-wearers. As easy as it is to watch the journey that Kristi has had over the years, doing a quick google search into something simple like Dentist Manalapan (if you live in and around this area of New Jersey) could help you make the journey of getting dental treatment a lot easier.

She is not a dentist, nor does she claim to be an expert or promoter of dentures. In fact, the purpose of this article is not to promote, but to depict the point of view of a denture-wearer, and bring to light the community of support that can be found online. Having suffered from severe tooth decay as a child, Kristi was told at the age of 18 by her dentist that she was a candidate for dentures. As a young, single mother, she was daunted by financial and self-image issues, as well as the thought of losing all her teeth. However, Kristi reports gaining support through an online group called Dentures “A New Smile,” (http://denturesanewsmile.ning.com/) that changed her perspective and inspired her to not give up on restoring her smile.

Starting her own blog called iWear Dentures (http://www.iweardentures.com/) and Youtube channel (KalinJax), Kristi takes viewers through her journey every step of the way, including the preliminary impressions, occlusal records, wax try-in, teeth selection, delivery, relines, and now implants. In January of 2013, she won a smile makeover contest hosted by Dr. Golpa’s Dental Implant Center in Las Vegas, Nevada. Sponsored by Nobel Biocare, Kristi received the All-on-4® dental implants, with winnings amounting to $54k worth of work. This begins a new journey for her, as she vlogs about her challenges with the implants, including screw loosening, inflammation, and hygiene issues.

As dental students, we can easily get fixed on the process, and often forget the person. As with any dental treatment, keeping patients informed of the various steps is crucial to the success of the treatment. Also, we must not forget to be compassionate and understanding of the patient’s perspective. Receiving dentures is a massive change in someone’s life, whether that be simply for aesthetic reasons or to significantly improve oral health. Either way, the results speak for themselves. So if you are looking into the procedure yourself, maybe you could take a look at some information on it here – https://www.dorow-clinic.de/zahnprothesen/.

Kristi vlogs about receiving her “permanent dentures”:

Learn more about Kristi’s new implants and about the evolution of Nobel Biocare’s All-on-4® treatment concept:

~Tiffany Hsu, San Francisco ’15, chair, Council on Communications

Tiffany Hsu

Tiffany is a fourth-year dental student at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She also serves as chair of ASDA's Council on Communications.

You may also like ...

14 Comments

  1. Katie Sowa says:

    Tiffany thanks for sharing this! I feel like this is some really good patient education material for a new denture patient I have that’s a little hesitant about the process.

  2. Emily Hobart says:

    Super interesting! Thanks for sharing!

  3. Katie Divine says:

    Didn’t know about this, very cool – I’ll be sharing it! Thanks.

  4. Xu Yao says:

    Awesome story Tiffany! I’ll be visiting her blog and YouTube channel!

  5. Twenty six is such a young age to have a full set of dentures. Now, it gives me the scare. My mother is turning fifty eight this April and she’s just about to have her full dentures. My father on the other hand is sixty two years old and except for the two back teeth that got extracted when he was young his teeth are strong and healthy, knock on wood. My mom always says that women’s teeth and bones go weak after giving birth. She lost most of her teeth while pregnant and after. I think the same is to be said with Kristi.

  6. Last year when at the age of 40 I had to have dentures I found Kristi’s site and her openness about her denture experiences was certainly reassuring especially for someone with a fear of dentists due to bad childhood experiences.

  7. Dentures at an age of 26? I was shocked after seeing the video in it. But I think she consulted the right dentist to get permanent false teeth for the missing ones.

  8. Sameer Puri says:

    Thanks for sharing your experience. I was thinking about the procedure and started looking for dentzz review. Now, i shall find more information and finally take him to a good dentist.

  9. Great Post, I read your all the stuff and watched your video . I found it very useful and informative. Thanks for sharing this valuable post.

  10. What an amazing story! Thank you for sharing, i learned a lot.

  11. Kristi seems to be popular with so many views on his YouTube channel well some credit goes to tiffany too for sharing this.

  12. As a full time lab tech i must say you are very brave to put your story for the world to see at such a young age. This will serve as a great encouragement for others who are either getting their dentures or already have those and might be struggling! btw, I write on 7 tips for loose denture patients here, if anyone is interested: http://www.dentaltown.com/Dentaltown/Blogs.aspx?action=VIEWPOST&b=712&bp=5778

  13. Great experience you have with dentures, it is quite good to know that you have dealt with dentures very nicely. Thank you very much. This will surely inspire people to deal with dentures and get all what is needed. I would really like to see more good posts like this!
    Dentures London KY

  14. Very nice and informative post related to dentures…thank you so much for such a fabulous idea today! I know you always do a great job but today you uploading all good benefits blogs.
    Complete Dentures London KY

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *