Immediate Dentures: Getting the Timing and the Fit Right

Few things worry a patient more than the idea of losing their teeth and being seen without them. An immediate denture answers that fear directly: it’s made in advance and fitted the same day the teeth come out, so the patient never leaves your chair without a smile. Done well, it’s one of the most appreciated treatments in general practice. The catch is that it only works if the timing and the impression stage are planned properly with your lab — so here’s how to get both right.

What an immediate denture does

An immediate denture is a full or partial denture fabricated before extractions and inserted straight after them. Beyond the obvious cosmetic benefit, it does real clinical work: it acts as a dressing over the surgical site, helping to control bleeding and protect the sockets, and it starts the patient’s adaptation to wearing a denture from day one rather than months later. For most patients facing the loss of their remaining anterior teeth, it’s the difference between dreading the appointment and going through with it.

The impression stage — before the teeth come out

The single most important thing to get right is that we need an accurate impression or scan taken while the teeth to be removed are still present. This is also your one chance to record the natural shade and mould before they’re gone — so take good notes and photographs. Send us the case with a clear extraction plan: tell us exactly which teeth are coming out, and we’ll trim those from the working model and set the denture up to fit the ridge as it will be after surgery.

Coordinate the fit day with us

An immediate denture is useless if it isn’t ready on the day of surgery, so treat the extraction date as a fixed deadline and tell us what it is when you send the case. That lets us schedule the work to land in good time, and use an express turnaround if the date is tight. The more notice we have, the smoother the fit appointment goes.

Have the reline conversation early

This is the part patients need to understand up front. Once the teeth are out, the gum and bone remodel as the sites heal — most of the change happening over the first few months. As the ridge shrinks, the immediate denture that fitted perfectly on day one will gradually loosen. That’s normal and expected, not a fault. After healing has settled, the denture will need a reline to restore the fit, or the patient moves on to a definitive denture made on the healed ridge.

Setting this expectation before treatment saves a difficult conversation later — the patient sees the reline as the planned next step, not an unexpected extra. (Relines are carried out on your prescription, so the patient comes back through you.)

The digital option

You can send immediate denture cases digitally. An intraoral scan from any of the 14+ scanners we support captures the pre-extraction arch accurately, with no impression to post and no risk of distortion — and we can begin as soon as it arrives, which matters when you’re working to a surgery date. Include your extraction plan and shade selection with the scan and we’ll take it from there.

Get in touch

Planning an immediate denture case? Send us the scan and the extraction date, and we’ll make sure it’s ready for the day — request our denture options and pricing at info@bridgedentallab.com or call 01202 486113. Bridge Dental Laboratory — DAMAS-accredited, GDC-registered, family-run since 1978.