Dentures: types, fitting, daily life and what the NHS charges

From a carved cow tooth to milled zirconia

The word comes from the ancient Greek prosthesis, meaning to add to, and first described devices that replaced an amputated limb. A modern denture or crown is designed from an impression or an intraoral scan, then milled from a block of ceramic, acrylic or metal by a computer-controlled machine before the technician finishes it by hand.

The oldest known dental prosthesis is Etruscan and roughly 2,600 years old: a cow’s tooth reshaped and scored with vertical lines to imitate natural enamel, replacing three upper incisors and held to the neighbouring teeth by a gold wire. The Phoenicians joined two teeth with a gold bar tied in place, which is the same principle a bridge uses today.

Eighteenth-century European false teeth were carved from ox femur or ivory, porous materials that broke down in saliva. Porcelain solved that problem and made durable artificial teeth possible. Facial and dental reconstruction then advanced quickly after the First World War, among men wounded in the face. Vulcanite and later acrylic dentures, porcelain crowns and metal bridges spanning a gap from one abutment tooth to another all became routine in the first half of the twentieth century. Titanium and zirconia are far more recent arrivals.

Why missing teeth get replaced

Tooth loss affects a large share of the adult population. A systematic review published in 2022, pooling 86 studies and 17 national oral health surveys of community-dwelling adults aged 45 and over, put the prevalence of complete tooth loss at a pooled 22 %, with individual country figures ranging from 1.1 % to 70 % (Borg-Bartolo et al., 2022). The same work notes that more older adults now keep their own teeth, which shifts demand from full dentures towards partial dentures and single restorations.

Replacing a tooth serves function as much as appearance. The gap lets the neighbouring teeth tilt towards it and the opposing tooth drift down into it, which gradually unsettles the bite. The bone that held the root no longer receives the loads it was built for, and it resorbs. Chewing transfers onto whichever teeth remain, and when several front teeth are missing, speech and the support the lips and cheeks rely on both change.

Two people make a denture. The dentist examines, takes the impressions or the scan, records how the jaws meet and fits the finished appliance. The dental technician builds it in a laboratory, chooses the shade and shapes the teeth. What gets recommended depends on how many teeth are missing and where, the condition of those still present, how much bone remains, the standard of cleaning you will realistically keep up and what you can spend.

Fixed work: what stays in the mouth

A fixed restoration is cemented, bonded or screwed in place, and only a dentist can remove it. The category runs from a single crown to a complete arch carried by implants. Our guide to fixed dentures goes through those arrangements in detail.

Rebuilding a whole arch

When a jaw has no teeth left, the fixed route is to place titanium implants in the bone and screw a full arch onto them. These restorations are named after the number of implants supporting them, All-on-4, All-on-6 or All-on-8, carrying ten to fourteen artificial teeth per jaw. Nothing covers the palate, and nothing comes out at home.

Implants are placed under local anaesthetic, but the definitive arch is not screwed on until three to six months later, once bone has healed against the titanium. In the meantime a temporary prosthesis handles chewing and appearance, and each implant is tested for stability before the final arch is made.

The number of implants is read off the three-dimensional scan. The bone available at each position, the curve of the jaw, the maxillary sinus above and the inferior alveolar nerve below limit where fixtures can go, and the surgeon chooses the configuration those limits allow. Where bone is short, a graft may be proposed first, which adds several months. Implants are also not routinely available on the NHS, a point covered in our article on dental implants on the NHS.

Between a screwed arch and a denture you take out each night sits a third arrangement: an implant-retained overdenture, held by press studs or by a bar. Marketing often files these under the heading of fixed teeth, which confuses patients, because they still come out at home. Our article on implant-retained dentures and fixed plates compares the three set-ups and the number of implants each one needs.

Replacing one tooth or a few

For a small gap there are two routes. One puts an implant where the root used to be and caps it. The other borrows support from the teeth on either side and spans the gap.

An implant and its crown

Where the tooth and its root are gone and the bone allows it, a titanium implant acts as an artificial root and a ceramic crown, often zirconia, is screwed onto it through an abutment. It is the only option that asks nothing of the neighbouring teeth. It does ask for surgery, a healing period and careful cleaning around the implant neck. The treatment itself is described on our dental implant page.

Bridges

A bridge joins several crowns into one unit: those that cap the abutment teeth and the pontic, or pontics, that stand in for what is missing. It is fitted within a few weeks and involves no bone surgery, which is why it remains so widely used. Its cost falls on the supporting teeth, which have to be prepared, or which are crowned anyway if they already needed restoring.

A bridge can also sit on implants rather than on natural teeth, which spares healthy neighbours. Two implants are then enough to carry a three-unit span.

Where the teeth beside the gap are untouched, an adhesive bridge is far less destructive: a wing bonded to the back of one neighbour, or of both, retains the replacement tooth. How these options compare on survival and on what they demand of the mouth is set out in our review of the alternatives to dental implants.

Restoring a damaged or unsightly tooth

Not every fixed prosthesis replaces something missing. A large share of this work covers a tooth that is still there, to protect it, rebuild it or change how it looks.

Crowns on natural teeth

A crown restores the shape, function and appearance of a tooth too broken down for a filling: root treated, fractured, deeply decayed, or carrying a restoration that has grown too large to hold. The tooth is reduced around its circumference, sometimes reinforced with a post, and then capped.

The choice of material matters most here. A systematic review of 67 studies covering 4,663 metal-ceramic and 9,434 all-ceramic single crowns reported five-year survival of 94.7 % for metal-ceramic crowns, 96.6 % for reinforced glass ceramics such as lithium disilicate and 92.1 % for densely sintered zirconia (Sailer et al., 2015). Feldspathic and silica-based crowns came out clearly lower, and both feldspathic and zirconia crowns performed significantly worse at the back of the mouth, where chewing loads are highest. Zirconia crowns also lost their veneering ceramic, and lost retention, more often than metal-ceramic ones. Dropping the metal substructure improves translucency where it shows, without being an improvement on every measure. Our article on the dental crown takes that choice tooth by tooth.

Protecting a weakened tooth

Decay is cleared and any root filling checked first. The crown then encircles what remains of the natural tooth and shields it from chewing forces, which a large filling does not do.

Changing how a tooth looks

On a sound tooth that is misshapen, deeply discoloured or badly positioned, the same component serves a different purpose. Preparation removes only what the crown needs to sit properly, and the decision turns on whether the visible gain justifies the tooth structure given up.

Veneers

A veneer is a thin ceramic shell bonded to the front of a visible tooth. It handles staining that whitening will not shift, a chipped edge, mild crowding or a modest gap. Because it covers only the front and sides, preparation is limited, and so is the range of situations it suits: bruxism, thin enamel or a pronounced bite problem point towards a crown instead, and gum disease has to be treated before any bonded restoration. Our guide on how to choose veneers compares the materials and thicknesses.

Inlays and onlays

Between a filling and a crown sits the laboratory-made partial restoration, bonded into the cavity. An inlay sits within the tooth; an onlay also covers one or more cusps. Used on premolars and molars, they preserve more tissue than a crown and hold up better than a very large direct filling. Their indications and longevity are covered in our article on inlays and onlays.

Removable dentures

A denture rests on the gum and, in the upper jaw, on the palate. You take it out yourself to clean it. It is the cheapest of the prosthetic solutions, it needs no surgery, and it can be repaired or added to if another tooth is lost. In exchange, it transmits chewing loads to the soft tissue rather than to bone, it moves, and its bulk is noticeable for the first few weeks.

Partial dentures

A partial denture replaces one or several teeth while others remain, and is held by clasps resting on those teeth. Two constructions are in common use. An all-acrylic base is quick and cheap to make, but it discolours, breaks if dropped and covers a good deal of gum, so it is most often used as a transitional appliance while tissue heals or a definitive solution is built. A cobalt-chrome framework is thinner, stiffer and lighter, leaves more gum uncovered and spreads the load across the remaining teeth, which is why it lasts considerably longer. Flexible nylon dentures are a third option, favoured for appearance, though they are harder to adjust and to reline.

These are also the appliances patients abandon most. A review in the Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry reports that almost 40 % of wearers stop using their partial denture within five years, for reasons of pain, appearance and social circumstances rather than outright mechanical failure (Campbell et al., 2017). The same authors, working largely in UK dental schools, identify what separates a partial denture that is worn from one that is abandoned: the design, the materials, how easily it can be repaired, how well the patient was briefed, and whether the follow-up appointments happened.

Complete dentures

A complete denture replaces a whole arch. In the upper jaw it covers the palate and gum and is held by suction, which depends on an accurate impression and on saliva. In the lower jaw the bearing surface is a horseshoe, with no palate to help, so stability is much harder to achieve. A metal mesh embedded in the acrylic stiffens the base and limits fractures.

Two limits come with the appliance. The bone ridge underneath carries on resorbing, so the fit achieved on day one drifts over the years and needs relining, typically every one to two years (Cleveland Clinic, 2023). And the bite force a denture develops stays below what a bridge or an implant-borne restoration delivers, which narrows the range of food that is comfortable to eat.

Immediate dentures

An immediate denture is made in advance and fitted on the day the remaining teeth are taken out, so that no one leaves the surgery without front teeth. The NHS notes that these can be produced within days when they are needed urgently, and that they often need adjusting or replacing up to a year later, because the gum and bone reshape considerably as the extraction sites heal (NHS, 2025). Treat the immediate appliance as a first stage rather than the finished article, and budget for the relines or the replacement that follows.

Getting used to a new denture

The first few weeks ask for patience, and it helps to know that before fitting. Saliva increases for a few days while the mouth registers the bulk of the new base. Speech changes, sibilants most of all, and a few minutes of reading aloud each day shortens that phase. Food is reintroduced gradually: start with soft items cut small and chew on both sides at once, which balances the load and stops the denture tipping.

Sore spots are normal in the first days and are corrected by an adjustment at the chair. Wear the denture for a few hours before that appointment so the dentist can see exactly where it is pressing. On the upper jaw, the acrylic covering the palate dulls the perception of temperature and some flavours, a sensation that fades without disappearing entirely. A denture that starts moving after months of working well is usually reporting bone resorption underneath; a reline restores the fit, which adhesive only disguises. The NHS lists clicking while talking, slipping, pain, visible wear or damage and red or bleeding gums as reasons to book an appointment.

What dentures and other prosthetics cost

A prosthetic quote breaks down into three parts: the dentist’s fee, the laboratory work and the material itself. Preliminary treatment is added on top, whether that is restoring an abutment tooth, extractions, a bone graft or a sinus lift, and it can weigh as much as the prosthesis. Two quotes bearing the same heading can therefore differ by a wide margin without either being wrong.

Comparing private fees

The first useful check is whether two quotes describe the same material and the same brand. An entry-level implant and a premium implant from the same manufacturer are not priced alike, and the gap between two proposals often comes down to that single line. The figures below cover one implant and its artificial tooth, in the mid range.

Country	Implant and crown
UK	£2100
United States	$3,500
Netherlands	2700€
Spain	1350€
Hungary	1080€
Turkey	675€

On restorative and cosmetic work, the spread owes more to the material and the practice’s fees than to geography. The amounts below are per unit, as observed in the UK private sector.

Treatment, per unit	Private fee in the UK
Zirconia crown	£600 to £800
Emax crown	£800 to £1000
Composite veneer	£275 to £475
Emax porcelain veneer	£650 to £850
Lumineers	£850 to £950

What the NHS charges

NHS dentistry in England works in bands, and you pay one charge for a course of treatment rather than one per item. The amounts below apply in England; Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland set their own.

NHS band, England	Charge
Band 1	£27.90
Band 2	£76.60
Band 3	£332.10
Urgent care	£27.90

Where dentures fall in the bands

Where each act falls decides what you pay. New dentures sit in Band 3, along with crowns, bridges, inlays and onlays, at £332.10 for the course of treatment. That single charge covers what the course contains, so a full upper and lower set fitted together is charged once, not twice. Adjusting an existing denture falls into Band 1, and repairs and additions, such as adding a tooth to a partial denture after an extraction, fall into Band 2. If you need further treatment within two months that belongs to the same band or a lower one, there is nothing more to pay.

Charges are waived for several groups: patients under 18, those under 19 in full-time education, anyone who is pregnant or has given birth in the past twelve months, and recipients of certain income-related benefits. Anyone just outside those groups can apply to the NHS Low Income Scheme, which issues an HC3 certificate setting out the share of the charge they will pay (NHS, 2025). Private denture fees follow no published scale: each practice sets them according to the material, the number of teeth and the laboratory it uses.

Having prosthetic treatment abroad

Not every prosthesis justifies a flight. A single crown, a conventional bridge or a denture all fall within NHS banding and are fitted over a handful of appointments close to home, so travelling for them adds cost and complicates follow-up. The arithmetic changes once the plan rests on implants or on a set of veneers, treatments that carry no NHS route and run into thousands of pounds privately. That is the segment where the difference between countries becomes decisive, and it has to be weighed against travel, the number of trips required and what happens if something needs attention after you land back home.

Treatment in Turkey with Body Expert

A number of Istanbul dental clinics make their prostheses in an in-house laboratory, so impression, try-in and adjustments can follow one another within the same stay. A fixed reconstruction on implants needs two stays: the first for surgery, the second, several months later, for the definitive prosthesis. Treatment without implants, whether crowns, a bridge or veneers, is normally completed in a single trip.

Body Expert works with partner clinics selected for their facilities and the experience of their surgeons, and makes savings of up to 70 % against UK private fees possible. The stay is organised for you: five-star hotel with breakfast, VIP transfers between airport, hotel and clinic, an English-speaking patient coordinator from the first exchange to your return, and twelve months of post-operative follow-up. The flight itself is not part of it. A quote reaches you within 24 hours, free and without commitment.

A quote issued abroad falls under the law of the country where treatment is carried out. Ask in writing for what the total does not show: the brand and range of the materials, the temporary solution planned between stages, and who will see you, where and how quickly, if a complication appears after you are home.

Looking after dentures

Fixed work is cleaned much like natural teeth, with particular attention to the junctions. Brushing alone reaches neither the space under a bridge nor the collar of an implant, so interdental brushes, floss and, if your dentist suggests it, a water flosser complete the routine. The health of the gum at those margins largely determines how long the restoration lasts.

A denture is cleaned out of the mouth, over a basin filled with water or lined with a flannel, so that a slip does not break it. Brush it with a non-abrasive product: ordinary toothpaste scratches acrylic and leaves micro-roughness where biofilm settles, so the NHS guidance is soft soap or washing-up liquid instead. Soaking in a denture cleanser completes the mechanical brushing, and the appliance is rinsed before it goes back in. The American College of Prosthodontists published fifteen evidence-based recommendations on denture care in 2011, drawn from a review of more than a hundred articles, covering these steps and the rhythm of check-ups (Felton et al., 2011).

Overnight wear raises a separate question. Denture stomatitis, an inflammation of the mucosa covered by the appliance, affects between 15 % and more than 70 % of denture wearers depending on the population studied, and is more frequent among older people and among women (Gendreau & Loewy, 2011). The factors identified are poor denture hygiene, continual day and night wear, plaque accumulating on the appliance, and colonisation of its surface by Candida albicans, helped along by the small injuries a poorly fitting denture causes. The authors make one point clearly: antifungal treatment clears the symptoms, but they return once it stops if the denture itself has not been decontaminated and kept clean. Taking the denture out at night, unless your dentist says otherwise, remains the simplest way to lower that risk.

Does having a denture fitted hurt?

Fitting itself does not. A removable denture involves no surgery and no anaesthetic, only impressions, try-ins and adjustments. For fixed work, any procedure touching enamel, dentine, root, gum or bone is preceded by a local anaesthetic matched to the area, the expected length of the appointment and the nerves running nearby. Conscious sedation, or in rare cases a general anaesthetic, can be arranged for patients whose anxiety makes treatment impossible, a situation discussed in our article on fear of the dentist.

Afterwards is a different matter. Implant placement is normally followed by swelling and a few days of discomfort managed with the prescribed painkillers. A tooth prepared for a crown can stay sensitive to hot and cold for some weeks. A new denture produces pressure points that need successive adjustments. These effects belong to the normal course of treatment, and they are a good reason not to schedule major work the day before an important commitment.

How long do dentures and other prosthetics last?

How long a prosthesis lasts is best estimated from survival rates measured on groups of patients followed over several years. The orders of magnitude below come from the studies cited in this article and from the replacement intervals reported by clinical services.

Prosthesis	Reported longevity
Metal-ceramic crown	94.7 % at five years
Lithium disilicate crown	96.6 % at five years
Sintered zirconia crown	92.1 % at five years
Partial denture	40 % abandoned by year five
Complete denture	Around seven to ten years

Three things matter more than the material. Cleaning comes first, because decay on an abutment tooth and inflammation around an implant are among the leading causes of failure. The bite comes second: untreated grinding fractures ceramics and loosens screws. Regular review comes third, since it allows a worn retention component to be replaced or a denture to be relined before the poor fit starts damaging the tissue underneath.

Frequently asked questions

How long does it take to get dentures?
Allow a few weeks from the first impression, spread over several appointments: impressions, a wax try-in to check the bite and the appearance, then the fit and a review. Immediate dentures can be produced far faster when teeth are being extracted, at the cost of adjustments later on.

Can I sleep in my dentures?
The advice is to take them out, unless your dentist has recommended otherwise for a specific reason. Continuous day and night wear is one of the factors linked to denture stomatitis in the review cited above, and a base worn all night also traps food and plaque against the gum and against any remaining teeth. Several hours out of the mouth each night gives the mucosa time to recover.

Will a denture change how I eat?
For the first weeks, yes. Bite force is lower than with natural teeth, so hard and sticky foods are the last to come back. Cutting food small, chewing on both sides and using the back teeth rather than biting with the front ones makes the transition quicker.

What if my denture breaks?
Book an appointment and keep every piece, including fragments. Most fractures are repairable at the laboratory. What makes repair harder, sometimes impossible, is gluing the appliance at home with a product not intended for the job.

Can I move from a denture to something fixed later?
Often, if enough bone remains and any remaining teeth are sound. Years of wearing a complete denture come with ridge resorption, which sometimes means grafting first. Only a three-dimensional scan can settle that, whatever the age of the denture. For the full picture of what can be rebuilt and in what order, see our teeth care overview.

Sources

Borg-Bartolo, R., Roccuzzo, A., Molinero-Mourelle, P., Schimmel, M., Gambetta-Tessini, K., Chaurasia, A., Koca-Ünsal, R. B., Tennert, C., Giacaman, R., & Campus, G. (2022). Global prevalence of edentulism and dental caries in middle-aged and elderly persons: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of Dentistry, 127, 104335. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdent.2022.104335

Sailer, I., Makarov, N. A., Thoma, D. S., Zwahlen, M., & Pjetursson, B. E. (2015). All-ceramic or metal-ceramic tooth-supported fixed dental prostheses (FDPs)? A systematic review of the survival and complication rates. Part I: Single crowns (SCs). Dental Materials, 31(6), 603-623. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dental.2015.02.011

Campbell, S. D., Cooper, L., Craddock, H., Hyde, T. P., Nattress, B., Pavitt, S. H., & Seymour, D. W. (2017). Removable partial dentures: The clinical need for innovation. The Journal of Prosthetic Dentistry, 118(3), 273-280. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prosdent.2017.01.008

Felton, D., Cooper, L., Duqum, I., Minsley, G., Guckes, A., Haug, S., Meredith, P., Solie, C., Avery, D., & Deal Chandler, N. (2011). Evidence-based guidelines for the care and maintenance of complete dentures: A publication of the American College of Prosthodontists. Journal of Prosthodontics, 20(Suppl. 1), S1-S12. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-849X.2010.00683.x

Gendreau, L., & Loewy, Z. G. (2011). Epidemiology and etiology of denture stomatitis. Journal of Prosthodontics, 20(4), 251-260. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-849X.2011.00698.x

NHS. (2025). Dentures. Read the guidance

NHS. (2025). Understanding NHS dental charges. Read the charges

NHS. (2025). Get help with dental costs. Read the guidance

Cleveland Clinic. (2023, 10 March). Dentures. Read the article