If you are wearing dentures for the first time right now, or have been a denture wearer for many months or years, I'm sure you have struggled many times to find the answer to the question often asked: "Which is the best denture glue?' Let me say this at the very start, I have worn a denture ever since I was nine years old and I am now in my eighties. Therefore I've had a few years to ponder and search for an answer to that perplexing question.

I would like to give you a short, quick answer, and say: "Do this, or use that" - but I've found there is more to the problem than most people realize. The more I think about it the more complicated the answer seems to get. At one time I was so frustrated with denture "glues," I went directly to my dentist and said point-blank, to him: "Doc, what kind of denture cream or glue do you use with your dentures? What do you think I should use?" He thought for a couple of minutes and replied: "Terry, as a matter of fact, I don't have dentures, I still have all of my "natural" teeth, so I can't tell which "glue" is best for you or anyone else to use. My advice is for you to try them all until you find one that meets your needs to make your denture feel: stable, secure and as immovable as possible while you are chewing, talking drinking and sneezing."

Well, I thought to myself, that was an answer, but not one that helped me at all. I still had the same problem I had before I asked my "expert" dentist for his help.

Of course, my dentist did go on to explain to me, at length, why it was that I might need a "glue" to hold my denture in place. He began by giving me a brief history of dentures and their use from 'way back in the 1500s to the present time. He told me the first dentures were believed to have been made by the early Etruscans, before the Romans captured them. Those dentures, then called: false teeth were only made for rich people and they were made only for "show" not for eating! Why? Because, back then, there was no good way to hold those false teeth in place while the wearer was eating, chewing, drinking and trying to talk normally with a mouth full of fake teeth.

Much later in history dentists who were then called "tooth barbers" figured out ways to keep false teeth in place using such things as: thread, catgut, and even gold wire. Those wires had to be very carefully put in place. Once the false teeth were wired in place they were not easily taken out. The result was the wearer's often left them in place too long and the teeth began to smell bad. Another process was to "wedge" the false teeth in and around any remaining natural teeth. Then, because those artificial teeth were only good for "show" and still too loose for chewing, the wearer always went alone into a private room, took his false teeth out, and proceeded to drink or chew his meal as best he could while there in the private place where no one could watch him "gum" his food.

Skipping ahead a few hundred years to today, people who must wear dentures are still struggling with the same old problem of wearing dentures that are too loose for comfort, too loose for chewing, and too loose for talking and sneezing!

However, help is on the way! Recently there has been a surge of activity by modern dentists to use what are called "dental implants." In short, implants are a series of metal pins drilled into the jawbone in such a way that the denture is snapped into place and held there quite securely. Dental implants seem to be the best way yet devised to keep dentures comfortably in place at all times. The problem, of course, is that they are very expensive. One of my customers told me his initial cost for dental implants was $30,000. "Of course", he told me, " the procedure also required many visits back to the dentist's office and several extensive adjustments to get a comfortable fit."

Now, back to the original consideration of the best denture glue.

You need to try, that is to experiment with the wide variety of pastes and "glues" that are out there in the stores today until you find one you like. As for me, about ten years ago I got fed up with the messy pastes and "glues" that were never satisfactory. What I did was to finally decide to use my creative talent to make or "invent" my own private solution to solve the basic problem of loose dentures.

After much trial and error, I invented what I now call: Weber Denture Liner (Patent Pending). It is an always soft, flexible and putty-like compound that self-adheres to both upper and lower dentures. In short, it makes loose dentures tight. It make the denture feel secure. It gives adequate support and radically improves retention. You can learn more about my answer to the question of which is the best denture "glue" at my website which is listed below.

By: Terry L. Weber

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