O-Ring Replacements
Hi, I’m Dr. Todd Shatkin, and welcome to this Monday Morning Minute. Today we’re going to talk quickly about how to replace a O-ring in the denture. So many times, the patients come in, and their dentures start to feel a little loose after six months or so, and that’s because the O-rings start to wear out. In our office, we recommend replacing them every six months.
We put our patients on a hygiene recall program so that a dental hygienist will see that patient like a normal hygiene visit. They will take the dentures out. They’ll clean the dentures in an ultrasound cleaner. They’ll make sure the implants are nice and clean and free of any plaque or calculus, and then they’ll replace the O-rings. The O-rings are inside the housing, as you know, and they snap onto the implant.
We sell new O-ring housings or O-rings by themselves most of the time. All you need to do is take the little O-ring out of the housing and replace it with a new O-ring. We also have standard fitting or ring housings and tighter fitting O-ring housings, so you have options. The most important thing is to make sure your patients comfortable. If they don’t need the extra tightness, I don’t recommend doing it.
If they feel like they need them to be tighter, you can put the tighter O-rings or tighter housings in. You can also alternate a normal one and then a tighter one. It all depends on your patient’s dexterity. The important thing is to change those O-rings at least twice a year so that they don’t wear out and cause metal on metal rubbing from the housing to the implant.