Video: How Many Teeth Can Fit on a Partial?

I’d like to say however many you’d like. But, there’s a difference between a full denture and a partial denture. A full denture, for the most part, is all of the teeth in one arch. One arch typically has 16 teeth from third molar to third molar or wisdom tooth to wisdom tooth. But,  generally speaking, we don’t usually put those on, dentures at all. 

So, full dentures usually have 14 teeth. A partial denture, quite honestly, is anything less than that. A partial denture means you have some of your own teeth in your mouth. You need to have some of  your own teeth in your mouth in order to retain a partial denture. And boy, there are a bunch of different designs for partial dentures as well. 

But, partial dentures are literally a piece of plastic, maybe with some metal that’s reinforced in there, maybe with some metal clips, maybe with some resin. But these dentures essentially have, a number of teeth in them (again, less than a full set) that can be used to, replace missing teeth. For the most part, most patients have partial dentures that are about – maybe we’ll call it like a 50/50 share. If you really think about it, if you just have 1 or 2 teeth missing, there’s probably a really good benefit for you having some type of dental implants or even a fixed bridge in the mouth. But, if you are missing more than two, three, four or five- maybe, half of the teeth in your in your upper jaw- we’re trying to decide if there’s a tradeoff between adding something that has some thickness. Maybe partial dentures are not as comfortable as a natural teeth. Maybe there’s some limitations in the way that you can eat and chew and function, but we can make partial dentures and dentures in general look really beautiful for the patient. 

So, although partial dentures can have, almost all of the teeth in the mouth, I mean, it is true that a partial denture can have 13 teeth on it. Of the 14 teeth that you have, generally speaking, the fewer the teeth you’re missing, the more we’re considering some type of fixed in place solution. The more teeth you’re missing, maybe the more that we may consider a removable partial denture type of situation that snaps in and snaps out.