Two Tips to Keep in Mind If You Wear Dentures and Are About to Go on an Overseas Holiday

If you are a denture wearer and are about to go on holiday abroad, here are some tips that you may want to keep in mind.

Have a dentist repair any minor denture defects before you leave

If your dentures have some minor defects (for example, if some of the artificial teeth are slightly wobbly or if there is a hairline crack in the palate), then you should arrange for a dentist in your area who does denture repairs to fix these defects before you go on holiday. The reason for this is that there is a chance that these small defects could worsen whilst you are on holiday to the point where they render your dentures unusable.

For example, if you bite down onto a particularly hard piece of granola whilst having your breakfast, this could cause the slightly loose artificial teeth to detach from the denture or could cause the hairline crack to grow to the point where the entire palate splits in two. If this happens whilst you're in a foreign country, whose language you do not speak, the process of trying to find a dentist who will repair your dentures and then communicate with that dentist could be both stressful and challenging.

As such, it is best to get these issues addressed before you go away.

Take a spare pack of denture sterilising tablets

Your dentures must be left to sit in a glass filled with a sterilising agent and some water for several hours each night. The sterilising chemical helps to disinfect the dentures and thus ensure that they do not give you bad breath or put you at risk of an oral infection when you wear them.

As such, you will need to take some dissolvable sterilising tablets with you on your holiday. However, it's important not to just take one pack but to instead bring along two and to store these packs in separate pieces of luggage. You may end up with no disinfectant for your dentures if the airline loses one of your suitcases or if you misplace a piece of luggage during your trip, and this suitcase contained your one and only pack of sterilising tablets.

In this situation, you may then have to locate a pharmacy and try to purchase the sterilising tablets from them. Again, it might be difficult for you to buy the product that you need if you do not speak the language of the country you are visiting or if you are staying in a remote area where the pharmacies do not stock a wide selection of items.

If you cannot find a place that sells these tablets in the area where you are staying, you may end up being forced to wear unsanitary dentures for the duration of your holiday, which could spoil your travel experience.