Many times I’ll have patients in their 70s and their 80s who are having difficulty eating. I had a couple come in and they were looking for implants. She was looking for implants for her husband and she was indicating that you know he’s chewing his food so fast that he’s he’s having trouble swallowing the food and the problem was is that he didn’t have enough teeth to chew the food adequately enough before he swallowed it.
So he was swallowing it in bigger boluses and slam dunking it into his stomach and creating stomach issues for himself because he didn’t have these teeth to be able to chew his food adequately. I bring up the aspect about the 70 year olds and the 80 year olds who were like well you know I’m not maybe gonna live much longer. Last year I had a 96 year old gentleman come in and he shared with me that he didn’t care if he lived another day or another year but he wanted to be able to eat a zucchini muffin without having to drink it through a straw because they were pureeing his food to be able to have a zucchini muffin and in giving him a full set of implants and a full set of teeth his family was because he was eating his food he was gaining weight and he had a great experience in being able to eat again and it’s an interesting quality of life when you’re able to sit down and eat a meal and not have to chase it around in your mouth trying to find teeth to chew it with and that’s one of the greater benefits that I’ve come to realize that it’s a quality of life to be able to enjoy a meal.
