Mum has stopped wearing her bottom denture and leaves half her dinner. Is she just being fussy or should I be worried?

#1Lorna B.(Joined Feb 2026 · 13 posts)October 23, 2026, 8:14 pm

Six months of her living with us now and mostly it is going better than I feared. But for about three weeks the bottom denture has been sitting in the pot on the windowsill more than it has been in her mouth, and she has started leaving half of every dinner. Says she is not hungry. Says the denture is "a nuisance". She has never been fussy about food in her life.

I do not want to make a production of it. She has had enough people prodding her this year. But her trousers are looser than they were in the summer and I cannot tell if I am imagining that. Is this a dentist thing, a GP thing, or a leave her alone thing?

#2dee1972(Joined Apr 2025 · 24 posts)October 23, 2026, 9:40 pm

Look in her mouth. With a torch. I mean it. Mine had an ulcer right under where the plate sat for the best part of a month and I only found it because I happened to be helping her with her teeth one evening.

#3tomsdaughter(Joined Jan 2025 · 31 posts)October 24, 2026, 7:52 am

The looser trousers is the part I would not sit on. Weigh her if you can, write the number and the date down, and do it again in a fortnight. Then you have a fact instead of a feeling, which is very handy when you ring someone.

#4Lorna B.(Joined Feb 2026 · 13 posts)October 24, 2026, 7:03 pm

Did both. Weighed her this morning and she is about three kilos down on the hospital discharge sheet from April, though the scales are different so that is rough. Looked in her mouth with my phone torch while she muttered at me, and there is a red, angry looking patch on the gum at the front underneath where the denture sits. No obvious ulcer but it looks sore.

#5Dr Nadia FarhatMedical moderator(Joined Nov 2024 · 54 posts)October 26, 2026, 12:31 pm

Lorna, I would not call this fussiness, and you have already done the two most useful things, which are to look and to weigh.

A denture that has stopped being worn, a sore area under it and a plate that comes back half full is a very common cluster in older people, and it often runs in a circle. Weight loss changes the shape of the gums, so a denture that fitted in April may not fit in October. A denture that does not fit rubs. A sore mouth makes eating hurt, so people eat less, and lose more weight, and the fit gets worse. The fix is often simple, an adjustment or a reline from a dentist, but it needs someone to break the circle.

So, practically: a dental appointment soon, for the fit and for a look at that patch. And a call to her GP surgery as well, because a loss of around three kilos since spring is worth her doctor knowing about in its own right, even if the mouth turns out to be the whole explanation. Take your two dated weights with you.

Two things to watch while you wait. The NHS advice is that a mouth ulcer that has not healed in 3 weeks should be seen by a GP or dentist, so if that red area becomes an ulcer, or a patch that is red or white and does not settle, note the date you first saw it. And if her eating falls off suddenly over a day or two, or she becomes drowsy or more muddled, that is a same day call to her GP, or NHS 111 out of hours, not a dental question.

Maura has written up the daily routine, including how to look after dentures and get them marked with her name, in mouth care and dentures, and eating, drinking and weight loss explains why the weight figure matters. I have not seen her mouth, so none of this is a view on what the patch is. That is for the dentist with a proper light.

#6Lorna B.(Joined Feb 2026 · 13 posts)October 30, 2026, 6:22 pm

Dentist yesterday, on a cancellation. Denture no longer fits, which he could tell the moment he looked, and the sore patch is from it rubbing. He has eased it and she is going back for a reline. The GP has her down for bloods next week because of the weight.

Denture went back in this morning without a word of complaint. She ate all her lunch. I feel slightly silly that it took a torch and a forum to get here, but mostly relieved.

#7K. McAllister(Joined Nov 2025 · 15 posts)October 31, 2026, 8:40 am

Not silly at all. Ours went through two months and a full medication review before anybody looked in her mouth. Same answer. Saving this thread for the next time I am told it is just appetite.