For years, Mary* soaked her dentures in a solution of bleach and water to remove stains. Eventually she noticed that her dentures felt looser in her mouth than they did when she first got them, but because the change was gradual, she got used to it. One day she was eating a sandwich when she felt and heard a sharp crack and was horrified to find her upper denture had split evenly down the middle. She began to panic, knowing that her grandchildren were scheduled to come for a visit in two days and they were always scared of how she looked without her teeth in.
Mary called her grown son who said not to worry, he would fix the teeth with superglue. He came over and glued the teeth together, but Mary was afraid to put them back in her mouth even when the glue was dry, because she had heard the glue could dissolve and poison her.
What should Mary do? Should she:
- Wear the repaired teeth anyway; superglue doesn’t melt!
- Send them out to a denture repair facility for professional repair
- Buy a denture repair kit to fix them ‘properly’
- Bring them to a denturist to be relined
- Get a replacement denture and stop soaking it in bleach
If you answered e), you know your dentures. Now let’s look at what the denture repair specialists at Dentures Direct do, and why they would recommend this course of action.
Types of Denture Repair
Not all denture breaks are created equally. Sometimes, as in Mary’s case, the entire plate cracks down the middle; sometimes it’s a single tooth that is sheared off, or sometimes it’s a case of the dentures becoming loose, uncomfortable or ill-fitting due to wear and tear and/or the shrinkage of the gums over time. Depending on the type of damage, the highly trained Dentures Direct lab staff can repair your dentures while you wait. Some of the more common repairs include:
- Relines
- Rebasing
- Fixing cracked dentures
- Replacing teeth that have fallen out of the denture
In every case, new teeth are chosen to perfectly match the denture and/or your surrounding teeth, and acrylic is matched to the colour of your gums. We use material that has been tested to the highest standards to withstand the wear of daily use.
Should you attempt to repair your own dentures?
The answer is, quite simply, no! One of the three reasons why Dentures Direct recommended that Mary get a replacement denture was because it had been repaired with glue which rendered it impossible to professionally fix. Glues and bonding agents that were not intended for dentures can corrode the plastic which comprises the denture, weakening the entire structure and making it prone to breaking again and again. Even with denture repairs kits, which do contain materials safe for use in the human mouth, presume a level of skill that most individuals do not possess – and once a denture is repaired badly, it is much harder, if not impossible, to repair the same denture again properly.
The other two reasons we fitted Mary with a new denture were that her dentures were more than 5 years old, and her jawline had changed since then, rendering the denture too big. Relining would normally have been an option, but the denture structure was weakened by the harsh bleach solution she used to soak her teeth. We sent Mary home with a brand new, state of the art denture that fits her mouth perfectly – and a maintenance plan that does not include harsh cleansers!
When your denture breaks, don’t wait or worry. Bring it in to Dentures Direct for a professional consultation and fast repairs in about an hour.
