When your dentures break, see your dentist right away.
If you attempt the repair yourself, say with superglue or some other adhesive, you can make it more expensive in the end.
When a break in a denture is fresh, it is easy to fit the pieces together exactly. If you continue to wear the dentures, the edges of the break can become rounded. If you try to glue the denture, it can make it so the pieces don’t fit together just right.
When a dentist or a dental lab repairs dentures, they start by fitting the pieces together. If they fit exactly, the denture can be restored to its original shape quite easily. If they don’t fit exactly, the repair process becomes much more complicated. New impressions of your mouth may be required. It may even be the case that a completely new denture is required.
If you use superglue on a denture repair, it will probably hold well for a couple of days. Superglue deteriorates in the mouth. Saliva will weaken the bond. Using superglue on a denture generally is a bad idea. An exception could be if it is a tooth that has popped loose. Especially if it is a front tooth, you may want to get the tooth in right away so you aren’t embarrassed, so your emergency superglue treatment could be justified. When a single tooth is glued in, it isn’t hard for a dentist to remove the superglue and make a permanent repair. But if the base of your denture is superglued, it will probably make it impossible to fit the pieces together perfectly and will make the repair more complicated.
Temporary Denture Repair
If your denture base breaks and you need to do something to get by temporarily until you can get to your dentist’s office, my advice is to use a denture adhesive to hold the denture in your mouth. That is something that can be cleaned off easily and cleanly and won’t compromise the repair.
This content was written by Dr. David Hall.
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