Dentures become more susceptible to breaking with age. This is because your mouth changes shape as you age and this causes your denture to have a looser fit, causing the plates to move more in your mouth as you are chewing food. This movement causes the plastic to be repeatedly flexed. Repeated flexing of the same part of the denture will cause breakage, including causing the false teeth embedded in the denture to break off.
The types of denture breakage include an entire tooth coming off, the denture breaking in half, a piece of the pink part breaking off, or the metal clasp of a partial breaking. Do not attempt to repair dentures yourself. It is advisable that they be professionally repaired. Common household glues may be water soluble or even toxic. There are denture repair kits available from pharmacies, but you can ruin your denture attempting inexpert repairs.
If a tooth breaks off your denture, save the tooth — or any part which has broken off– in a plastic bag or small container. Don’t wrap it in a tissue. It’s too easy to lose it that way. Obviously, if you’ve lost the tooth, you will incur additional expense in having it replaced.
A visit to a dentist is the best way to handle broken dentures. If you still have the tooth, the dentist may be able to repair it himself in a short time, if he has the expertise and his schedule allows. Otherwise, your denture may have to be sent out to a lab capable of making the repair. Some denture wearers have a pre-made back-up or copy denture kept by their dentist. In that case, the dentist can replace the broken denture immediately and then repair the broken one for future use. These copy dentures constitute a prudent backup because of the likelihood of breaking a denture. They also can replace lost dentures.
