So you're having a sandwich at lunch and you could swear that you hear a "pop" sound at some point during your meal. After lunch you happen to run your tongue along the roof of the upper denture and it feels as though there is a hair stuck there. Once the denture is removed, it's obvious that the hair is actually a long crack.

It's often mistakenly thought that since we are just going to use glue to repair it, you may as well save some time and money and do it yourself. If glue is used to repair a cracked or completely broken denture, it is almost guaranteed to break again as the glue, applied along such a thin crack line, is no match for the jaw muscles. Once the denture has been glued and has re-broken, it is likely that a professional repair will not be possible. Any residual glue, still bonded to the crack line, can prevent a proper aligning of the two sections that's needed in order to create a base model to complete the repair.

A proper repair involves using liquid pink acrylic to chemically bond the broken sections together like welding two pieces of metal. The acrylic is then cured in a higher pressure and temperature environment for a period of time. If the denture is repaired well, you should typically feel no difference in the fit or bite alignment and it can normally be completed the same day.

Even going one day without your denture can be very disrupting and so we always recommend keeping an old denture as a backup for just such an occasion.