Denture repairs.
A repair restores a broken prosthesis. It does not address why it broke, and a denture that fractures repeatedly is reporting something worth investigating. Tick Repair under Procedure.
The common repairs
A fractured base, usually along the midline in an upper denture. A tooth debonded or fractured from the base. A broken or distorted clasp on a partial. An added tooth where an abutment has been lost.
Most are straightforward provided the pieces are clean, complete and fit together unambiguously. Send all the fragments, including small ones — a missing piece means the relationship has to be reconstructed rather than reassembled.
Do not attempt a temporary repair with adhesive before sending. It contaminates the surfaces and frequently makes an accurate repair impossible.
Midline fractures have a cause
An upper complete denture that fractures along the midline is usually reporting flexure, and flexure means the base is being loaded unevenly — typically because the fit has deteriorated and the denture rocks over a prominent midline ridge or torus.
Repairing it without addressing the fit produces another fracture, often within months. A repair combined with a reline is frequently the correct answer, and sometimes the honest answer is a remake.
Other contributors are a thin or porous base, deep notching around a labial frenum, and heavy occlusal load against natural opposing dentition.
Debonded teeth
A tooth that has come away cleanly with no acrylic attached suggests the bond to the base failed — sometimes a processing issue, sometimes contamination, sometimes age.
A tooth that has fractured through, leaving its base portion embedded, suggests occlusal overload on that tooth. Check the occlusion before returning the repaired denture, or the same tooth fails again.
Send the tooth if you have it. Matching mould and shade to an existing set is considerably easier with the original in hand.
Clasps and partial frameworks
A fractured clasp on a cast framework can often be repaired, though the repair is inherently weaker than the original casting and the clasp may have broken because it was engaging too deep an undercut or being repeatedly flexed on insertion.
Where a framework has fractured across a major connector, a repair is rarely durable and a new framework is usually the right answer.
Flexible partials require the same thermoplastic and specific technique — they do not bond to conventional acrylic repair material.
Preventing the next one
A denture that has been repaired more than once is telling you something, and the useful response is diagnostic rather than mechanical.
Check the fit — a rocking denture flexes and fractures. Check the occlusion, particularly against natural opposing teeth, which load an acrylic base far harder than an opposing denture does. Check for a prominent midline ridge or torus, and for a deep labial notch weakening the base.
Where the underlying cause cannot be resolved, a reinforced base or a metal palate distributes load far better than acrylic alone and is worth discussing at the point of the second repair rather than the fourth.
What to put on the prescription
Tick Repair under Procedure and describe what happened: where it broke, whether the patient dropped it, whether it has broken before, and how the fit has been.
That description is what distinguishes a repair from a diagnosis. A denture that has fractured twice in the same place needs the underlying cause addressed, and the laboratory can only raise that if it knows the history.
Send all fragments, and send the opposing denture or note the opposing dentition if occlusion may be a factor.
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Digital scans and conventional impressions are both accepted. Cases move by UPS and Purolator, and Fairmont works with practices throughout British Columbia and across Canada.