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Which glues can you use to repair broken teeth?

You never know when an encounter with a hockey puck, beer bottle cap, or even a popcorn kernel could lead to the damage or loss of a tooth. Seeking professional dental treatment should always be the first option. However, it can cost thousands of dollars and many of us don’t have that kind of cash on hand. Various alternative, DIY options exist, including non toxic super glue for teeth, although in general each should be treated as a temporary solution and a last resort. Some are safer than others, but any DIY dental work carries serious risks, including that of permanent, irreparable damage. Arguably, the best options on the market today is Temptooth Tooth Replacement.

When an affordable solution is urgently needed for a lost or chipped tooth, some individuals are tempted to resort to standard super glue for a quick fix. After all, in the Vietnam era the military ran trials on using super glue for closing wounds, right? There are reasons it didn’t catch on; today modern medical super glues are occasionally used, but are based on a different, non-toxic formula.

Hazards of super glue

Dental use of household super glue carries great risks. First, the active ingredients in super glue are toxic cyanoacrylates. Most users experience no negative reaction, others are not so lucky. Due to quick setting times, mistakes are easy to make with standard super glue, such as setting a tooth in the wrong position or gluing your inner cheek, tongue or finger to the tooth. Most worryingly, cyanoacrylates can damage the structure of your tooth, for example killing the tooth’s inner dentin tubules (see below), leading to more extensive and costly damage.

Less hazardous forms of cyanoacrylates have been developed for medical use. Most of these are too weak and flexible for use on teeth. The exception is Periacryl, which is designed specifically as a non toxic super glue for teeth. It is, however, difficult to procure.

Veterinary glue is a much more available, budget alternative, which some outdoorsmen and preppers keep in their first-aid kits. Although also based on a medical-specific cyanoacrylate formula, veterinary glues are not designed for use with human teeth. Nevertheless, options include Surgi-Lock, Nexaband, VetGlu, Vetbond, and LiquiVet.

Effective alternatives

For a similar price, products meant specifically for human teeth are available. These include over-the-counter dental cements and temporary repair kits. Still, these options are weaker than the compounds used by the professionals and none should be considered a permanent solution for damaged or lost teeth, broken crowns or damaged veneers. Professional dental treatment should be sought as soon as possible.

One of the most popular options is moldable plastic, which comes in in the form of small beads which you simply heat to combine and mold. These are especially useful for missing teeth. No additional adhesive is necessary; a properly formed replacement tooth will stay in place on its own. That said, you must be ready and able to sculpt your own tooth replacement or repair piece.

To make it easy to do this within minutes, Temptooth Tooth replacement comes with free dental tools and extensive instructions, including a 3D video. If the original color doesn’t match that of your teeth, you can soak the replacement tooth in tea or coffee for a few hours or until it reaches the desired hue. Thanks to its free extras and ease of use, Temptooth is probably the most popular and successful tooth replacement product available today, enjoying a very high level of customer satisfaction. The high-quality dental tools can also be used for long-term dental hygiene.

However, if you want to save a bit more money, Instamorph  Moldable Plastic comes with enough of the same sort of plastic beads for dozens of replacement teeth without any of the extras. You can buy Instamorph on Amazon for less than $15. Many users successfully shape their own replacement teeth with Instamorph without dental tools. Instructional videos can be found for free on YouTube (as shown above), making Instamorph perhaps the cheapest viable tooth replacement option available today. Many users continue sculpting a new moldable plastic tooth when the old ones wear out, about every few months.

Despite the wild popularity and high success rate of moldable plastic tooth replacements, not everyone has the knack for shaping a realistic tooth. If you have managed to keep your lost tooth or tooth fragment, it may be easier to fix it back into place temporarily with GIC: Glass Ionomer Cement from DRM. This is the publicly available dental cement that is closest in strength to the cements used by dentists, even claiming to be a permanent solution (though we still suggest seeing a dentist as soon as possible) and therefore also requires great care to use. Advertised for fillings, bridges, and caps, GIC is shipped as a separate powder and liquid, and includes implements for, and instructions on, how to combine them into a powerful dental cement. It is vital to be well prepared before application and to ensure that you are still able to floss around the areas around the target tooth before the cement sets. There are also YouTube tutorials for GIC, such as the one below.

No matter which solution you choose, if considering something like non toxic super glue for teeth, make sure your teeth are as clean and dry as possible and make sure you follow the instructions in every detail. None of these solutions should be seen as a permanent replacement for proper dental treatment; bring your problem to a dentist at the earliest opportunity.