I had braces at some point. Therefore i will need a set of retainers for the rest of my life. In anticipation of this fact i asked for them to make me two, which i was willing to pay for, considering that one would probably not last the entire span of my life. They refused. They told me if one broke i was to just come back in then and they’d make me a new one. So i left with just the one pair of retainers. Sure enough, 7 years later the top retainer cracked at the front teeth area and i had to come back in. So i asked for an identical retainer and they said “oh no, we cant copy the retainer…we can only make a new mold of your teeth and make a new retainer from that.” And i said that my teeth had already turned because i hadnt worn the retainer in several days and i wanted the total benefit of the braces i paid $4000 dollars for. I didnt want a less than straight retainer. I didnt want to go backwards. I told them they could help me if they wanted to but they didnt see it that way. We still dont see eye to eye. If uou can only make a mold from an indentation of teeth…pour plaster in my old retainer…then break the retainer off of it once its dried, then make a retainer mold around the hard plaster “teeth” gotten out of my old retainer, and we have a blueprint for a new retainer. They were not into extra steps. So i paid $4000 dollars and every time my retainer breaks i gotta have slightly more crooked teeth. I mean its criminal, and also a healthy dose of stupidity because even with a drugstore fix it kit and an advanced version of play-dough…i can do better than this solution. Well life is unfair and professionals dont listen and i gotta do everything my **** self so i lined the broken retainer up the way it used to fit and used a denture repair serum i bought off amazon to meld the retainer back together. The problem was that the box specified it was highly flammable, highly toxic material that wasnt meant to have prolonged contact with one’s skin and it was meant to be a very temporary fix and you should call someone immediately for a more long term denture repair. It said all over the box that this stuff can cause cancer and that once you opened the liquid chemical and mixed it with the powder you’d have roughly two seconds before it hardened so put it in the freezer for half an hour before hand to slow the process and dont get the vapors from the liquid in your eyes and do it in a well ventilated area. They werent kidding. I think the dogs and i both got high that day because the tiny house bathroom is not exactly a well ventilated area but oh well. With roughly two seconds for mix and application i didnt have time to think about or consider toxic fumes. I just had to get the job done. So now i have this toxic pink repair cement on the outside of my retainer but i dont really want it against my gums and lip while i sleep. So i bought some air dry clay. See if it needs baked it will melt the retainer but air dry clay will just dry in place in 2 to 3 days if left out. So i covered the toxic pink denture repair cement in air dry clay and set it on the counter. A popular internet search engine claims most brands are non-toxic and safe for general use by both kids and adults. So now the pink cancer causing stuff is encapsulated in the more benign stuff and my retainer is repaired and functional again and i can get my teeth as straight as they were when i was finished with the braces. Should i have had to go to these lengths? Probably not. They could have made a tooth mold from the old retainer and then made a new retainer from the tooth mold, but they are assholes and dont care if you paid $4000 dollars and have progressively more crooked teeth every time your retainer breaks throughout the rest of your life. So thats why they make denture repair serum and air dry clay. I’ll just have to pull down in the middle instead of bending from the ends to remove the retainer in the mornings so as not to crack the clay.
Update: the air dry clay was not water proof so required sealed. Now it is waterproof. Also: Dont get discount paint brushes. They will start shedding the moment you get them wet and before you know it you’ll just be holding a stick with a sink full of little hairs.