Cost for replacement retainer for children?

beckstar1975

Both our children have ground through their retainers, which were provided on the NHS to maintain their teeth after extensive corrective work (hypo and hyper dontia plus over/under bite etc etc). We are a family of grinders.

The Orthodontist practice wants £290 per child for replacement as it's been over a year, but I've read that costs should be limited if the appliance was broken and wasn't your fault - to £98 a retainer.

Does anyone know which is the case, as we cannot afford to pay nearly £600 to replace them both (not on benefit but in debt and about to be funding 2 at uni - one of whom needs the retainer). Is there anything else I can try?

Many thanks

Bue21

My son had extensive orthodontic work and has both a permanent retainer and a set of normal retainers to try to prevent the teeth moving back. He has worn out a couple of sets now and I found a lady who produced custom mouthguards (for sport). After chatting she told me she could easily do retainers for a similar price.  She sent us the moulds to do at home and then made the retainers up very quickly and for a fraction of the price the dentist quoted.
May be worth seeing if anyone does custom mouthguards in your area to see if they can help. 

beckstar1975

ooh thank you. To complicate things one of them is missing 8 adult teeth so they are trying to stretch out their 5 baby teeth as long as possible to delay having to get implants, which obviously would cost exponentially more.