Mouth Guards are crucial for protecting your teeth from impact. Whether this impact is from a sport, or from grinding your teeth, you need to protect your mouth with a mouth guard. Tooth trauma can occur easily if your teeth are not protected by a mouth guard.
Without protection from internal or external forces, your teeth will gradually wear down over time. During high impact sports such as football, hockey, water polo or boxing, teeth can be broken, chipped or even knocked out if a mouth guard is not worn.
Sports related oral injuries can often pierce or puncture the lip or cheek, often requiring stitching and cosmetic surgery. To minimize your risk of oral injury, it’s crucial to protect your teeth and gums from trauma.
For those who grind at night, a customized splint (much like a mouth guard but slightly thinner) is worn to sleep. This means that as you clench and grind your teeth as you sleep, they aren’t wearing away; they’re protected by the splint.
A splint is made out of clear and strong acrylic. It’s comfortable to wear and easy to clean. Leaving grinding untreated can lead to extremely worn down teeth that can then have nerve damage and decay.
Children are usually required to wear a mouth guard for school or club sports – particularly Baseball, Softball, Rugby and Water Polo. While your children are growing and forming their adult teeth, it’s crucial to protect their teeth with a mouth guard, so that growth isn’t stunted and teeth aren’t harmed.
If your child has braces or orthodontic appliances, they will need a customized mouth guard that fits over their braces. If your child plays sport and has braces, it’s even more important to protect their mouth with a mouth guard. Braces can be sharp and if your child suffers an impact to the mouth, the braces could split their lip or be broken.
Whether you or anyone else in your family plays sports or grinds their teeth, it’s important to have a mouth guard or splint fitted properly, to protect teeth from damage.
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