Mouth Guards

Mouth Guards can prevent serious injuries such as concussions, fractured jaws and teeth, severe cuts to the cheek and tongue (often requiring surgery for repair), and traumatic damage to the roots and bone that hold teeth in place. The mouthpiece acts as a shock absorber and can help prevent or minimize the injury. All mouth guards are not created equal. Depending upon the design and materials used, mouthpieces will vary in protection, ease of maintenance and longevity.

• Custom-Made: Formed from a cast model of your teeth, these custom-made guards are designed to cover all the teeth and make contact with a greater area of the wearer’s mouth. These mouth guards can cushion falls and blows to the chin. Custom-made Mouth guards also provide extra thickness and elasticity for the best protection against concussions. They may be slightly more expensive than commercially produced mouthpieces, but they offer the best possible fit and protection. These mouthpieces are specifically shaped in palate to improve breathing and speech with proper alignment of the jaw.
• Mouth-Formed: Mouth-formed or “boil and bite” mouthpieces also should be fitted by your dentist. These guards are generally made of acrylic gel or thermoplastic materials shaped to fit the contours of your teeth. If you or your child wear braces or fixed dental appliances, it is essential that your mouth-formed guard be custom-fitted by your dentist. Stock mouthguards are not designed to properly fit. The boil-and-bite mouthguards offer very little thickness to protect the teeth. As they wear down with use, it's almost like no plastic at all.

Mouth guards are required in sports such as football, but custom-fitted models can cost about $100. Most high school athletes use a self-adapted mouth guard that is softened in boiling water and then self-fitted around the teeth. Custom mouth guards, because of their exact fit, reduce the chances of concussions and tooth damage much more than so-called "boil-and-bite" mouth guards that athletes fit for themselves.

Sports Dentistry facts offered by the National Youth Sports foundation for safety:

• More than 5 million teeth are knocked out each year, many during sports activities.
• An athlete is 60 times more likely to sustain damage to the teeth when not wearing a protective mouthguard.
• The cost to replace a tooth and the follow-up dental treatment is about $5,000.

Advice from the American Dental Association:

• A properly fitted mouthguard reduces the chances of sustaining a concussion from a blow to the jaw.
• It is estimated that faceguards and mouthguards prevent approximately 200,000 injuries each year in college and high school football.

O•Pro Mouthguards is recommended for custom-made mouthguards and the cost is anywhere from $40 to $60. For more information about this product or to order O•Pro mouthguards you can go on-line at www.opro.com. If you have any questions, please call us anytime.