Benefits of Custom Fitting Sports Mouthguards
For over 50 years, high school football players have been
required to wear mouthguards. Football is a high contact sport and it is
logical that participants protect their teeth, gums, and jaw bone from injury.
However, sports like soccer, basketball and volleyball can involve high impact
collisions, but mouthguards are not yet required. Protecting you or your
children with sports mouthguards lowers the threat of injury to their teeth,
and new evidence is suggesting that it may even reduce the risk of concussions.
A broken or chipped tooth that results from facial trauma
can lead to much larger and more expensive issues. If the damage is small
enough, a filling can be placed on the tooth to regain its original shape and
color. More traumatic injuries may require root canals, crowns or even loss of
the tooth. This can cost thousands of dollars and take months to properly fix.
Having your dentist custom fit a mouthguard can greatly lower the chances of
injuring your teeth without inhibiting your ability to compete.
While there is no definitive way to completely eliminate
the risk of concussions in contact sports, there is some evidence that suggests
a properly fitting mouthguard can help reduce the probability. The logic suggests
that the mouthguard attenuates some of the forces applied to the head and neck
during upward contact with the chin. There are no current studies that
establish a direct correlation with complete certainty, but the absence of
proof is not necessarily proof of absence.
Parents will do so many things to protect their kids, and
we believe wearing a custom fitted sports mouthguard is an easy step in
reinforcing their safety in nearly all sports. Please don’t hesitate to contact
us if you have any questions or concerns regarding mouthguards or the
differences between custom fitted guards and over the counter mouthguards.
For more information of dental health
and ways to help protect your children’s teeth, visit us at www.brownandkupper.com!
Lee T. Brown, DDS
Brown and Kupper, DDS Inc.
(513) 860-3660
