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Mouth Guards for Athletes

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Athletic activities and playing sports are great ways to spend your time – learning physical and mental skills, developing sportsmanship and teamwork, and creating life-long healthy habits. However, one habit that many athletes forget is protecting their oral health. We’d like to share a tip that our team at New Hampshire Center for Comprehensive Dentistry in Amherst, New Hampshire has to help protect your oral health – and most importantly, your teeth – while you’re playing your favorite sport. The tip? Mouth guards.

Why bother with a mouth guard?

Certain sports and activities may put you at risk for being hit in the face – not a bunch of fun on its own, for sure – but if you get hit in the mouth without proper protection you’ll definitely have no fun at all seeking emergency care for broken or knocked out teeth. A broken tooth (and usually they are in the front of your smile) may not be savable, or may require root canal treatment and a crown to repair. A tooth knocked out of socket can many times be reinserted, but there are risks that it might not “take” or it may not be able to be replaced at all. Not to mention the pain, the time and cost involved at the dentist, and the change to your smile and eating habits that could occur. These are all experiences we want to help you avoid.

Getting an athletic mouth guard

The whole mouth guard process is really simple. Schedule an appointment with us to have a custom impression taken of your upper and lower teeth. This is important so that the way you bite and your jaw joint are also properly aligned while you’re wearing the mouth guard. This impression mold is then used to create a customized mouth guard that fits perfectly over your teeth. (You can even get your team colors or logo on the guard!)  A custom mouth guard provides more protection for your teeth and jaw joint than “boil and bite” guards and most people say it’s way more comfortable and less bulky. And if you keep the impression mold it’s even easier to get a second mouth guard if you happen to lose the first one.

If you’re ready to get an athletic mouth guard in Amherst NH to keep your teeth safer and more protected, call us today at 603-672-6546 to see how we can help.