Custom-fitted Mouthguards in Tracy, CA
Mouthguards can protect teeth during contact sports and other risky activities.
Accidents happen… and dental injuries during athletic competition are an all-too-common occurrence. Once a tooth is cracked, broken—or worse, knocked out—there’s no going back. It’s for keeps.
The National Institute of Dental Research reports a dramatic drop in mouth and face injuries to football players since the 1960s, largely due to rules established requiring the use of mouthguards and headgear. However, of the sports with most youth participants (baseball/softball and soccer), researchers found that only 7% wore mouthguards most of the time.
Protecting faces and mouths from bats and balls is just as important as from hard-charging linemen! Football has mouthguard protection written into its rule book, but many other sports and risky activities do not.
If your child is involved in any sports activity (even a pickup basketball game) a well-fitting mouthguard is the least expensive and most effective protection you can have.
There are three general types of mouthguard:
- Stock or Pre-formed. Inexpensive, yes. But one-size-fits-all usually means one-size-fits-nobody. And the mouthguard that sits unused is doing no good.
- Boil-and-bite. Usually available at sporting goods stores and with a better fit than stock guards. But if the preparation steps aren’t followed correctly, you may not get a good fit.
- Custom-fitted at a dental office. The Gold Standard. Developed from a cast model of the wearer’s mouth, the fit is more precise—and more comfortable—than the alternatives. Result: they’re far more likely to be worn by the student-athlete routinely.
And isn’t that the entire point of having a mouthguard?
