Pulled hamstrings and sprained ankles are common sports injuries, to be sure, but they’re not the most common. The most common type of sports injury is an injury to your mouth — especially your teeth. Mandatory equipment for any sport involving any risk of physical contact should include sports mouth guards in Yaletown.
Custom-fit mouth guards from our dentist in Yaletown are thick plastic shields that erect a barrier between your upper and lower teeth while — at the same time — erecting a shield between your teeth and countless other objects posing risks of bodily harm: sticks, pucks, elbows, goal posts, balls, knees, helmets and even the ground, turf or court.
Mouth guards from our dentist in Downtown Vancouver do more than protect teeth, too. They also protect the soft tissues of your lips, tongue and cheeks by cushioning blows to your face. They can even help protect athletes from debilitating concussions by redistributing forces of blows to an athlete’s head.
What Injuries Can Mouth Guards Prevent?
Buying and wearing mouth guards near you can prevent thousands of injuries annually in British Columbia. Some of the most common injuries that are most easily prevented simply by wearing a mouthguard from our dentist near you are the following:
- Knocked out, broken and chipped teeth
- Damage to the roots and nerves of teeth
- Concussions
- Cuts and bruises to your lips and cheeks
- Broken jaws
- Damaged dental work such as crowns and bridges
- Luxations (when teeth are pushed out of their original position, either into the gum or to one or the other side)
Who Should Wear a Mouth Guard?
If your league or association requires wearing a mouth guard, you should follow those rules. Even if wearing mouth guards in Yaletown is not technically mandatory, athletes playing high-impact sports should protect themselves from oral injury by wearing a mouth guard. Examples of such high-impact injuries include some of the obvious: hockey, football, rugby, lacrosse, soccer, boxing, and wrestling. Other less obvious potentially high-impact sports include baseball, softball, basketball, volleyball and soccer.
Sports are not the only activities that can expose your or your child’s teeth to significant injuries. While the line between sports and recreational activities can be hard to draw, participants should wear a mouth guard wherever the line is drawn. Examples of recreational activities that can expose a participant to serious oral injuries that can easily be prevented by wearing a mouth guard include gymnastics, figure skating, mountain biking, horseback riding, skateboarding and rollerblading.
There are several options for obtaining protection from oral injuries with a mouth guard, including off-the-shelf mouth protectors; boil-and-bite mouth guards; and custom-fit mouthguards from our dentist near by you.
Off-the-shelf mouth protectors offer the single and solitary benefit of being inexpensive. They are, though, designed to fit the typical athlete of each size range and, as a result, fit only some people well and effectively. Boil-and-bite bags initially fit teeth better than a standardized off-the-shelf unit but are made from far more fragile materials than a mouth guard obtained from our dentist near you.
A mouth guard from our dentist in Yaletown will be made precisely for your teeth based on impressions taken from your teeth, including teeth with braces or dental work. Customized mouth guards from our dentist near you provide the most protection from the most injuries. Yes, they’re more expensive than off-the-shelf and boil-and-bite options, but the old saying is true. You get what you pay for.