Last weekend I watched my first Rugby game.   Wow, what a game it was!  A couple of my patients play for Medina High School’s Rugby team and I made good on a promise to watch them in action.  It is not a game for the faint of heart. I think it is fair to say you have to be very, very tough to play a game that is almost all about physical contact.

Of course as a dentist, seeing that melee of arms and legs and body slamming out in that field, my first thought is “I hope they all have good fitting mouthguards.”.  As any parent will tell you,    getting their child athlete to wear a mouthguard can be a difficult chore. Often that is because the mouthguards do not fit well and impede the child’s ability to talk and breathe. The most basic mouthguard, an over the counter stock mouthguard,  requires the mouth to be closed to keep it in place. Slightly better but still difficult to wear are the boil and bite mouthguards sold in most sporting goods stores. These guards are softened in boiling water and then molded to your teeth. These guards can  also be bulky and uncomfortable to wear.

What my two patients out on that rugby field were wearing were Custom Made Mouthguards, made by our office. These mouthguards are available to you too, and are made by us at a very reasonable cost.   A molded cast will be made of your teeth, and the mouthguard is fabricated to fit comfortably over your teeth.

A well made mouthguard can protect your mouth from serious injury, cushioning your teeth and soft tissue from the trauma of serious blow to the mouth or jaw.   According the Academy of General Dentistry, in some 200,000 cases annually, mouthguards have been known to avert oral injuries and cut the risk of concussion by 50 percent.  Injuries to your teeth and brain can impact you for the rest of your life.  Why take the risk?

My two boys played soccer, basketball, baseball and lacrosse.  In each sport  it was a house rule that if they didn’t have their mouthguard with them, they were benched.  Trust me, they only forgot them once.  Make it your house rule.  No mouthguard, no game. And if your child needs a mouthguard, CALL US!  We will get one made for them pronto.

Watching young athletes excel like my two Rugby Playing Patients is always so much fun!  Go Medina!  Win that Scrum!