INTRODUCTION
The cost of cosmetic and restorative dental procedures, not to mention the time and discomfort associated with those procedures, is an investment worth safeguarding. If you have crowns, veneers, or other types of prosthetic dental work, you may want to consider getting a mouth or nightguard to protect that smile.
- If you're athletic, you should consider getting a mouthguard.
- If you grind your teeth at night, you should look into nightguards.
Mouthguards
Although mouthguards and nightguards sound alike and have the same basic purpose-to protect your teeth-they are really two different appliances for very different situations. A mouthguard is a device you wear to prevent facial and head injuries while playing sports. Mouthguards can do a lot more than just protect your teeth. They prevent injuries to your lips, cheeks, tongue, neck, brain, mandible (the lower jawbone), and the temporomandibular joint (the TMJ in TMJ problems). Wearing a mouthguard can greatly reduce the likelihood of a concussion because it tempers the force of a blow to the chin so that a lesser amount of force is transferred to the brain. These types of sports injuries occur frequently. In fact, the National Youth Sports Foundation for the Prevention of Athletic Injuries, Inc. reports that dental injuries are the most common type of orofacial injury sustained in sports. In addition, the American Dental Association estimates that mouthguards prevent approximately 200,000 injuries in high school and collegiate football each year.
Nightguards
A nightguard, also known as an occlusal splint, is a device you wear while you sleep to prevent you from damaging your teeth by clenching or grinding. Worn and cracked teeth and damaged restorations are only some of the physical consequences of grinding, which dentists called bruxing. Related problems include sore jaws, headaches, neck aches and TMJ problems. A nightguard can help reduce your grinding problems in two ways: 1) A nightguard can help you relax your jaw muscles, which will reduce your headaches and sore jaws and balance out the forces in your mouth, and 2) It substitutes as the wearing material so that your teeth, jaw muscles, and nerves don't suffer the consequences of your nighttime stresses-it's better to grind the nightguard than your own teeth.
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