Reasons You Should Never Forget to Protect Your Smile

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Living Your Active Life: Reasons You Should Never Forget to Protect Your Smile

An active lifestyle that includes regularly playing your favorite sport is always going to be a good thing to do for your overall health, but there are plenty of examples where people forget to protect their mouth while taking part in an activity, only to regret the consequences.

A visit to someone like emergencydentistsusa.com might be able to fix the problem if your teeth and gums have taken a hit during a sports game, but the sensible strategy is to protect your smile in the first place, by wearing a mouth guard.

Never forget to pack this small piece of sporting equipment

You wouldn’t leave home for a sports event without your kit, but just as important as your boots, ball and baseball bat, is your mouth guard.

If you are involved with playing a contact sport, players are often required to wear protective headgear and pads before the game can start, but all too often, one of the most vulnerable and important areas of your body, your mouth, is left exposed.

While you may be taking part in a sport that doesn’t stipulate that you need to wear a mouth guard, you are often greatly reducing your odds of suffering from a serious dental trauma.

The American Dental Association provides a list of sports where they recommend that you wear a dental mouth guard, which includes sports like hockey, which you might expect to be the case, but also lists basketball and softball, which have been the cause of a numerous traumas as a result of contact during play.

Creating a barrier

A brief moment of contact like a misplaced elbow from an opponent as you compete, can end up with cracked or broken teeth, resulting in a large dental repair bill and a broken smile until it can get fixed.

The simple act of wearing a sports mouth guard can create a barrier that helps to prevent your teeth from cracking or breaking, if you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time on the sports field.

The mouth guard will take the main brunt of the impact created by a blow from a flailing arm or a hockey stick for example. This means that the force of the impact is more evenly distributed, which helps to reduce the prospect of your teeth getting broken.

Preventing a jaw bone fracture

Getting a tooth knocked out is the not the only issue you are contending with on the sports field when there is contact, as you could also be vulnerable to a jaw bone fracture.

As well as helping to prevent tissue damage and broken teeth, the simple act of wearing a mouth guard will also help protect against the possibility of a jaw fracture.

What happens when you are hit with force and are not wearing a mouth guard, is that the impact may be too severe for your jaw to handle, causing it to fracture. Wearing a mouth guard will help to distribute the force of the impact more evenly, providing that vital bit of padding that could help you avoid a jaw bone fracture.

Enjoy your sport, but do consider wearing a mouth guard if you want to protect your smile and keep your teeth where they are.

Patricia Turner is a dental hygienist, a role she has been in for several years. Currently confined to bed rest as she waits for her first child to arrive, she is keeping her mind active by spending some