Mouth guards are essential for any person doing sports. Most schools will not allow students to participate in sport activities unless they are wearing sports mouth guards. The impact on teeth during sports impact can be immense, and loss or damage to teeth being common among some age groups and sport types. In addition, the risk to damaging or destroying your orthodontic appliance is also significant.
Regardless of whether one is undergoing orthodontic treatment or not, we highly recommend mouth guard protection of the teeth for anyone at every age doing contact sports. There are different levels of protection depending on what kind of sport you do. For example, someone playing hockey or polo needs much heavier protection for the teeth than someone playing football. For patients with fixed braces, it is essential to not only protect the brace, but protect the lips from the brace, by using individually made sports mouth guards.
If you participate in contact sports, please consult your orthodontist about which type of sports mouth guard is right for you.