It’s common to go to the dentist and have to get some work done or come home with dental appliances. Dental appliances treat several issues and are necessary for oral health maintenance. Sometimes certain dental issues go unnoticed and untreated, and all that is needed is the right dental appliance. Our dental clinic provides night and athletic mouthguards in Niagara Falls to help keep patients’ teeth safe from harm and correct specific issues.
Mouthguards are usually overlooked because most patients need to learn the important protection they provide or because some mouthguards are custom-made to fix an issue the patient has with their teeth. If you’ve never been prescribed a mouthguard by your dentist, it’s easy to think they aren’t important.
If your dentist has never told you to wear a mouthguard, you may have never seen them or only seen them in certain circumstances. The truth is athletic mouthguards play a vital role in tooth protection but aren’t the only type of mouthguard that is available.
Athletic mouthguards are important because they are custom fitted by the dentist and are meant to protect the teeth from hard impacts and the damage that can occur when a person is playing a contact sport. Going without one is not a good idea, so it is best to see the dentist if anyone in your family takes up a sport.
Night guards are different types of mouthguards prescribed to correct a dental issue. Most often, when a person comes into the dentist with a particular issue like clenching or grinding their teeth, the dentist will prescribe a night guard to fix the situation—clenching. At the same time, asleep can cause tension in the jaw muscles, ultimately leading to TMJ (otherwise known as lockjaw). Tooth grinding occurs when a person’s teeth grind together at night. This can cause a person to crack or chip one or more teeth unintentionally.