If you have ever suffered from a knocked out, chipped or cracked tooth you will know exactly how painful it can be. Not only is the pain immediate, but it may require months or even years of painful and costly dental surgery to repair the damage. Knocked out teeth cannot always be replaced and you may require a dental implant or bridge to artificially replace it. Chipped and cracked teeth can usually be repaired with dental bonding, but if the structural damage is too severe, it may require a crown or a veneer to prevent any further damage. All of these artificial dental substitutes will require replacing at various intervals throughout your life.
Nearly half of all dental injuries are caused when playing sport or doing some kind of physical activity and nearly all of these could be avoided with appropriate dental protection. This would usually involve wearing a mouth guard specially prepared for your teeth by a dentist. Although it possible to buy mouth guards from sporting good shops, these are often generically designed and do not provide adequate protection for your teeth. An ill-fitting mouth guard is only marginally better than not having one at all. The real protection comes form the well placed padding and protection offered by a tight-fitting guard.
Wearing a mouth guard may not be the most comfortable thing in the world and let’s face it, it really doesn’t look that cool either, but it does look a lot cooler than having missing teeth and having to wear a partial denture when you’re only in your twenties. It also makes much better financial sense to shell out a few pounds to have mouth guard properly fitted by a dentist than to have to pay thousands for a dental implant or porcelain crown.
This is a case where prevention is certainly much better than cure. Ask a City of Leeds dentist about having a mouth guard fitted and it might be the best money and half an hour of your life that you’ll ever spend.
Tags: broken teeth, chipped teeth, cracked teeth, mouth guard, sporting injuries
