Why? Because everything from consuming sports drinks to breathing through your mouth can create the perfect storm for enamel damage. Over time, this can lead to tooth sensitivity, discoloration, and even cavities, issues that can sideline your smile.

Dental Erosion Cause #1: Diet & Nutrition

Sports drinks and energy gels might be the fuel you need to perform, but they’re often packed with acids and sugars. Even healthy foods like fruit smoothies or protein bars can be surprisingly acidic (and high in sugar). Acids soften tooth enamel and make it easier for erosion to occur, while sugar feeds decay. If you frequently sip or snack on these throughout the day to keep your energy up, your teeth are in constant contact with acid, which accelerates enamel wear.

Prevention Tip: Use a straw when consuming acidic or sugary products (to keep them from contact with your teeth), and wait at least 30 minutes before brushing to avoid damaging softened enamel. Additionally, opt for water or low-acid electrolyte replacements whenever possible.

Dental Erosion Cause #2: Dehydration and Reduced Saliva

When you’re training hard, it’s easy to become dehydrated, which is bad news for your whole body—including your mouth. Saliva plays an essential role in neutralizing acids and protecting your tooth enamel. When saliva production drops due to dehydration or heavy mouth breathing during exertion, acid erosion can occur unchecked. Dry mouth also increases the risk of bacterial buildup, further increasing your potential for dental damage.

Prevention Tip: Stay hydrated by drinking plenty of water before, during, and after workouts. If dry mouth persists, try chewing sugar-free gum or using mouth rinses designed to stimulate your saliva flow.

Better Dental Health For the Win

Protect your smile like you protect your winning streak: stay hydrated, choose your fuel wisely, and schedule regular dental checkups to keep your teeth as strong as your game.

The post Why Are Athletes at Higher Risk for Dental Erosion? Understand the Causes & Tips on How to Prevent It appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.

Healthy teeth are more than just a pretty smile for these Olympians. A healthy smile has been
linked to a lower risk for systemic diseases such as heart disease. In addition, strong teeth help
these athletes to properly chew their food, therefore supporting proper digestion.

With all the rigors of being an athlete, how do these professionals protect their smile when
competing in the winter games?

Custom Mouthguards Prevent Injury

In sports such as skiing, snowboarding, and hockey, custom mouthguards are an integral part of
preventing injury. Combine this with the fact that a dental emergency can majorly hinder—if
not entirely halt—their performance and mouth safety has become more of a priority than ever
for these competitors.

Custom mouthguards are essential and offer full protection, as compared to store-bought ones
that can’t properly mold to your unique smile. In fact, there’s also evidence that mouthguards
may help decrease the frequency and severity of brain concussions. This is because in addition
to protecting the teeth, custom mouthguards can help absorb the harmful impact in sports that
can cause concussions!

Protecting and Preventing Sensitive Teeth

In the Winter Olympics, cold air does more than make the body cold. If these athletes have
sensitive teeth, breathing cold air can actually make teeth that have compromised enamel hurt!
It’s imperative that these professional competitors take care of their smiles to avoid this.

For example, consider figure skating, where athletes are exposed to temperatures close to
freezing while outdoor competitors are exposed to temperatures in the negatives, sometimes
as much as 25 degrees below! These temperatures are enough to make sensitive teeth painful,
therefore compromising an athlete’s ability to perform their best.

It’s essential to prevent sensitive teeth when possible by adopting best practices when it comes
to teeth whitening (always get it professionally done), hygiene (gentle brushing habits), and
checkups (every six months). An athlete’s mouth is more important than you think!

Athletes Need to Have Their Best Smile

For all the reasons above, athletes need to have their best smile. Dental checkups are
imperative to getting cavities treated early as well as getting any injured teeth repaired. A
professional dentist can also fit athletes with a proper mouthguard, ensuring their smile is
protected at all times while competing.

X-rays can also help determine any problems that your dentist can’t easily see, such as
impacted wisdom teeth. Did you know that athletes who have impacted wisdom teeth are four
times more likely to suffer from a broken jaw while competing? It’s more important than ever
for these professionals to have their best, healthiest smile.

Have you been enjoying the Winter Olympics? Consider that these Olympians need to keep
their mouths as healthy as possible. It wouldn’t hurt to take a cue from these professionals and
take care of your smile, so that you have the best, most beautiful and healthy smile for your
future, whether you’re an Olympian or not!

The post How Winter Olympians Protect Their Smile appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.

Offer More Oral Protection

That store-bought mouthguard is not made to fit your smile. It was made to fit a variety of smiles, therefore the chances that it will accurately fit yours are slim. Even if you buy what you believe to be the correct size for your mouth, those standard mouthguards still don’t fully protect each and every tooth in your mouth.

Custom mouthguards allow every tooth in your mouth to have optimal protection. They take a minimal amount of time to take molds at your dentist office and they last longer and are made to protect your smile whether for bruxism or contact sports. Why gamble with your smile? When the cheaper mouthguard fails to work, you’ll end up paying to replace your knocked-out or damaged teeth!

Keep Your Child Safe

Standard mouthguards are often either too big or too small for your child’s mouth—they won’t fit just right unless they’re custom-made. If a mouthguard is uncomfortable, your child may choose to not wear the mouthguard or take it out during their sport. Who can blame them? Having an oversized piece of plastic shoved into your mouth doesn’t make for happy sport playing.

Your child may also find it difficult to speak while wearing his or her mouthguard, therefore making it unlikely that they’ll notify their coach if there’s a problem or be able to communicate with their team. If your child wears braces, they especially need optimal protection to keep the braces from cutting their gums in the event that they get hit or fall during contact sports. Ill-fitting mouthguards don’t offer this type of protection!

Increase Performance

You may even have trouble breathing if you buy a standard mouthguard that wasn’t made to fit your mouth. This is alarming for an adult, but even more so for a child. If you or your child use mouthguards for playing sports or bruxism, trying to breathe while having this uncomfortable, bulky guard in your mouth can be difficult.

Not only is this unsafe, but it will also hinder your performance. Your lungs need to take in an adequate amount of oxygen to supply your muscles with while exercising. While sleeping, your body still needs air to breathe and supply your brain with oxygen, as the brain is more active during sleep. Increase performance with custom mouthguards and stay safe while sleeping!

Leave your standard mouthguard on the field—custom mouthguards are a better fit. They provide optimal protection, keep your child safe during sports, and boost your performance by allowing your body to properly breathe. Talk with your dentist about getting a custom mouthguard made today!

The post Why Custom Mouthguards Are a Better Fit appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.

Teeth Grinding

Athletes run a higher risk of damage to their teeth and gums through bruxism, or teeth grinding. Teeth grinding can happen during intense exercises, as a result of stress, or even an injury. It’s important to wear custom mouth guards if appropriate for the sport you’re playing. If not, try to be aware of whether or not you grind your teeth during exercises. Bruxism is a serious threat to your oral health and can lead to tooth enamel damage, inflamed gums, and even tooth loss. Consider dental guards or exercises and workouts that are low impact. You shouldn’t be grinding your teeth during an exercise, even if it’s a difficult one!

Dry Mouth

One of the biggest influential factors of poor dental health among athletes was found to be their saliva (link to study: http://www.ada.org/en/publications/ada-news/2014-archive/november/endurance-athletes-may-be-more-prone-to-tooth-erosion-and-caries-researchers-say) —not only did the pH of athlete’s saliva change as they worked out, but saliva also decreased due to mouth breathing. Breathing through your mouth can quickly dry out your mouth, leaving a perfect space for bad bacteria to thrive. Lack of saliva in addition to bad bacteria can erode your enamel over time and lead to cavities, gingivitis, and tooth loss.

Instead of breathing through your mouth, try better breathing methods such as through your nose. It may take time to build up to working out with your mouth shut the whole time, which could mean decreasing the intensity of your workouts while your body adjusts. It’s worth it to protect your teeth!

Diet—Sports Drinks and “Health” Bars

While some studies haven’t found a direct link between athlete’s dental health and their diet, diet still plays an important role in oral health. Athletes may be predisposed to having dental problems as a result of their dry mouth, and a dry mouth isn’t the best environment to be introducing sports drinks to. The conventional sports drink is packed with processed salts and sugar, which are doing your body more harm than good!

Many “energy” bars tend to be packed with sugar as well. Learn to read the label and remember that whole foods are better than buying pre-packaged ones. Toss the sports drinks and opt for more natural alternatives, such as coconut water. If you don’t like the taste of coconut water, you can add whole salts like pink Himalayan sea salt to your water (just a pinch) to help get those trace minerals you need in addition to rehydrating.

Exercise is so important for your body! Although athletes are more at risk for poor dental health, you can adopt healthy practices to reap the benefits of exercise and still have a great smile. Don’t grind your teeth, breathe through your nose, and rehydrate with coconut water during breaks. Healthy teeth, healthy body!

The post Athletes Are at Risk for Poor Dental Health appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.

Periodontal disease, or gum disease, often begins with bacteria that cause inflammation to your gums. The symptoms include pain, swelling, bleeding and receding gums, and eventually, tooth loss. Amazingly, a study conducted by the Journal of Dentistry shows that people who take part in regular exercise as well as don’t smoke were over 50% less likely than people who don’t exercise regularly to have gum disease.

The more active you are, the better! Even exercising a few times a week can reduce your risk of gum disease, and people who exercise less than that even reduce their risk by over 30%. Being physically active at least three times a week could mean cutting your risk of gum disease by half!

Healthy Weight, Healthy Smile

Further studies suggest that keeping your body at a healthy weight could also reduce your risk for periodontal disease. This means keeping your BMI (body mass index) in the low index range, meaning having a lower percentage of body fat as well as keeping fit. This could also be because those who care about exercising and their health take better care of their teeth. Not smoking, eating healthy, and regular dental checkups can maintain great smiles of athletes and non-athletes alike.

Planning an Exercise Regimen

You don’t have to be a superstar athlete—or even the kind that runs marathons—to participate in exercise. Even walking for 30 minutes a day most days of the week can improve your health. At a loss as to where to start? Begin with things you enjoy. Talking with your doctor about which types of exercise would be most beneficial for you is also a good place to start. High impact exercises such as jogging, biking, or jumping rope could be for you, or you may want to stick with low-impact exercises like swimming, yoga, or walking. The choice is yours, but remember that among many other health benefits, being physically active at least three times a week could reduce your risk for gum disease!

These studies also showed that smokers did not experience the same benefits of exercise as non-smokers did. In fact, smokers are more at risk for periodontal disease, regardless of their exercise habits! Exercising has many amazing benefits for your body, your brain, and your smile. Reduce your risk of periodontal disease by exercising!

The post Exercise Promotes Health in Teeth and Gums appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.

Custom Dental Mouthguards

Custom dental mouthguards are your best protection against injury. This is because they are specifically made to fit your mouth. This includes shape and size in addition to any unique features of your mouth that will need to be taken into account with a mouthguard. A custom dental mouthguard can be constructed at your regular dentist’s office. Although this option is the more expensive option when it comes to mouthguards, the protection that it offers you or your child during sports is unparalleled. No other mouthguard will offer you the same level of protection that your unique mouth needs than a custom dental mouthguard.

ArmourBite Mouthguard

You may also have the option get an ArmourBite mouthguard at your dentist office. These mouthguards, while offered by Under Armour, will be customized at your dentist office. These mouthguards are created by having your dentist take an impression of your teeth, which is then sent to the lab to create your unique ArmourBite guard. You’ll get to choose your color and you can even get your name and number printed on the guard so that if you ever misplace it, it can be returned to you. These mouthguards help protect against teeth grinding during competitions and impacts to your jaw in contact sports. ArmourBite mouthguards come with a one-year warranty and take only ten days to be delivered to your door from the lab.

Benefits of Custom Mouthguards

The benefits of custom-fitted mouthguards include:

– Better quality material molded to fit only your mouth.

– The size will be perfect—no bulky store-bought mouthguards that make speaking and breathing difficult.

– Proper, custom fit effectively separates the upper and lower jaw so that any impact will be properly absorbed by the mouthguard instead of going to the teeth or head.

– Prevents teeth grinding.

– Custom-fitted mouthguards effectively reduce the risk of injury from concussions, jaw fractures, tooth loss, bruising to the face, and stress on the neck.

– Mouthguards that are custom are much more comfortable than standard ones, making you more likely to wear it.

When sports season comes in this fall, don’t let yourself or your children go unprotected—athletes can’t afford to ignore their oral health. Prevent injury, tooth fracture and loss, and perform optimally at your sport with a custom mouthguard this season.

The post Athletes Can’t Afford to Ignore Their Oral Health appeared first on Your Dental Health Resource.