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!

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Dry mouth is beyond simply being thirsty occasionally—everyone gets thirsty, but not everyone suffers from chronic dry mouth. If you have dry mouth, your saliva glands do not produce fast enough or simply enough saliva to keep your mouth hydrated. Your mouth quickly dries out, even if you drink plenty of water; it feels sticky (cottonmouth), and sores may form. If you experience these systems, here are some of the causes of dry mouth and how it can affect your oral health.

Causes of Dry Mouth

There are many different causes of dry mouth. The most common include:

• Medications – Many different types of medications, especially those used to treat anxiety, acne, hypertension, and asthma can cause dry mouth. These medications affect the mouth’s ability to produce enough saliva, causing the tissue in your mouth to become dry.

• Infections and diseases in the body – While infections in the mouth can cause dry mouth, infections and diseases throughout the body can also cause this condition. Diabetes, for example, can cause dry mouth, as can cystic fibrosis, arthritis, a stroke, hypertension, and AIDS.

• Medical treatments – Some medical treatments, like chemotherapy, can damage the saliva glands in the mouth, making it impossible for them to produce saliva, and therefore drying out the mouth.

• Dehydration – Even the common cold or a flu can cause significant dehydration, which makes it difficult for the mouth to produce enough saliva. Additionally, if you are just not drinking enough water, you might become chronically dehydrated, which can cause chronic dry mouth.

• Smoking/chewing tobacco – These habits can wreak havoc on your mouth, disrupting normal saliva production and irritating an already dry mouth.

Impact on Oral Health

Is dry mouth a cause for concern? Dry mouth comes along with a number of annoying symptoms, including a sore throat, inability to taste properly, and a swollen, red tongue. Aside from these symptoms, dry mouth can precipitate many serious oral health conditions. Dry mouth contributes to the development of gingivitis, speeds up tooth decay, makes it difficult for the mouth to fight infection, and can weaken teeth, besides just being uncomfortable.

The mouth (and body) needs saliva to help digest food, clean the mouth, and fight the development of bad bacteria. If simply drinking water does not relieve your dry mouth, you may have a serious condition and should discuss this problem with your dentist or doctor.

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Nearly all smokers will experience bad breath and stained teeth. You can whiten your teeth with professional whitening, but if you continue smoking, your teeth will stain again. Bad breath can become chronic when tar and nicotine settle in your mouth. Smoking also causes dry mouth, which can make bad breath worse. Covering up bad breath with mints or mouthwash does not eliminate the problem. As long as you continue to use tobacco, “smoker’s breath” will exist.

Periodontal or gum disease is common and can happen to anyone, but smokers are at increased risk. This is because tobacco interferes with cell tissue in the gums and causes separation of the gums from the underlying bone. This makes the area more susceptible to the entrance of bacteria and infection. This advanced risk of gum disease in turn creates a greater risk for smokers of tooth loss.

Compounding the issue with the bones under your gums is this fact: If you do lose teeth and desire to have them replaced with dental implants, smoking makes it less likely that implants will be successful. Implants need strong healthy bone in order to work. Healing after oral surgery also tends to take longer for smokers than nonsmokers because smoking impedes blood flow to the gums.

Oral cancer is the most dangerous threat smoking poses to your mouth. Oral cancer is any cancer that occurs in the mouth, around the mouth including the lips, or in the throat. Men and older people are the most likely to get oral cancer, though diagnoses in younger adults are increasing. Smoking and other tobacco use is a major risk factor for oral cancer. Oral cancer screening can detect oral cancer early, and people at higher risk, including smokers, may benefit from having oral cancer screening as part of their dental checkups.

If you are a smoker or use tobacco products, quitting can not only benefit your overall health and reduce your cancer risk, it can greatly improve the condition of your mouth and help your teeth and gums to be cleaner and healthier.

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The key to eliminating acids is saliva, which helps to wash them away. The act of chewing in itself stimulates saliva production. Some foods contain substances called tannin, which can reduce acids. This is why tannin-containing foods and beverages may actually be good for your teeth. One of these foods is chocolate.

The tannin in chocolate is in the cocoa, and dark chocolate contains more cocoa than milk chocolate. Dark chocolate also contains less sugar than milk chocolate, so when it comes to your teeth, eating dark chocolate may not only be safe, it may even be helpful. When choosing dark chocolate, read labels and pick a brand that contains a high percentage of cocoa, at least 70%. The more cocoa dark chocolate has, the less sweet it is, and the better it is for your teeth.

One concern about tannin is that it can cause teeth staining if consumed in excess. If you are worried about staining, you should try to brush your teeth after eating dark chocolate or other tannin containing foods or beverage (red wine, coffee and tea are some others.) You should not brush immediately after eating, however. This is because after you have eaten, your teeth are soft. Brushing with a toothbrush at this time could actually harm your teeth and interfere with the recalcification process that re-hardens your teeth for about 20 minutes after eating. Once 20 minutes has passed, brushing your teeth will get help to rid of any remaining acids, as well as cleaning your teeth to reduce the chances of staining. If you can’t brush your teeth that soon after eating, drinking water is the next best thing

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Cold sores are a form of the herpes virus, and highly contagious. Canker sores are not contagious and are a simple wound, not a virus. Canker sores are almost always inside the mouth, whereas cold sores often are located outside the mouth around the lips. If you have a small, round or oval spot on your tongue, the roof of your mouth or inside your cheek and it is painful to the touch or when you eat, it is probably a canker sore.

Canker sores cannot be treated and they will go away on their own, usually in a week or two. In the meantime, they can be very uncomfortable, but there are methods of easing your discomfort while you are waiting for your canker sore to go away.

A visit to the dentist can determine if the problem is actually a canker sore. If it is, you can take over-the-counter pain medications to ease the pain, or the dentist could prescribe an antibacterial mouth rinse or a topical medication.

Canker sores can be caused by a variety of things including injury to the mouth, certain fruits or vegetables that can irritate the tissues inside the mouth, vitamin deficiency or poor diet. Women get canker sores more often than men do, and children are more likely to get them than adults.

Severe cankers sores are rare, but a canker sore that is unusually large or doesn’t go away in three weeks may require treatment with prescription medications. If you have canker sores that are accompanied by fever, a feeling of sluggishness or joint pain, you should call your physician.

You can decrease the chances of getting canker sores by maintaining a healthy diet, brushing your teeth with a soft-bristled brush to avoid irritation to the tissues in your mouth, and by limiting your consumption of citrus fruits or vegetables that cause irritation to your mouth.

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