Appliances

Sport Mouth Guards

Mouth guards should be used by any child or adult who plays contact sports (football, boxing, soccer, hockey and basketball). An effective mouth guard should be comfortable, durable and easy to clean. It should not restrict your breathing or speech. While mouth protectors can be purchased at any sporting goods store, they provide little or no protection. Store bought guards tend to be bulky, making breathing and talking difficult. We do not recommend their use.

You need a mouth guard designed for your own mouth. We can make a custom-fitted mouth guard designed specifically for you using materials designed to increase comfort and provide protection.

Night Guards and TMJ Splints

Grinding and clenching your teeth at night, known as bruxism, can lead to cracked teeth, pain and tooth loss. Temporomandibular Joint Syndrome (TMJ) can develop from bruxism and is extremely uncomfortable. Night guards and splints help to treat both of these conditions.

While we can’t prevent you from grinding or clenching your teeth at night, we can prevent the damage it can cause with a custom-fitted mouth guard.

TMJ (also referred to as TMD) occurs when the jaw joint hinged to your skull is injured or inflamed due to clenching your teeth, injury to the jaw or another cause. This condition is quite painful. If you are suffering from any of the following symptoms, you should be evaluated for TMJ:

• Pain in your face, jaw, neck or shoulders, especially when chewing, speaking or yawning
• Clicking and popping sound in the jaw joint
• “Locking” of the jaw
• Swelling of the jaw
• Fatigue in the jaw
• Difficulty chewing

Like bruxism, night guards are helpful for people with TMJ/TMD. The guard keeps your teeth slightly separated and prevents them from clenching. If your condition is more severe, you may require a splint to hold your jaw in place so the joint can heal.

Night guards are worn while you are sleeping, while splints are worn all day.