Playing Sports While Wearing Braces

The majority of people who get braces to correct dental problems are teenagers or younger. These young people often play sports throughout the year as well. Of course, many adults stay in good shape by pursuing athletic endeavors too. Getting braces requires the wearer to make a number of changes to their lifestyle, but most couldn’t imagine giving up their favorite sport. Fortunately, you don’t necessarily have to. Wearing braces still means taking certain precautions, but that doesn’t mean taking time out from sports.

Wear a Mouth Guard

Without a doubt, the best way to protect your braces is with a mouth guard. This is essential if you play more physical sports like basketball, football, lacrosse, wrestling, any martial arts or other activities that involve contact. If your braces run into someone at the wrong angle, they could get damaged and need repairs. They could also cut the inside of your mouth or tongue. Braces could even harm the other person if you hit them right.

Let’s look at the three main reasons mouth guards are such a good idea though.

• They’re cheap: mouth guards will usually cost you a few pounds. At most, for a special kind that can work over braces, you might have to spend £10 to £20. That’s peanuts compared to the cost of needing to replace or repair braces or simply having to put up with the pain involved in an accident.
• Protects the inside of your mouth: like we mentioned, mouth guards are a great way to keep everything from your lips back completely safe. Physical contact in sports is normal and often nothing to worry about. When you have braces though, it’s a different story. The wrong shove, push or bump could mess up your loose teeth or otherwise damage the braces themselves.
• Prevent Biting Yourself: furthermore, it’s easier than you may think to bite yourself while enjoying your favorite sport, either because it’s so rough or because you’re focused so hard on what you’re doing. Either way, biting your tongue, cheek or lip is never a good idea. When you do it with braces, though, it can be especially painful.
• Protection against concussions: this isn’t necessarily related to braces, but if you wear braces, you’re far less likely to suffer a concussion. So, combined with one this affordable piece of rubber can do for your braces, why not wear one and avoid brain damage too?

Full Face Guards

Some sports may require mouth guards—and they’re still a good idea—but they also make it easy to increase your level of protection with a full face guard. Just about any sport with a helmet involved, like football, lacrosse or hockey, lends themselves to wearing a full-facial guard.

A full face guard clips right onto the helmet and provides a clear or tinted piece of plastic that won’t interfere with the player’s vision, but will ensure that it’s nearly impossible for the braces behind them to get damaged in any way.

Dental Wax or Silicone

If you’ve never seen dental silicone before, it comes in long strips that the wearer can cut into whichever size they want and then apply to their braces. Wax works much the same way. You apply it over your braces and the product will help protect the inside of your mouth from potential damage caused by impacts.

Ask your dentist or orthodontist for this product as there are a number of options you may want to try out before choosing one.

Playing sports is too important to stop doing it just because you want a better smile. Instead, use the above products to keep your braces nice and safe when you play.