Custom Mouth Guard for Sport

cormie

Maybe I should be posting this in the Boxing/MMA or some other sport forum but just wondering if anyone has any advice on custom mouth guards?

I'd like to get one for basketball, have already had a close call with my incisors going into one guys head and after seeing another player lose his tooth when something similar happened, I think it's a worthwhile investment and probably better off spending a bit extra to get something comfortable and more protective than a generic boil and bite one.

Did a small bit of research into it and I can get a custom one from gladiatorguards.com who have come highly recommended from several sports forums when googling. The way it works is I will pay $60 for the custom piece, they ship the mould for $20 (to Ireland), I ship it back and they make the piece from this and it will cost me another $20 shipped to Ireland, so around €95 or so altogether, expensive enough I know but I play a lot and if anything happens it'll end up costing much more.

I've seen a few similar high quality guards advertised locally but there seems to be a lot and you don't know if they are any use, the gladiator ones seem to get a lot of great reviews so would like to go with them, unless anyone can convince me otherwise? They said if I already have a model of my mouth I can just ship this direct and then they will make it out of this, so I won't have to pay the two $20 fees and it will speed it up. Any idea how much it would cost and where I could get a model of my mouth done around Dublin? Is this something any dentist could do?

Any feedback appreciated

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Get a custom guard made by a dentist from a accurate impression. Cost 60-80 euro. Any dentist can do this for you.

cormie

Thanks for that, is that 60-80 eur just for the impression or for the finished guard? Have read posts here from others saying they had guards for €300 and one guy even mentioned €750 :eek:

Would the type of guard I'd get here be suitable for sports or would it be mainly the type used for teeth grinding etc? Need it to be comfortable enough to play with etc..

Mingetoad

The €60-80 (closer to 80 I reckon) would be a custom fitted sportsguard, not just the impression. The stuff you see most rugby/GAA/boxers using. The more expensive ones are probably something like Under Armour "Performance Mouthwear". According to sponsored research they reduce cortisol, increase oxygen etc etc. You see a few of the pro rugby players and the odd GAA player with them.
The usual one from the dentist for 80 odd is certainly comfortable enough for use in sports and provides very good protection.

cormie

Thanks for that. I guess given the high volume of quality feedback the gladiator guards have it might be better to just spend the extra €15 or so and do it with their kit..

btkm8unsl0w5r4

You would have seen grind splints for more, soft sport guards are generally less than 100 euro (complete). The underarmour guards and the performance guards dont offer great protection in some designs.

cormie

Thanks for that, seeing as it'll work out pretty much the same price, I'll probably just go with the gladiator given it's reputation, plus every future re-order will be half price so if I need more in future, it'll be only around €35 delivered.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Your better off getting a professionally made one, the chances are you will not take a good impression yourself. A dentist made guard is the best type of guard. If the fit is sloppy the protection is diminished and the comfort is not so good. The only reason to get one of these given the price of it is if you really don't want to go to a dentist.

cormie

Hmm interesting alright, how are these having such rave reviews if you can get better for pretty much the same investment locally?

Mingetoad

Cos usually a dentist made one in the US is a few hundred dollars.
Regarding the Under Armour ones Fitz, they have three types. Two custom made (one for contact sports, one for non-contact sports) and one that is stock mouldable. The contact sports one really is a good piece of kit, better than a lab would give us here, but at a very very high cost (lab fee alone a couple of hndred last time I checked). They certainly offer full protection.

cormie

Oh yeah? So it's actually cheaper to get the dentist made ones here? That's a first

What way does the under armour one work? Where do you get fitted for them or do some dentists have affiliation etc?

Mingetoad

Yeah they have 'preferred suppliers' who take an impression and send it to Under Armour to be made. I'd expect them to cost about 400 odd.

cormie

Wow, that's a lot of money.

So in summary, would this be about right?

Gladiator - Best "own impression" option for avoiding dentist at a cost of circa €90 for first guard and €35 per guard after.

Irish Dentist Regular Mould - Professional impression taken and guard made from this, will be more effective, protective and comfortable than Gladiator. Cost is around €80 per guard.

Under Armour via Preferred Supplier - Best protection and comfort possible with lab design and professionally taken impression. Cost around €400.

Does that sound about right?

With the Gladiator there's also a few options The raptor resists chewing. The power grip allows you to bite your lower molars into the guard which is meant to help prevent concussion. Neither should be a big concern for me playing basketball really.

Cosmetically, how would the dentist ones look? I would have been going for the clear gladiator one. They put their logo on most of them and you actually have to pay $10 more to not have the logo on it, which I was going to pay. So the dental one is just the upper teeth too I imagine, how would it be thickness wise etc? This is just for basketball so wouldn't need such high protection as I would if I was boxing or doing MMA or Rugby etc

btkm8unsl0w5r4

you can have it made in any colour you want, or two colours, or three colours although the multicoloured ones are a little more expensive. OP if getting a branded one is going to make you more liekly to wear it then do that, all that matters is getting some good protection for your teeth.

Mingtoad, yeah the full protection custom under armour ones are good but I have seen a few people wearing the lower armourbite thinking its a really cool looking mouthguard. Also a lot of the underarmour guards are boil and bite. Again even a cool looking UA boil and bite is offering worse protection than a custom made one. UA offer custom ones but these are not the ones that people get most often.

cormie

Thanks fitz, I think you misread my post above, I said I was going to pay $10 extra to have the logo REMOVED, just want a simple mouth guard, no need for branding

I wonder are the under armour ones really that much better or if it's just marketing hype?

Mingetoad

The lower Under Armour is for non-contact sports. It is for breathing, cortisol etc. so anyone wearing them for protection has been given bad information from their dentist.
From a protection point of view the Under Armour have nothing more to offer than what the dentist would usually give out. They are so expensive to pay for the research, advertising, etc that goes into them. They MAY improve some aspescts of physical performance, and this is where they differ, not on the protection.

ballsymchugh

just veering slightly off topic for a sec, but how does a mouthguard protect against concussion??

Mingetoad

If it's a serious question and not rhetorical, the short answer is : nobody is sure if they do.
IF they do- the hypothesis is that the mouthguard changes the position of the mandible on impact which in turn will alter the force entering the fossae. Some impact force will be dissipated throughout the guard too. I prefer to advise patients on their use for preventing dental injuries, not concussion.

mikehn

I'M really out of touch pricewise, a neighbour is supplying custom mouthguards, 2 for €80 with a custom case and i remember commenting on how expensive they sounded, ouch, must remember shut mouth catches no flies. He does the total custom bit, impression etc but he carries out a slight modification to the guard, he incorporates a "dam" at the back which is a slightly raised line of material which really creates suction to hold the piece in place. My nephew was showing me how firmly they gripped and it was really difficult to pull them down. I cant see how it would be possible to beat this kind of service.

Big_G

Post dam is not necessary for holding a mouthguard in. The undercuts of the teeth from their natural contour and embrasure is enough to hold a gum shield in in most cases. A correct impression will pick these. Fitz the under armour expensive guard comes from the LVI/Jankelson school of occlusal thinking if you get my drift.

cormie

Mingetoad wrote: »

The lower Under Armour is for non-contact sports. It is for breathing, cortisol etc. so anyone wearing them for protection has been given bad information from their dentist.
From a protection point of view the Under Armour have nothing more to offer than what the dentist would usually give out. They are so expensive to pay for the research, advertising, etc that goes into them. They MAY improve some aspescts of physical performance, and this is where they differ, not on the protection.

Thanks for that. I'm guessing from your posts you're a dentist, if you want to PM me your clinic address and a price to get this done I might get in touch if my own dentist doesn't offer this If any of the other posters here are dentists too just let me know

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Big_G wrote: »

Post dam is not necessary for holding a mouthguard in. The undercuts of the teeth from their natural contour and embrasure is enough to hold a gum shield in in most cases. A correct impression will pick these. Fitz the under armour expensive guard comes from the LVI/Jankelson school of occlusal thinking if you get my drift.

I would go so far as to say a post dam is undesirable for a sports guard as it would effect the fit in the time periods allowed as it sits on uncompressable palatal mucosa (unless this chap does full coverage?) Post dams are present to soak up the shrinkage of acrylic in dentures and sports guards are not made of acrylic.

The UA guards are a bit Voodoo alright, however they do have literature showing improvement in performance for elite athletes. The placebo effect is strong and real

cormie

Ok, so which one of you wants my business if you're local enough to Dun Laoghaire?

ballsymchugh

cormie wrote: »

Ok, so which one of you wants my business if you're local enough to Dun Laoghaire?

your own one will be able to help you.

cormie

Interesting, sent this to Gladiator:

Hi again,
Thanks for the reply. After having researched this a bit more on an Irish forum, the dental section It has been suggested that I would be much better off getting a custom guard made from a professional impression done by a dentist who will then send it off to get a guard made themselves. It will be maybe around ?80, so a little cheaper (although more expensive for each subsequent guard) but is said to be a better option than doing my own impression. Apparently the cost for US Dental services is much higher than here which is strange as usually everything here is more expensive Unless there are several strong reasons to get a gladiator over a regular dental guard?

Thanks for your help anyway

Regards!

And got this back:

MY guess would be a dental professional answered that question. Ask the dental professional how many guards they do a year we do more most likely in a day. We understand the requirements for different sport and change how we make the guard based on what it will be used for. Each guard is sport specific. we also use a much higher grade of impression material than what a dental professional would use. They will likely use a material called alginate we use crown and bridge material called poly vinyl siloxane a far more accurate material. Dental professional would like you to believe making a simple mold of the mouth is rocket science and you could not possible do it. Frankly we work for dentist as well as the general public and the general public does as well as they do with the molds.
Thank You

ballsymchugh

technically, us dentists don't make them either, we ship the impressions off to a lab that'll make loads of them a day. since the new GAA guidelines are coming in next year, i'd say technicians around ireland are making plenty themselves.

you can do what you want, but there's plain marketing going on in that reply. you're not getting a precision crown or veneer made, so accuracy down to the nanometre is not important.

park500

This is misleading "poly vinyl siloxane a far more accurate material".
This material is good for impressions of teeth but not gums- you need an accurate impression of both at the same time for a gumshield.In fact i would warn against using it as it sets very hard any you may not be able to get it out of your mouth.
For friends and family I use http://www.playsafemouthguards.co.uk/
A dentist will probably charge 100-150 for one of these.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

The PVS material they ship is a putty consistency which has very little surface detail. Taking an impression is not rocket science, but I find it difficult to take a good one of my own mouth, especially with putty and I take dozens of impressions every day.

At the end of the day, its a 80 euro sports guard, nobody is going to get their knickers in a twist about where you go to have it done. My advice to my family and friends (for whom I have to make them for free so it would be easier to tell them to go online) would be to have a custom made one, taken from a good impression made by a dentist. They are cheap, well fitting, comfortable and easily remade if you loose it off the same model. The amount it would cost to fix a fractured tooth is ten or more time greater than the cost of a sportguard, if you go to a dentist to have one made the added benefit is you become a patient of record with that dentist and they provide you with emergency treatment and preventative advice.

All this discussion about a simple, device readily available on every high street in the country for less cost than a tank of diesel, is a waste of your effort. Just get one somewhere and use it.

America is far more expensive for dental treatment, so is Canada, so is Australia. Everyone, everywhere thinks their local prices are too great. The fact that a dentist recommends going to a dentist and a company that make money doing the opposite say the opposite shouldn't come as a surprise, however I hope that we have explained why its better and less expensive to go to a dentist.

cormie

I'm definitely not trolling Just showing the reply after thanking them for their detailed initial email and offer. €80 is a lot when you can get boil your own ones for €5. Before I started looking into getting a mouth guard I wasn't expecting them to be anywhere near €80 as I got one years and years ago for about €5. When I'm buying something I'll be using for a number of years, and in this case, probably having to buy further ones down the line, I like to do the research first be happy with the result and then I know what to do next time and can just go the same route without needing any further research. I know €80 isn't a lot, especially compared to fixing any damage that could be caused without one and I've no problem spending €80 on something that will protect my choppers

Also, I was thinking along the same lines of getting a clean done at the same time

Mingetoad

Cormie, I understand €80 may be a lot to you,but as you say, if it protects you from serious dental trauma then it is superb value. I would echo fitzgeme's previous post. You seem to be torn between the gladiator mouthguard and a dentist made one. There isn't a large price difference and there wouldn't be much difference in performance between them. If I were you I would go to the dentist as you will get somewhat of an exam also and you would be guaranteed that the guard will fit properly. Regarding the gladiator statement about sports specific etc, I would respectfully counter that by saying that the sports you are doing (boxing/mma) need the highest protection so those modifications are not applicable to you anyway. I have seen the gladiator guards, there are no problems with them at all, they look cool, but they certainly are not in any performance way better than a custom made one from the dentist- in fact, they are custom made pieces from a lab (essentially the same thing with a cool brand).
Don't sweat over the difference of a few euro, the main thing is you haven't been fooled again by a boil-and-bite one from a sports shop. Go for the gladiator one or one from a dentist and then don't forget to WEAR IT!

cormie

Thanks for that and for your PM. I don't actually do boxing or mma, it's for basketball mainly but good to have for anything I may get into too

Will probably check with my regular dentist and see if they can do it and I'll get a clean/check up at the same time. If I've no luck I'll be in touch