Worried
About Your Child Knocking Out A Tooth?
  
  
Prevention of oral sports injuries is the key, but sometimes
teeth do get broken, loosened, knocked out, or even pushed
right through the lips.
Did you know that about 5 million teeth are knocked out each year in
the U.S.A. alone? Many sports can be dangerous without the proper
protection. The one-size-fits-all mouthguards found in stores are
uncomfortable and just don’t fit very well, so you have to keep
your teeth closed tightly together to keep them in place. Wearing
these, how can you breathe while running during soccer or basketball? You
can’t!
Custom-Made Sport Mouthguards
Custom-made sports mouthguards are made from a mold of your own teeth
and mouth. They fit well, protect well, and can be worn for any sport,
including soccer, baseball, basketball, cheerleading (we’ll talk
about this below), wrestling, and karate, (because they stay in place
without keeping your teeth together) and of course football and hockey.
- They’re comfortable
- They SNAP into place
- They hold tight!
You can speak and yell with them, and breathe through an open mouth. And
when you get hit -- they protect better and are less likely to go flying
out of the mouth like the store-bought mouthguards often do.
But these professional custom-made mouthguards are usually expensive,
and children grow out of them just like shoes.
Protection during sporting events is of special interest to Dr. Kurthy — he
has been the team dentist for the U.S. Men’s World Cup Soccer Team
and many other teams. This is why he provides these, FREE OF CHARGE,
to all the young athletes (and their parent ‘weekend warriors’)
when the family is part of his practice. So don’t let the usual
cost of $350 prevent you from protecting your kids or yourself.
Preventing Oral Trauma
Some important information from Dr. Kurthy about prevention of oral
trauma during sports, and what to do if it does happen…
Having worked with many cases of oral trauma during my hospital residency
and with so many sports teams, I’ve seen why so many young athletes
don’t wear sports guards. They’re uncomfortable, and you
can’t wear them during sports where deep breathing through the
mouth is required for extended times, such as soccer and basketball.
That is why we typically see so many mouth injuries from wrestling, karate,
baseball, basketball, soccer and even cheerleading.
Custom-made sports mouthguards can be worn for all the above sports. But
the problem is that a common charge for these custom-made mouthguards
is about $350. And since kids grow out of them in just a few months,
the cost often prevents parents from providing this protection for their
children. This bothered me tremendously, so several years ago I
purchased all the equipment to fabricate these myself right in my office. This
allows me to provide these professional custom-made mouthguards for the
children of families in my practice. They can even be made for
kids with braces.
Give a Cheer for Mouthguards
My daughter was a cheerleader for several years. I’d never
realized how dangerous cheerleading can be, especially with mouth injuries. My
daughter was hit in the face numerous times during cheerleading (most
often during practice). One year she was on a team where one girl
had her jaw broken, and one girl was accidentally hit in the mouth, pushing
three teeth right through her lip, which will leave a horrible scar. Another
girl had one tooth knocked completely out, and several others had teeth
broken and loosened (requiring crowns and root canals in an attempt to
save the teeth). These injuries would have been minimal if the
girls had been wearing professional mouth guards.
Yes, they can talk and yell to the audience while wearing these. And
they look great when made in a snow-white color. If they don’t
want to wear them at games and during competitions, fine, but by far,
most of the injuries happen during routine practice, so they should at
least wear protective sports mouthguards during practice.
Mouthguard Misconceptions
The young man pictured below received this injury while playing Pop
Warner Football. He WAS wearing a mouthguard – a store-bought
mouthguard. But when he was hit the first time, the mouthguard flew out
of his mouth. It was a second “hit” a split second
later that knocked the young man’s right four lower teeth loose. The
third one from the left had actually been knocked completely out. The
picture was taken after the tooth was put back in place. You can
see the hole right through his lower lip. His lower teeth went
right through his lip.
This young man now has permanent damage to his teeth that he will have
to deal with during the rest of his life, as well as a facial scar. If
he’d been wearing a custom-made professional mouthguard, it would
have stayed in place when he was hit multiple times. The teeth
would not have been damaged, and his teeth would not have gone through
his lip.
Mouth injuries don’t happen playing softball…right? Wrong. This
cute eight year-old girl was the star of her team. She was hit
in the mouth with a softball. Notice that her upper left lateral
incisor was pushed up into the bone, under the gum.
And how about when simply out having fun rollerblading? This
is another common sport where we frequently see oral trauma: |
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Protect Your Child’s Brain With a Mouthguard!
 We’ve talked about mouth injuries, but actually, this is less
important than brain injuries. You can live without your teeth,
but not your brain.
Did you know that brain injuries (responsible for most of the catastrophic
sports injuries) are very much related to the teeth/jaws? It's
true. When the lower jaw is hit, it forces the lower jaw (at the
joint in front of the ears) to slam against the base of the skull. This
causes a shock wave into the brain resulting in brain injury (concussion).
Wearing a sports mouthguard places a cushioned space between the upper
and lower teeth, which absorbs the blow to the jaw, helping to prevent
the “BAM” against the base of the
skull when a blow to the jaw occurs.
Injuries: The Odds are Against You
If your child plays sports throughout school, there is a 56% chance
that he or she will sustain an orofacial injury at some time during the
school years. Certainly, many of these injuries are nothing more
than cuts and bruises – but some are major, and can be prevented
with a sports mouthguard.
Even in pre-high school children there is a significant chance of a
sports injury. In the age group 5-14 each year there are approximately
750,000 sports injuries resulting from organized sports alone. This
doesn't even count the everyday casual sports play around the neighborhood.
In football and hockey, there are mandatory precautions
such as sports mouthguards and often face masks. So it's
all the other sports that you don’t expect that cause most
of the injuries. Sports like baseball, basketball, soccer,
cheer leading, roller blading, wrestling, racquetball, surfing,
gymnastics, horseback riding, and many others.
It is critically important to provide your precious children
with protection when playing sports. The answer is the custom-made
professional sports mouthguard.
To the right is a photo of actual patients wearing their own sports uniforms
and professional sports mouthguards. They can be color-coordinated
to just about any uniform. |
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Following are many more sports injuries that were caused by an array
of sporting activities:
  
  
If a Tooth is Knocked Out
 When a tooth is knocked out, if (and that's a BIG IF)
the tooth is handled properly, placed back into the socket within
15 minutes, and if the victim is seen immediately by a dentist with trauma
training, the tooth will probably be kept for a lifetime.
First -- NEVER TOUCH THE ROOT OF THE TOOTH! The
oils on your fingers (finger prints) will contaminate the root, and the
body may reject it because of the finger print. Pick the tooth
up ONLY by the CROWN portion. Then, if
the tooth appears clean (has no debris on it) insert it back into the
socket right away.
If the tooth root does have any debris on it from grass or dirt, run
it under water for only one second (regular water will KILL the
cells on the root surface very quickly – so do not even rinse unless
absolutely necessary). Remember, DO NOT TOUCH THE ROOT OR SCRUB
IT IN ANY WAY. Then immediately (within seconds) place
the tooth back into the socket.
If for any reason, you cannot get the tooth back into the socket, it
must be placed in a liquid of some sort while transporting the patient
to the dentist. Do NOT place the tooth into water or
ice, a cloth, paper towel, or tissues -- this will kill the cells on
the surface of the tooth. Time is of the essence. The tooth
must not dry out for more than 15 minutes before being placed in a liquid!!
 Your choices in the order of best to worst are:
- The best thing to
store this tooth in is a Save-A-Tooth kit. This jar has sterile liquid
in it designed to cleanse the root and keep the microscopic cells on
the surface of the tooth root alive for at least 24 hours. Just
open the lid, drop the tooth into the liquid, and close the lid.
The
Save-A-Tooth kit is currently considered the Legal Standard of
Care, and all athletic coaches should have a Save-A-Tooth kit
on hand at all athletic practices and events. If your child’s
school and coach do not have Save-A-Tooth kits in their emergency kits,
make sure they get them. Inform them that if a child loses a
tooth because they do not have one of these kits, they are in jeopardy
of a lawsuit.
Here are just a few links where you can find these Save-A-Tooth
kits:
- Cold milk (preferably whole
milk) is the second best option if it is readily available on the
spot. Place the tooth in the cold milk and transport the victim
and tooth to a dentist as soon as possible.
- If there is an emergency
kit available with saline, place the tooth in saline. If not,
call 911 and have the paramedics called. They
will have saline in their kit to place the tooth in.
- Contact
lens solution.
- Saliva
is the last choice. If the victim is able to hold the tooth under
his/her tongue, then this can be done until reaching the dentist. Or
a parent of the victim may place the tooth under his/her tongue. Or
the victim or parent may spit saliva into a small cup and place the
tooth in the saliva while transporting to the dentist.
More questions? Just give us a call.
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