© Dennis Martin DDS Inc  2012 Made with Xara Mouthguards for the elite athlete Sports Dentistry Facts The American Dental Association recommends wearing custom mouthguards for the following sports: acrobats, basketball, boxing, field Hockey, football, gymnastics, handball, ice hockey, lacrosse, martial arts, racquetball, roller hockey, rugby, shot putting, skateboarding, skiing, skydiving, soccer, squash, surfing, volleyball, water polo, weightlifting, wrestling.  Mouthguard design and fabrication is extremely important. There are four types of mouthguards according to the dental literature. Stock, Boil and Bite, Vacuum Custom made, and Pressure Laminated Custom made  Dr. Martin uses the Pressure laminated Custom mouthguard for his athlete patients. This mouthguard is thicker on the biting surface but thinner by the tongue making it more comfortable to speak with it in and safer. It also has the best retention of any mouthguard by far. Plus logos can be incorporated. An athlete is 60 times more likely to sustain damage to the teeth when not wearing a protective mouthguard. Every athlete involved in contact sport has about a 10% chance per season of an orofacial injury, or a 33-56% chance during an athletic career. Victims of knocked out teeth who do not have a tooth properly preserved or replanted may face lifetime dental costs of $15,000-$20,000/tooth, hours in the dental chair, and the possible development of other dental problems such as periodontal disease. The stock mouthguard which is bought at sports stores without any individual fitting, provide only a low level of protection, if any. If the wearer is rendered unconscious, there is a risk the mouthguard may lodge in the throat potentially causing an airway obstruction. What is Sports Dentistry? "Sports Dentistry" involves the prevention and treatment of orofacial athletic injuries and related oral diseases, as well as the collection and dissemination of information on dental athletic injuries and the encouragement of research in the preventive of such injuries.