So with mouth guards, there’s really two separate types of mouth guards. There’s mouth guards that you think of in a sports sense, and those mouth guards are really there to help protect from any trauma. So that can be teeth coming together, which may lead to concussions. It can come from teeth coming together that can prevent from fractures or chips or tooth loss in that sense.
The other type I sort of classify into what we call occlusal guards. Occlusal guards have even more classifications into them. But in general, occlusal guards are made to help protect your teeth so that we wear them down less, or they help us diagnose why our teeth are showing wear patterns on them. So we use them in both ways. One of the things…you know, we’re always trying to protect teeth, because if we’re showing wear or people are grinding their teeth, they’re putting more forces on their teeth than they normally would. And when we do that, it can create situations where people are more likely to chip or break a tooth or need more extensive treatments. So if we can protect patients from doing that, it really helps them keep their teeth for a lot longer.
