Manohar Dental Care

When used for either sports or sleeping, the efficacy of over-the-counter mouthguards depends on a few things, such as these:

• How intensely you grind, clench, and gnash your teeth together
• The amount and type of outside force applied to the face (pucks, sticks, elbows)
• The thickness of the mouthguard itself
• Whether it was moulded properly after it was boiled
• Its ability to stay on the wearer’s teeth, even when the mouth is open
• A sleeper’s tendency to unconsciously dislodge the mouthguard

Protecting your teeth from grinding with an over-the-counter mouthguard is absolutely better than not protecting them at all. However, if your jaw moves enough to move or dislodge the mouthguard during sleep the mouthguard will no longer protect your teeth.

If you clench your teeth extremely hard, you may end up biting through the plastic or breaking the mouthguard which, again, would leave your teeth unprotected. If this sounds like your teeth grinding habits, a custom-fit mouthguard is going to be better suited to your needs.