I study as well as teach karate. I need to wear a mouth guard when we spar. And with all the money I have spent on my braces, I am not going to go cheap on a mouth gaurd. The most common type of mouth guards are the boil and bite kind. They are inexpensive, and they work very well. But they wont work for braces as the hot soft plastic will stick and mold to the braces.
I bought a mouth guard made by Shock Doctor that was designed for braces. It isn’t a boil-and-bite kind. You don’t boil it at all. You just stick it in your mouth. It was bulky, and very uncomfortable. And I couldn’t talk very well with it on my mouth. And when I kiai’d while sparring, it would sometimes fly out of my mouth.
I kept looking for a better mouth gaurd for braces. My search paid off! I found a mouth guard made for braces that was produced by a company named Shield. It is called Extreme Braces Mouth Guard. The mouth guard is made of two different types of plastic. So when you boil it, the part of the mouth guard that fits on the bottom of the teeth gets soft, but the sides where the brackets are, doesn’t get soft, so doesn’t stick to the braces. I dipped the mouth guard in some boiling water for 35 seconds, then stuck it into my mouth, and bit down. Then I dunked the mouth guard into cold water to make it rigid again. The mouthguard was very comfortable! It fit as well as the traditional boil-and-bite mouth guards.
If you do a Google search for “shield extreme braces mouth guard”, you find various places to buy it.

Posted by Rob in Reviews on November 5th, 2006 |