Custom Mouth Guards

Reception Area at Western Springs Office

Mouth guards are crucial for preventing injuries to the mouth during sporting activities. mouth guards.

When her high school age children started playing boy’s football and girl’s lacrosse, Dr. Satko saw ﬁrsthand the struggles with a “boil and bite” technique and felt there had to be a better way. She did some research, joined the Academy of Sports Dentistry (ASD) and started a high school mouth guard program at her children’s school. Dr. Satko affirms the most rewarding part is providing protection for the athletes’ smiles, after many years of treating dento-alveolar trauma and jaw fractures.

After two years of providing custom ﬁtted mouth guards to her children’s school and to surrounding schools, she believes more than ever in the importance of a properly ﬁtted mouth guard.

More than ﬁve million teeth will be knocked out in sporting activities this year, to children, high school students, college level athletes, and even professionals. In fact, dental injuries are the most common type of oro-facial injury sustained during participation in sports.

According to the American Dental Association, more than 200,000 oral injuries are prevented annually in this country by sports mouth guards. Dr. Satko would like to see that number increased substantially!

Dr. Satko and surrounding orthodontists believe that orthodontic patients (children with braces) are especially vulnerable to sports related mouth trauma. Dr. Satko will work closely with your orthodontist to ensure you receive the best treatment.

It might be argued that any protection (i.e. mouth guard) is better than nothing. In fact, some research suggests that a properly ﬁtted and properly worn mouth guard may help reduce the incidence and severity of concussions. Some mouth guard choices oﬀer greater comfort than others:

• Not ﬁtted to bone or alveolus
• Teeth must be clenched
• Hamper speech and breathing
• Generally not easily or comfortably worn

• “Boil-and-Bite”
• Make up 90-95% of the mouth guard market
• Do not easily achieve a good ﬁt
• Make it difﬁcult to speak and breath
• Are difﬁcult to adapt to orthodontic appliances

• Composed of resilient material ﬁtted to a model of an athlete’s teeth
• Can be tailored to the demands of the athlete and the sport
• Offer excellent retention
• Can be adapted to mixed dentition and ortho patients
• Provide the most protection to the dento-alveolar structures

Dr. Satko is committed to providing quality, affordable custom mouth guards that have the following features:

• Protect the soft tissues of the oro-facial structures
• Protect the teeth, mandible, and maxilla from fracture
• Protect the supporting structures from injury
• Fitted so that it does not misalign the jaw and throw off the bite
• Lightweight
• Strong
• Easy-to-clean
• Tear-resistant
• Comfortable
• Do not restrict speech or breathing

She fabricates a combination of heat and compression formed multiple layered ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) laminate mouth guard. Dr. Satko recommends the combination of both heat pressured and vacuum formed mouth guard techniques because this process pushes the EVA onto the dental cast and allows a thicker occlusal layer of the material verses just the vacuum formed guard which has thinning over the incisal edges and is prone to delamination.

Since the mouth guards are custom ﬁtted, orthodontic patients can even have a mouth guard made to allow orthodontic movement by blocking out the braces and adjusting subjected to orthodontic forces and are “loose.” We recommend a new mouth guard each season to accommodate: growth, wear, and orthodontic treatments. It is well worth the investment and time.