How to protect your teeth while playing sports

Most sporting injuries are bad luck. Dental injuries are mostly preventable — and unlike a hamstring, a knocked-out adult tooth never fully recovers. You will be managing that tooth, and paying for it, for the rest of your life.

That is the case for a mouthguard, and it is a stronger one than most people realise. It is not the only thing worth doing, though, which is what the rest of this page is about.

Wear a mouthguard, and wear the right one

There are three kinds, and the differences are substantial.

Stock mouthguards — the cheap ready-made ones. They fit no one. Because they do not stay put, you have to clench to hold them in, which makes breathing and talking difficult, which means people take them out. A mouthguard in your sock protects nothing.

Boil-and-bite — softened in hot water and bitten into. Better than stock, and better than nothing. But they thin out over the biting surfaces exactly where thickness matters, the fit degrades, and they need remoulding as they lose shape.

Custom-made by a dentist — made from a model of your teeth, so the thickness is controlled where impact lands. It stays in place without clenching, you can speak and breathe normally, and it lasts. It is the option we recommend, and the honest reason is not that it is ours: it is that it is the only one people reliably keep in their mouth for a whole game.

For pricing, see our mouthguards page — fees are listed there so there is only ever one figure to keep current. Some private health funds contribute under extras cover; worth checking your policy. There is a fuller comparison, including how one is made and how to care for it, in protecting your smile during sport.

Which sports?

The obvious contact sports — AFL, rugby, boxing, martial arts, hockey. But dental injuries also happen in basketball (elbows), soccer (heads and elbows), netball, cricket, skateboarding, BMX and skiing.

A useful rule: if there is any chance of contact with another player, the ground, or equipment, wear one. Wear it at training too. A meaningful share of dental injuries happen at training, where people assume it is not needed.

What else protects your face, by sport

A mouthguard is one layer. For several sports it is not the most important one.

Sport	Mouthguard	Also worth wearing
AFL, rugby, hockey	Yes	Headgear where permitted; shin and face protection for hockey
Cricket	Yes	A helmet with a correctly adjusted grille — the gap must be smaller than the ball
Boxing, martial arts	Yes	Headgear for sparring
Basketball, netball, soccer	Yes	Nothing standard — which is why the mouthguard matters more
Skateboarding, BMX, mountain biking	Yes	A helmet; full-face for downhill
Skiing and snowboarding	Yes	A helmet
Baseball, softball	Yes	A batting helmet with a faceguard
Water polo	Yes	—
Squash, racquetball	Optional	Eye protection, which is the real risk in these sports

Two details that get overlooked: a cricket helmet grille that has been loosened or bent no longer does its job, and a helmet that has taken a hard impact should be replaced even if it looks intact.

Braces and mouthguards

If you wear braces you need a mouthguard specifically made to accommodate them — both to protect the teeth and to stop the brackets lacerating your lips on impact. Tell us you have braces when you book. Do not use a boil-and-bite over fixed braces; it can lock onto the brackets.

If you wear clear aligners, take them out for sport and wear a mouthguard instead. Aligners are not protective, and an impact with them in place can damage teeth and aligners together. Keep the aligner in its case, not in your pocket.

A retainer comes out for contact sport for the same reason.

Children

Children need mouthguards too, and because their jaws are growing and teeth are still erupting, a custom guard will need replacing periodically — often each season. Check the fit at the start of every season; a guard that no longer seats properly is not doing its job.

Worth adding: children with protruding upper front teeth are at measurably higher risk of dental trauma, in sport and generally. If that is your child, a mouthguard matters more, and it is worth raising an orthodontic assessment at a check-up.

The slower damage: what athletes drink

The injury risk is the headline. The quieter problem is erosion and decay, and it is well recognised among people who train regularly.

Three things combine:

Sports drinks, gels and chews, sipped and taken repeatedly over hours. Acidic and sugary, delivered in the worst possible pattern
Mouth breathing during hard exercise, which dries the mouth
Reduced saliva flow during prolonged effort, removing the natural defence exactly when acid exposure is highest

What helps:

Water for anything under an hour. Sports drinks are for genuine endurance sessions, not for the drive home
Rinse with water after a gel or a sports drink, and after finishing
Do not brush for thirty minutes after training — enamel is temporarily softened
Take gels in one go rather than sipping across twenty minutes
Sugar-free gum afterwards to bring saliva back up
Tell us how you train. It changes the recall interval and whether high-fluoride toothpaste is worth prescribing

See how your diet affects your oral health.

Swimmers have a separate issue: badly maintained pool water, particularly in some private pools, can be acidic enough to erode enamel with heavy training exposure. Rinse with water after sessions and mention it at your check-up if you swim daily.

Before the season starts

A short pre-season list that prevents most of what we see mid-season:

A check-up, ideally six to eight weeks out. A cracked or heavily filled tooth is far more likely to fracture under impact
A new or checked mouthguard, fitted and worn in at training before round one
Any deferred treatment done — a tooth waiting for a crown is the one that breaks
A splint if you grind, which is a separate device from your mouthguard
Numbers saved, and milk in the club first aid kit

What a club first aid kit should have for teeth

Almost nothing, and it is almost never there.

A small carton of long-life milk — the single most useful item for a knocked-out tooth
A clean container with a lid
Sterile gauze
A cold pack
A card with the steps below, because nobody recalls them under pressure

If your club has none of this, it costs a few dollars to fix and it is worth raising.

If a tooth is knocked out

This is worth reading before it happens, because the first ten minutes decide the outcome.

Find the tooth and pick it up by the crown, never the root
Do not scrub it or scrape anything off the root
If dirty, rinse briefly in milk or saliva — not water
If you can, put it straight back in the socket the right way round and bite gently on a clean cloth
If you cannot, keep it moist in milk or saliva, or held in the cheek (not for young children — choking risk)
Get to a dentist immediately

A knocked-out baby tooth is never put back — it can damage the developing adult tooth. Still get it seen.

For a broken or chipped tooth, keep the fragments in milk and bring them. See our dental emergency page for what to do and after-hours options.

Go to a hospital emergency department — not a dentist — for a suspected jaw fracture, loss of consciousness, or a head injury with confusion, vomiting or drowsiness.

Other injuries, and what they need

Injury	On the day	Why it matters
Tooth loosened but still in place	Soft diet, see a dentist promptly	May need splinting; the nerve may be affected
Tooth pushed out of position	Do not force it back. Same-day dental care	Repositioning is time-sensitive
Tooth pushed up into the gum	Same-day dental care	Common in children; management differs by age
Chipped enamel only, no pain	Keep the fragment; book within days	Often bondable
Chip with a pink or red dot showing	Same-day dental care	The nerve is exposed
Cut lip or tongue	Pressure with gauze, cold outside	Hospital if bleeding persists past 20 minutes
Jaw does not close properly	Emergency department	Possible fracture or dislocation

A tooth that darkens weeks or months after a knock is common and should be reviewed. It usually means the nerve has died, and it is treatable.

Returning to play

After a dental injury, ask the treating practitioner specifically when you can return and what protection you need in the meantime. Common advice: no contact while a splint is in place, and a new mouthguard made after any change to the teeth — the old one no longer fits the mouth it was made for.

If there was any head injury, the concussion protocol for your sport governs the return, not the dental treatment.

Mouthguards do not prevent everything

They substantially reduce the risk of dental and soft-tissue injury. They do not eliminate it, and the evidence that they prevent concussion is not established — do not treat one as head protection. Where a helmet or faceguard is standard for your sport, wear that as well.

Questions we are asked

Does a mouthguard affect my breathing or performance? A well-fitted custom guard does not meaningfully restrict breathing. Poorly fitting ones do, which is why they end up on the bench.

Do I need one for non-contact training? For most sports, yes at any session where contact is possible. For a gym session or a run, no.

I only have one season left. Is it worth it? One knocked-out front tooth costs more than every mouthguard you would buy in a playing career.

Can I wear a mouthguard with a missing tooth or a dental plate? Take a removable plate out and tell us about it — the guard is designed around what is actually in your mouth.

My child hates wearing it. Usually fit or taste. A custom guard in a colour they chose is worn far more often than a generic one. Bring it in and let us check how it seats.

What if it is knocked out of my mouth mid-game? Rinse it with water and put it back in. Do not leave it out for the rest of the game.

Who provides this here

Victorian Dental Group is a general dental practice in Malvern East and holds no specialist registration. Custom mouthguards and pre-season checks are provided by our dentists and oral health therapists. For facial trauma needing surgical care, we refer to a registered oral and maxillofacial surgeon or direct you to hospital.

Victorian Dental Group — 291 Wattletree Road, Malvern East VIC 3145 · (03) 9088 5808 · book online

General information only, not personal dental advice. See our disclaimer.

What is the single most useful thing?

A properly fitting mouthguard, worn at training as well as on match day. A custom guard made on a model of your teeth stays put without being clenched, covers the teeth and gum properly, and does not interfere with speech and breathing the way a boil-and-bite does — which matters, because the commonest reason a mouthguard fails to protect anyone is that it was taken out.

What else protects the face?

A helmet with a faceguard or cage where the sport uses one — hockey, ice hockey, lacrosse, cricket helmets for batting and wicketkeeping, and full-face protection for BMX and skateboarding. A helmet protects the skull; a mouthguard protects the teeth and jaw. They do different jobs, and where both are available, wear both.

Are sports drinks a problem for teeth?

Yes, and this is the risk most athletes overlook. Sports drinks, energy drinks and even flavoured waters are both acidic and sugary, and sipping them steadily through training keeps the teeth under acid attack for the whole session. The erosion pattern this causes — thinning, sensitive, translucent edges — is common in regular sportspeople. For most training, water is all that is needed.

What if I do use sports drinks?

Drink them in one go rather than sipping over an hour, use a bottle that delivers to the back of the mouth rather than washing over the front teeth, rinse with water afterwards, and do not brush for about an hour — softened enamel brushes away. Gels, bars and dried fruit are equally sticky and sugary. If you rely on them regularly, mention it at your check-up so the teeth can be monitored.

Does breathing through the mouth matter?

It does. Hard exercise means mouth breathing, which dries the mouth, and saliva is what neutralises acid and washes away debris. A dry mouth combined with a sugary acidic drink is a worse combination than either alone. Keeping water up during exercise helps with both hydration and saliva.

Do I need a mouthguard for non-contact sports?

Consider it for anything where a fall or a stray elbow, ball, bat or stick is plausible — which includes basketball, netball and soccer, where dental injuries are more common than people expect. It is not only full-contact codes. Skateboarding, BMX and horse riding are worth including too.

How do I look after a mouthguard?

Rinse in cold water before and after, clean with a toothbrush and mild soap, dry it and store it in its ventilated case. Keep it out of hot water, direct sun and the car, since heat distorts it permanently. Check it before each season for tears, thinning or perforation, and have children's guards remade roughly every twelve months as their teeth and jaws change.

What do I do if a tooth is knocked out at training?

Act within the hour. Hold the tooth by the crown, never the root, do not scrub it, rinse briefly in milk or saline if dirty — never water — and place it back in the socket, biting gently on a clean cloth. If that is not possible, keep it in milk or the person's own saliva and get help immediately. Do not reimplant a baby tooth. Phone Victorian Dental Group on (03) 9088 5808, 291 Wattletree Road, Malvern East VIC 3145, Monday to Friday 8:00am to 5:00pm; outside those hours, or with any head injury or jaw that will not close, go to a hospital emergency department.