A Guide to Saturday Sports Injuries
What to do if you hurt yourself playing sports.
What to do if you hurt yourself playing sports.
Playing sports can have amazing benefits for your life. It can improve your physical and mental health, give you a chance to be social, and make you part of a community. But there’s also a bad side to Saturday sports, and your after hours dentist knows all about it. Certain sports carry a high risk of dental injuries, and there’s nothing worse than interrupting a game because you get hurt. Fortunately, your dentist can now help with the most common types of sports injuries.
Sports Injuries Statistics
Dental injuries can be both costly to treat and have a variety of implications for the patient. It can affect your financial life and have long term functional and psychological effects. Around 31 percent of the dental injuries in Australia occur during sporting activities, which makes playing sports one of the primary causes of this type of trauma.
According to Dr. Amrinder Oberoi from Paramount Dental Sydney, “Rugby is usually the worst for sports injuries. The most common thing we see is people with a displaced tooth or a tooth protruding through the roof of their mouth.” Almost any sport can cause dental injuries, whether those injuries are caused by contact with other players, such as during rugby, or by accidents. If you suffer a Saturday morning sporting injury, then contact your after hours dentist immediately because there’s a lot they can do to help.
Treating Sporting Injuries
There are several sporting injuries that your dentist can help with. Here are some of the treatments they offer for the most common types of dental trauma:
Whether you have a large or small crack in your teeth, your dentist has treatment options that can help. Even a small crack in your tooth needs to be fixed because over time it will spread and could result in a large part of your tooth shearing off. Depending on the extent of the crack, your dentist can cover it with a crown or veneer. Dental bonding can also be used on small cracks to make the tooth solid and strong again.
Tooth Intrusion
If you’re injured during sports, then your tooth or teeth can get driven back into the jaw. This can be very painful and can result in the loss of the tooth and severe dental trauma. The treatment for this problem depends on the extent of the damage, but usually involves surgical intervention.
Tooth Displacement
Obviously, losing a tooth because of a sporting injury is very serious. If this occurs, your dentist may be able to save it, so pick up the tooth and place it gently back in the socket if you can before making a trip to your after hours dentist. If the tooth is too damaged to be put back in your mouth, ask your dentist about dental implants. It’s important that you don’t just leave the gap as it is because this will cause bone loss and affect the placement of other teeth.
Avoiding Sports Injuries
According to Dr. Amrinder Oberoi, “The best advice is to always wear a mouthguard when you play sports.” This is an easy and simple step you can take to safeguard your oral health and save yourself a trip to your after hours dentist. A mouthguard is a protective device that covers your teeth and gums and protects them from impact. Unfortunately, too many people skip wearing their mouthguard when they need to, and even more sportspeople don’t know that they should be wearing them! Mouthguards should be worn when taking part in sports such as:
Basketball
Boxing
Hockey
AFL
Rugby
Soccer
Squash
Cycling
Martial arts
Racquetball
Skateboarding
Rollerblading
Surfing
And more…
If you play a lot of sports, then it’s usually best to get a custom designed mouthguard from your dentist. It will fit better than one-size-fits-all options which means you’ll be more likely to wear it when you need to. It’s also important that you get your children fitted for mouthguards if they play sports as well. If they have a mouthguard that fits properly and is comfortable, they’re more likely to use it. And this will save you the cost of a traumatic and expensive trip to your after hours dentist.
Emergency Dentist Sydney Says:
If you have an infected tooth or other dental emergency, contact our Emergency Dentist in Sydney. Our caring and expert staff are available 24 hours a day to help you with all your emergency dental needs.
NEED ADVICE OR EMERGENCY DENTAL CARE IN SYDNEY CBD?
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The 'White Teeth Diet'
Scrap the Atkins, Raw Food or Paleo Diets, we love the White Teeth Diet. We'd like to share with you how you can eat your self to a whiter smile...
Take It With a (White) Grain of Salt
Scrap the Atkins, Raw Food or Paleo Diets, we love the White Teeth Diet. We'd like to share with you how you can eat your self to a whiter smile.
When considering a diet that is friendly to keeping your teeth white, it is just as important to avoid certain foods as it is to eat others. It's a little crazy but if you want to maintain that healthy white smile you were born with, or paid for, a few simple practices can help you out. There are three factors to keep in mind on this diet, chewing, saliva production and staining They all help to keep teeth healthy and white. Please keep in mind this isn't a whole diet you should live by, it's just a few simple steps you can take to keep teeth white. Let's start:
Do The More Often:
Apples, carrots, cauliflower, green beans and celery. These are the firmer, crunchier foods that require you to chew more. They act similarly to a toothbrush and scrub your teeth while you chew.
Hard cheeses. Similar to crunchy fruit and veg, they help clean the teeth by removing particles and preventing plaque build-up.
Citrus fruits like grapefruit, lime, lemon and oranges help rinse your teeth naturally while you eat, encouraging saliva production which protects the teeth.
Dairy products of course contribute to keeping teeth white. The lactic acid in dairy products will also help to prevent decay.
Water. The purest way to wash away any foods that potentially stain your teeth.
Do These Less Often:
Coffee and tea will stain your teeth.
Soft drink such as Coke and sports drinks will stain your teeth and cause decay.
Red wine is one of the worst for staining your teeth. That red wine smile isn't so cute either.
White wine causes tooth decay. Just like red wine, white wine has higher than normal pH levels which increases your loss of enamel.
Fruits like blackberries, pomegranates and blueberries will obviously stain the teeth.
Sauces like soy or currie will also stain the teeth and aid decay.
- Hot Tip 1. Anything that stains your shirt will stain your teeth.
- Hot Tip 2. If you can't give up your coloured drinks, use a straw.
At The #EmergencyDentist Sydney we couldn't live without wine! #AfterHours of course. Some of us even drink our coffee through a straw, yes it's as weird as it looks. But, drinking in moderation, properly brushing and flossing and regular check-ups will keep your teeth healthy and strong.
The #EmergencyDentist Says:
For those of us who aren't lucky enough to be born with a pearly white smile, and for those who love a diet full of teeth-staining foods and drink, a regular clean or whitening from us can help you out.
Dental Care 101: Playing Sports
Sports and active lifestyles are an important part of many people's lives and proper prevention and protection practices should be number 1...
Mouthguards Are Your Best Friend
One of the most common causes of dental injuries comes from contact sports. Sports and active lifestyles are an important part of many people's lives and proper prevention and protection practices should be number one.
The injuries our beloved contact sports cause are often very painful and can require expensive treatment. Our Dentists can fit you or your family members with custom moulded mouth guards, you can contact us to find out more. These are just some of the benefits of wearing a custom fit mouthguard:
A custom fit will enable the best possible speech and breathing.
The tailored shape means a snug and uniformed fit to your teeth, enabling best possible protection.
The quality of the material we use in the mouthguard are the strongest grade possible, while still being relatively thin.
They come in a range of colours, you can match it to your sporting team or keep it clear or plain.
For more on prevention practices view our TOP 10 Prevention TIPS List.
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