Orthodontics in Sports

In this post we will address an important issue for teens who play sports, should you wear your orthodontic materials? Well although your orthodontist might say differently here are our recommendations for which you should wear for some common sports.

Gymnastics: Although this is not exactly a common sport, both of us do gymnastics. We would say stay away from wearing your retainers because they might fall out or you might bite on them and break the plastic. Bands are okay, although you need to watch out for them snapping. Definitely do not wear head gear!

Swimming: Talking with people we know who swim, they say that wearing retainers and bands are fine because worst case is that they fall out and are at the bottom of the pool. In this case they are relatively easy to retrieve but watch out for the bottom pool filters. While swimming in the ocean or a lake do NOT wear retainers or anything because if you lose them there is almost no way to get them back.

Baseball: Bands or retainers are probably fine but watch out if they fall out because they might get stepped on!

Football: Chances are you will be wearing a mouth guard so it probably isn’t even an option.

Cheerleading: Same as gymnastics.

Soccer: Basically retainers and bands and such are going to be okay with soccer as well but similar to with baseball watch out for dropping them!

When I (Erik) had my clear retainers for the first time I wore them to gym. But after I did a skill and the bottom one came flying out I decided to stop. Head gear is basically not an option with any sport. Basically it all depends on you personally. For some people their retainers come out easily or they tend to snap bands so you need to figure out what works for you. Just use your common sense and decide whether you are going to wear them or not. And more importantly don't let fixing your retainers, bands, etc get in the way of you having fun playing whatever sport you enjoy!

-Amanda and Erik