Can You Still Play Football With Braces?

This quick answer to this question is yes! Of course you can still participate in the activities you love while you have braces, whether it is football, dance, cheerleading, soccer, or anything else. Aside from having to get used to a few additional maintenance habits, your life will continue to rock while you work toward the smile you’ve always wanted.

How to Protect Your Smile

We all know football is a pretty heavy full-on contact sport, so naturally, some precautions will have to be made to prevent injury to yourself or da mage to your braces. Damages can be costly, and injuries can obviously be painful. Neither of those are desirable outcomes, and both can be easily avoided. Say you get hit in the mouth somehow – this could either break a bracket (or more than one) or cause the inside of your mouth to get cut on the braces themselves – painful and inconvenient, to say the least. The best way to prevent any injury or damage is to wear an orthodontic mouthguard while playing any contact sport. Even if your sport of choice has little to no contact, like tennis, it is still recommended to protect your teeth with a mouthguard. A flying tennis ball to the mouth will not feel good.

Invisalign Patients

Now, if you’ve opted to do Invisalign, there is significantly less risk in playing sports. Your retainers aren’t going to hurt if your lips are forced against them for any reason, nor will they break the same way braces can. If you’re really interested in taking precautions with Invisalign, you might consider removing your retainers during the time you play your sport, although it isn’t really necessary, and you should always wear your retainers for as long as possible throughout your treatment.

Damaged Braces or Injuries?

If, for some reason, you damage your braces, call us at Milnor Orthodontics as soon as possible! If your braces aren’t damaged but you were injured by your braces, you should still give us a call to assess whether or not you should come in for an emergency appointment to fix any unseen damage. We’re here to help you and will do everything we can to get your braces fixed and in tip-top shape again.

Whether your sport of choice is full contact, partial contact, or no contact at all, a mouthguard is a great way to ensure orthodontic and dental healthy throughout the entirety of your treatment. Our spectacular team is committed to getting you the smile of your dreams and will do everything we can to make sure you can continue your life as normal during treatment.