Our Vancouver dentists offer a variety of dental appliances, such as mouth guards and sleep apnea devices, to help improve and protect your oral health and overall wellbeing.
What is a Dental Appliance?
A dental appliance is any device that is used as a supplement to dental treatment, and can help protect your oral health. They are custom-fitted to your mouth.
Custom Mouth Guards
A mouth guard is a custom-made tray that fits over your teeth. It can be worn during sports activities to help protect your teeth from trauma, or during sleep to protect them from the effects of grinding and clenching.
Mouth Guards for Sports
If you get hit in the mouth during a high-impact activity, a mouth guard can absorb the impact more evenly, providing a barrier between your teeth and the soft tissue of your mouth.
Mouth Guards for Sleep
If you grind your teeth during sleep, a mouth guard may act as a barrier to help protect the teeth from damage. If you clench your jaw, a mouth guard can help prevent you from clenching and provide some pain relief.
Snoring & Sleep Apnea Solutions
Sleep disorders, like sleep apnea and snoring, disrupt your sleep and can negatively impact your overall health. When you fall into deep sleep, your tongue, soft palate and throat tissues may fall into a relaxed state.
For those who snore, the relaxation of these throat tissues can cause the airway to restrict, creating the sound of snoring as oxygen is forced past. For those with sleep apnea, the throat tissues over-relax, causing them to obstruct the airway, and forcing the brain to wake you up to breath.
Night Oral Appliances
Snoring and sleep apnea devices move the lower jaw forward along with the tongue muscles to open the airway. This can improve the flow of breath and help prevent you from waking up frequently during the night.