Mouthguards your patients will want to wear

With normal use, a well-made custom gumshield typically lasts 12–18 months for adults. For growing children, expect 6–12 months — jaw growth and erupting teeth change the fit faster than the material wears.

For adults, a properly cared-for gumshield will last significantly longer than that baseline. Rinsing after every use, weekly cleaning, sensible storage and keeping it out of heat all add real life to the appliance.

Boxers, MMA fighters and other heavy-contact athletes often go through them faster from sustained impact. Visible cracks, tears, perforations or a noticeable loss of fit are all signs to replace sooner — bringing it to routine check-ups lets the dentist spot wear the wearer won’t.

Yes — we make orthodontic gumshields specifically designed to accommodate fixed appliances. Extra internal space stops the shield binding on brackets, and a softer inner liner means it doesn’t press on teeth that are actively moving.

One thing to plan for: as treatment progresses and teeth shift, the fit changes, so expect to remake the gumshield roughly every 6 months during active treatment. It’s still far safer than playing without one — and safer than a boil-and-bite, which can dislodge brackets entirely on impact.

Daily: rinse with cold water before and after each use, and brush gently with a soft toothbrush to remove debris.

Weekly: soak in a retainer-cleaning solution such as Retainer Brite for a deeper clean. Avoid denture-cleaning tablets — they’re too harsh on the thermoplastic the gumshield is made from.

Storage: always use the vented case we supply, and air-dry it for a few minutes before closing. Never leave it in direct sunlight, a hot car, a dishwasher or boiling water — heat warps the material permanently and ruins the fit.

Fit. A scan or impression gives us a millimetre-accurate shape that grips the teeth without needing to bite down to hold it — so it stays put during impact, the one moment it has to.

Protection. We layer materials based on the sport, with high-impact disciplines getting a thicker, dual-density build. Boil-and-bite is a single soft layer that thins wherever the wearer bit hardest, often leaving the back teeth barely protected.

Comfort. Because it actually fits, the wearer can breathe and speak — and the shield that gets worn protects more teeth than the bargain one left in the kit bag.

Yes — colour and personalisation are part of the appeal of going custom. We carry a wide range of EVA colours and can combine them in fades, stripes or split designs. Names, initials, numbers and most club logos can be set into the shield during fabrication.

For teams and clubs, we can Pantone-match to kit colours so the whole squad is consistent. Send artwork as a vector file (.ai, .eps, .svg or .pdf) where possible; high-resolution PNG or JPEG works too. None of this affects protection — graphics sit on or between layers, leaving the protective core untouched.

An upper arch scan or impression is all that’s required for most sports gumshields — they’re upper-only by design.

If you’re scanning, you don’t need to export STL files. We have direct inboxes with every major intraoral scanner — Trios, iTero, Medit, Primescan, CS and others — so the case goes straight from your scanner to our lab. Alginate impressions are fine too.

Include a docket with the patient’s name, the sport, any colour or thickness preferences, and anything unusual — fixed braces, missing teeth, a history of trauma or a heavy-contact discipline. Postage and timings are on our postal options and turnaround times pages.