Is a $700 mouthguard better for your dentist or for you?

If you are one of the more than 30 million Americans who grind their teeth, your dentist has probably recommended that you purchase a mouth guard. When it comes to choosing between buying a custom moldable mouthguard for $10 to $50 and buying a dentist made mouthguard for $300 to $700, you might not be surprised that most dentists recommend mouth guards. mouthpieces made by dentists. But who benefits most from these dentist-made mouth guards, you or your dentist?

In a recent telephone survey conducted in the Boston area, various dentists were charging between $300 and $700 for the exact same dentist-made mouth guard, so if you decide to buy a dentist-made mouth guard to prevent teeth grinding wear down your teeth, you may want to be a smart shopper and call first to compare prices.

I recently asked at the Yankee Dental Congress in Boston how much it cost dentists to make mouth guards made by dentists. The various companies that make the systems used to make the guards said the price for the materials is about $12 per custom mouthguard. Add to that technician time, and I was assured that “the cost is well under $100; these are very high return items for dentists.” I wasn’t surprised, but this seems to present a potential conflict of interest for a dentist to decide whether to recommend that you buy an inexpensive over-the-counter mouthguard or an expensive one made by a dentist.

More and more brands of inexpensive custom moldable or configurable mouthguards have become available in recent years. Some of the units were designed by dentists who say they are as good (or in some cases better) than dentist-made mouth guards.

Any mouth guard could make your pain worse if the sensation ends up feeding your habit of grinding and clenching your teeth and causing you to grind and clench more. Since dentists don’t offer money-back guarantees on the custom mouthguards they make, you may want to try one or two of the inexpensive over-the-counter versions before spending a lot of money on a dentist-made mouthguard. You may also want to try biofeedback, which can be tried for free, to see if it can significantly reduce teeth grinding and clenching and reduce or eliminate pain. There are plenty of other things you can try, and it makes sense to first try things that can be tried for free or with a money-back guarantee.