Back in the game

Dentist says custom fit mouthguards provide better protection

By Jennifer Eisenbart

Staff Writer

As dentist John Ulloa explains, everyone in his profession has a fun hobby.

“Some dentists golf,” said Ulloa, of Family Dentists in Union Grove. “Some dentists have race cars.

“I make mouthguards,” he added. “That’s my play time.”

After attending a seminar in Minnesota last year, Ulloa decided that custom-fit mouthguards – which protect not only against dental injuries but also concussions – would be his next project.

This year, he has provided pressure-laminated custom mouthguards to the entire Catholic Central football team, where his son is a senior wide receiver, and he is also making the guards free of charge for regular patients at his practice.

These specific guards fit exactly to an athlete’s mouth, forming to each ridge of the top teeth, and also extending back farther to stop the sort of jarring impact to the jaw that causes concussions.

The whole project started after Ulloa attended a seminar taught by Dr. Ray Padilla, a sports dentist out of Los Angeles, while in Minnesota.

The idea of taking this up as a project seemed a natural fit for Ulloa.

“I’m a sports fanatic,” he said. “My boys are into sports.”

But that’s not the only reason. As a 14-year-old, Ulloa suffered a mouth injury that knocked out all of his front teeth.

“I’m spent years going through bridges, root canals, crowns, all of that kind of business,” he said. “That’s a lifelong thing.

“You go through different treatments, and they only last for so long.”

These new mouthguards help prevent those injuries, by specifically placing protection that both covers the most vulnerable areas of the mouth and also works with an athlete’s personal preferences.

“We take an impression of an athlete’s mouth, and they fit exactly to their teeth,” Ulloa said. “Athletes can basically talk with those things in.”

He will also go through the mouthguards and grind and soften non-essential areas to create a custom fit to the liking of the individual athlete.

But perhaps most important to the football mouthguards – Ulloa was quick to point out that different guards are provided for different sports – is how they help prevent concussions.

“If you get a blow to the jaw, it draws it directly to the cranium,” Ulloa said. “If you make these (properly) … they basically absorb the blow.

“It’s directed into the mouth guard rather than the cranium.”

A mouth guard that helps prevent concussions can be a huge help, as the concussion issue continues to become more and more prominent not only in professional and college sports, but now in high school as well.

“It’s more of an issue in sports today,” Ulloa explained.

Custom-fit mouthguards aren’t new to sports, Ulloa said, pointed to the work of other dentists in the state to provide said guards to, among others, the Green Bay Packers and the Milwaukee Admirals.

“It’s kind of filtering down,” he said.

But, gradually, the need for such specialized items is filtering down to the high school level. Ulloa said the mouthguards aren’t simple to make – they take a few hours, since they are custom-fit from molds taken from players’ teeth – and can range in cost from about $50 to $200 (which he called “robbery.”)

He can’t provide them for free to everyone, but this batch is his contribution to the CCHS football program this fall.

He is hoping to expand the business as time goes on. In the meantime, he’s having fun customizing the guards in another way – adding school logos, individual numbers and sayings.

“I’ve been going hog-wild on it,” said Ulloa. “I just have a lot of fun with this.”