Younger patients are sometimes concerned that braces will affect either sports in which they participate or musical instruments they play, but we rarely have issues with this. Also, we adapt the mouthpieces required by some sports to fit around any orthodontic appliance we construct. We do encourage our athletes to wear a mouth guard to protect their mouths and to protect against concussions. But we rarely hear of any such issues when they wear a well-fitting athletic mouth guard that’s made for orthodontics.
Musical instruments, particularly brass instruments such as trumpets, trombones and the like, may cause minor irritation on the inside of the lips, making them a little sore. Patients get used to it after a short adjustment period and do not have lasting issues. We have had patients play every contact sport imaginable, with any appliance that we construct in this office. Hence, we feel confident that sports will not interfere with the timing of orthodontics, nor do they adversely affect the decision as to whether or not a patient should have orthodontics.
In our minds, orthodontics is not a barrier to sports and playing musical instruments, nor is participation in either a barrier to orthodontics.