What I got for not wearing my mouth guard.

This is a story on why you should wear your mouth guard in a sparring.

Around the month of January I invited my friend Kyo for some light sparring at Likas Sports Kompleks. Unfortunately when we were about to start, I realise I forgot to bring my mouth guard along.

Against my better judgement, I decided to just go ahead anyway since my friend came all the way to join us sparring today. The worst I figured would be a cut lip (which was something I got often anyway). So we started sparring.



I don't remember exactly when but somewhere during sparring, he hit me with an uppercut. The punch wasn't hard and did not affect me at all (or so I thought...)

Immediately that night, after a protein shake while I lick my tongue across my 2 front teeth (central incisor)... I noticed a dent-like feeling on my teeth coupled with a quick sharp edge pin pain. I went straight to check the mirror & noticed I got a chipped tooth!

(Picture sample. The actual chipped tooth was almost like the picture above.)

I laughed off the problem at 1st & thought it wasn't much, but at the back of my head there is that voice that kept nagging at me: "this wouldn't have happen if you wore your mouth guard".

A month went by & I was still living with the chipped tooth, but a new problem started to surface. Another tooth of mine (my 1st molar) started to ache. The pain got worst and worst as each days pass till the point where food, cold water and (accidental touching of) the tongue can cause me to have pain.

At 1st I thought it was due to infection or because I did not brush my teeth properly. I went to the dentist to have it check & since I was here anyway got my chipped tooth fixed (which cost me RM80). The dentist gave me some antibiotics & painkiller.

2 weeks after my medication the pain got worst & worst. I started to actually wake up from bed because of tooth ache. Checking the mirror 1 day, I was kinda shocked to find the tooth started to turn a shade of grey!

I went to check with the dentist again & this time he said, usually a "turning to black" teeth indicates a dying tooth. So after 3 jabs to get half my mouth numb (I felt like Sylvester Stallone)... the dentist had the tooth pulled out. It was a painless effort.

Having extracted the tooth, the dentist looked at the tooth... no signs of infection what so ever but asked if I chewed on any hard food. I said no. He later explained that the tooth he extracted (which had a tooth crowning I did when I was a kid) seem to have been "punched in" to my teeth. The crowning went in & split my tooth in the inside.

Upon hearing this, I can only remember the uppercut from Kyo which hit my whole jaw that might have caused it...

Fact of the matter is, I have no idea if Kyo's uppercut caused 2 of my teeth to be affected but what I do know is that had I wore my mouth guard during that sparring.

I would not have to waste a total of RM160 to fix my problem...

A new fake teeth would cost RM170. A new implant would be RM700... ... ... a new look to look like a pirate however is free. So I kept to option three.

Moral of the story guys: Wear your mouth guard while you spar cause you'll never know how things will turn out for your mouth & teeth...