Crown On, Mouth Guard Inbound, and Back on the Mat

Quick update, because the last post ended on a cliffhanger and I don’t like leaving those open: the broken tooth is getting handled, and I’m about to be back on the mat.

The crown goes on the 10th

The molar that a knee sheared off in a scramble gets its crown on the 10th. A little over a week from break to permanent crown, which is about as fast as this kind of repair goes when it isn’t a same-day-mill office. Prep, impression, temporary, then the real one cemented in. By the time you read this it’s either on or hours away, and the tooth goes from “liability I’m guarding with my tongue” back to “just a tooth.”

That timing matters more than it sounds. I’d already decided to take the downtime on purpose — fix the tooth and sort out real protection in the same window instead of rushing back half-protected. The crown landing on the 10th means the clock on that self-imposed break is basically up.

The guard my coach recommended ships tomorrow

Here’s the honest reconciliation with the last post. I said I was getting a dentist-made custom guard, and I still am — but a proper custom guard is a one-to-two-week lead time, and I didn’t want my return date held hostage to a lab schedule.

So I did the thing I should’ve done from the start: I asked my coach. He pointed me straight at the guard he has his people wear — not a guess off a shelf, the specific one he trusts after watching a roomful of grapplers beat on theirs for years. I ordered it today. It ships overnight and should be here tomorrow, which is just in time to get back into it.

That’s the move I want to underline for anyone newer than me: your coach has already run the experiment you’re about to run. He’s seen which guards hold up, which ones people spit out after a week, which ones actually let you breathe in round four. Two minutes of asking saved me a month of trial and error — and it’s bridging me back to training while the custom guard catches up behind it.

The plan from here

• Crown on the 10th, then a day or two to let it settle and a quick green light from the dentist before any contact.
• Coach’s guard tomorrow — that’s what I’m wearing the first few sessions back. Protected now beats perfect later.
• Custom guard still in the pipeline as the long-term piece. When it arrives, the over-the-counter one becomes my backup and travel guard.
• Ease back in. First sessions back are drilling and flow rounds, not hard scrambles on a fresh crown. The injury came from a scramble; I’m not going to test the repair in one on day one.

The whole arc, in one line

Broke a tooth in a scramble, took the time off to fix it right, got the crown, and asked the one person who already knew which guard to buy. The lesson from the first post stands — wear a guard on the days that bite — but here’s the addendum: when you don’t know what to buy, your coach does. Ask before the crack, not after.

See you on the mat. With my mouth shut, for once.