Easter is a great holiday full of Easter egg hunts, delicious treats, and family time. You don’t want to put a dampener on your day by suffering problems with your braces or Orthodontic appliances, do you? We are happy to help you avoid any problems as much as possible over Easter.
Here are some top tips to ...
Our YouTube channel has a lot of Swords Ortho videos on it - some are plain silly, but most are there to help you get the best results from your treatment and the best experience on the way there.
Today's addition is a very useful chat from Courtney on how to look after your braces once you have them on - ...
Just a brief update on Swords Orthodontics and our part in the national Covid-19 response
We remain closed for routine orthodontic treatment, but we are still answering emails, and checking the voicemails through out the day. Deliveries to the practice will be accepted by the small crew remaining in the practice while the rest of the team works from home and ...
You can't out train a bad diet
It's a phrase I picked up on an exercise video on YouTube, but I imagine the idea has been there for a long time before the internet was with us.
A few weeks ago I bought some airport-sized Toblerone bars for the team at Swords Ortho (don't tell the dentistry police). The ladies of Swords ...
Stephen: "hi there, how are you getting on?"
Patient: "great."
S: "Any problems with your brace since last time?"
P: "No"
S: "Great. So I'll just have a look and do today's adjustment"
P: "Oh, one of my brackets came off though"
S: "Were you eating hard food at the time?"
P: "No"
S: "It just came off out of the blue?"
P: "Well, I was chewing on a piece of ...
Taking care of your teeth and gums is essential to your health. Plaque, which is a sticky, colourless film of bacteria, can build up on the teeth and cause significant problems, particularly when it hardens into calculus. This can lead to issues like holes in the teeth, gingivitis, decay, gum disease and bad breath. This is why it’s so important to ...
I haven't heard it yet as at time of blogging, it's still due for broadcast but here's a link to a BBC 4 programme about the toothbrush...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005m
How often do you change yours?
If you are wearing braces and are planning a holiday this summer (lucky you!), our team Swords Orthodontics would suggest that you be prepared. We put together a list of items that will be handy to have with ...
Stephen: "you're looking after your teeth really well, that is great toothbrushing!"
Patient's mum: "he used his confirmation money to buy an electric tooth brush."
Now that, my friends, is a person who is serious about oral hygiene.
The fitness industry seems to keep growing and growing. More and more people seem to want to ‘get into shape’ – especially in January after the Christmas period. Personal trainers are all over your feeds on Facebook, Instagram and gym gear is everywhere in site! Every individual person has their own way of doing this, be it going to the ...
When I'm working, I like to eat lunch away from the practice. If I'm having lunch on a Sunday in Swords, then one of many great places to eat is Gourmet Food Parlour, where I was this weekend. It's still pretty close to Swords Orthodontics (they're on North St, we're about 200m away on Main St) and they serve brunch ...
Dublin is in the grip of the 2019 David Bowie Festival. Probably Ireland’s biggest annual event coordinated around the cultural effect of one person. Lectures, books, movies, science, photography, cabaret, improvisational comedy, even a children’s art competition, and obviously music, music, music.
"I see we haven't seen you since March last year, that's 10 months since you last orthodontic appointment"
"I know, I've been busy."
"You know, you're meant to see us more often than that - if we don't see you regularly the treatment doesn't go as fast as it should."
"I ...
It’s that time of the year again- all the kids go back to school!! If you’re going back to school with braces, here are some tips and reminders to help you keep on track of taking care of your braces and improve your smile.
Eat Braces Friendly Food
When you wear braces, there are certain types of food you’ll need ...
1
DO wear your retainers as your orthodontist directs.
The rest of what follows is what we tell our own patients. At Swords Orthodontics, for most removable retainers, I advise full time wear for the first 3 days and then ...
A while back, I was delighted to work with MC Rapperman who did this excellent Orthodontic Rap and video for us. Hope you enjoy it. If you - or anyone you know - has an orthodontic poem or song, or rap, get in touch! Meantime, enjoy this work of art, he's on super ...
As we approach Ireland’s National Mouth Cancer Awareness Day on Wednesday, September 17th, I’m going to outline what the disease involves and some of the problems that can arise from mouth cancer. You can find more information on this in my previous blogs, but this is a summary of the important stuff.
Swords Orthodontics is in the middle of a busy street where ...
Just a brief blog today - I read in Irish Independent this week that there is an increase in the rate of tooth decay in children since the cutbacks to the HSE and dentistry began a few years ago. Previously, there were routine dental examinations in second, fourth and sixth class, and now it's often only in sixth class.
This can ...
Just a brief blog today - I read in Irish Independent this week that there is an increase in the rate of tooth decay in children since the cutbacks to the HSE and dentistry began a few years ago. Previously, there were routine dental examinations in second, fourth and sixth class, and now it's often only in sixth class.
This can ...
You might have heard that the GAA have made it compulsory to wear mouth protection when playing Gaelic sports, and I think that in the future people will look back at this as one of the great landmarks in advancing Dental Health - and it wasn't done by a ...
More thoughts arising after Gary Brown's keynote presentation to the Irish Dental Association early in 2014. His talk was on maintaining your base of patients and building loyalty.
By telling your patients what to look out for in terms of dental health and disease ...
Best wishes to all our patient and their friends and families.
From Dundalk and Drogheda down the coast to Skerries and Balbriggan to Malahide and Portmarnock and beyond, I hope you all have plenty to smile about in 2014!
Hard to imagine ...
Happy Christmas from Swords Orthodontics!
Swords Ortho loves Christmas - it's actually a very busy time for us because everyone that's almost finished their treatment wants their braces off BEFORE Christmas. So in December we finish as many patients in a week as we do in a month during the rest of the year - you can imagine how tired our ...
December is incontrovertibly here, Movember is complete, and the Mo has outstayed its welcome. Which was limited at the best of times in some quarters. One of my orthodontic patients this morning said to me "next thing you know, you'll be buying ...
Back from the BSSO in Haarlem, and I'll have a full report later. But for now, here's the last full Mo photo, I'll be dismantling it, De-Mo-bilising it if you will, over the next few days.
Well, it has finally come to an end. Well, almost. I am in Haarlem, a quiet town near Amsterdam in The Netherlands for the Biennial Symposium on Surgical Orthodontics, and really haven't time for moustache removal (these things can't be conducted lightly). So it's staying for another 48 hours, which means ...
Got a Movember update from earlier in the week, and some patriotic facial hair from the US of A for you in our series of inspiring Mo Bros.
I might have to extend it by another day just to get more entertainment from this mo'. Well, we have a new Mo-Bro for you today, an absolute legend from my childhood. A major inspiration to me as a small child, and it was fortunate for all concerning ...
There'll be an update on my own 'tache soon, but meantime for some inspiration from a legendary Mo-Bro how about this:
Should I keep the moustache running after Movember comes to an end? Maybe not, but there's only a week to go - less, just 6 days.
Well, we have a short entry today- I have been at an excellent orthodontics conference arranged by 3M orthodontics company, and after that we've all been busy watching Dr Who's 50th anniversary so I figure we'd have a coulple of Dr Who related mo-tastic icons of facial hair.
Nnah nah nah nnn nah Nineteen!
I had been promising some moustaches to keep my female readers happy, so here's another one. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow, the madder the Mo the better.
Some Mo -progress from today, and a surprise late entry from another part of the Swords Orthodontics team - one of our storage heaters has joined in and practically overnight acquired a magnificent moustache the envy of any Belgian detective!
A dozen days into Movember
Sorry I didn't have a Mo-post yesterday, but to make up for it, we have a new photo of my evolving Mo and two icons of facial hair from the 70s, probably the greatest decade for that commodity that the western world has known in a century!
Whilst at the Excellence in Orthodontics conference yesterday an interesting comment was made by the speakers, Nigel Harradine and David Birnie. People in this country, and the western world generally are living longer than ever before*, and there are dental concerns connected to this.
People need to hang on to the teeth for longer. Yes, it's possible to get ...
Movember continues, but my conference finished this afternoon. Our speakers were Nigel Harradine and David Birnie who were presenting their long running series of lectures called "Excellence in Orthodontics". I first saw them in 1999, and it's amazing how much orthodontics has changed since then. Some of the stuff that we'd be used to now was just experimental then, ...
Well, it's the end of the first week of Movember. I am still at my conference (Excellence in Orthodontics with David Birnie and Nigel Harradine) and it's interesting to see how many of my orthodontic pals are entering into the spirit of Movember (not many). There'll be new mo-pics on Monday, but in the meantime, here's today's facial hair hero.
Wow, Movember is zipping along - almost a week into it now.
I don't have a photo of today's progress, as I am not at base in Swords Orthodontics, but have headed to Limerick for the Orthodontic Society of Ireland (OSI) autumn conference and AGM.
This is the biggest event on the Irish Orthodontic calendar- usually - and this year sees the ...
check with Fingal Council or the AA for the most up to date stuff, but here's the story from the Frontline.
Extreme roadworks are underway in the centre of Swords, Co Dublin. Apparently due to a burst watermain or something well underground anyway.
There ...
Movember Day Six
well, things are motoring along, but we have a different Face Hair Hero to keep me on track.
Day five, and things are starting to take shape.
Time for a little definition of the moustache perimeter, and a new Mo hero for the gallery.
Well here's the evidence of Movember 2nd, and another motivational Mo from my childhood.
The follices are clearly starting to accelerate.
I am going to keep a daily record of the progress, mogress if you will, of my Movember challenge. A bit like orthodontics, you don't see the results instantly, you have to work at it methodically over a prolonged time and put a bit of effort in to get the best results.
Yes folks, Swords Orthodontics is participating in Movember, the month-long initiative to improve the general awareness of men's health issues like prostate cancer and heart disease (I know that's not exclusive to men, but it's a problem that might be under-estimated generally).
The plan is that we stop shaving (selectively if desired) and start some facial hair architecture over the month ...
After last week where Swords Orthodontics had the unholy trinity of orthodontic retainer complaints (lost/broken/eaten by dog), this week we had a patient in who told me their retainers didn't fit after their mum tried to freshen up the retainers by soaking them in boiling water. Fortunately they realised as soon as there was a problem and got back in ...
Swords Orthodontics had a patient in from Balbriggan the other day and he had broken several of the attachments of his fixed braces (the brackets). This turned out to be because he was eating the wrong kind of food and he was eating it the wrong way for good brace ...
Well, we were delighted at the response for our free mouth cancer screening here at Swords Orthodontics. Like hundreds of dentists around the country, as part of the National Mouth Cancer Awareness Day, we offered free examinations specifically to look out for this disease and we had even more people attending ...
As Irish National Mouth Cancer Awareness Day approaches, I am finishing my series of articles on Mouth Cancer with a discussion on risk factors for the disease and some things you can do to reduce your chances of having mouth cancer or reduce its effects if you.
In the first article, I ...
Here at Swords Orthodontics, we take infection control seriously. You'll see handwashing posters up, separate bins for clinical and non clinical waste, and patients wear protective glasses during treatment.
Not much to do with teeth with this blog post, but I thought I'd share a couple of photos from a big event that was on in Swords a couple of weeks ago - "Salute", the Irish Association of Military Enthusiasts' big display of military vehicles and equipment that has been collected and restored by people from all over the ...
Well, this was sort of the question I was asked by one of my orthodontic patients from Balbriggan two weeks ago, and it's a great opportunity for a short article to explain a common reason that you might still ...
Mouth Cancer: How serious is the problem?
AS we approach Ireland’s National Mouth Cancer Awareness Day, we’re blogging with a series of articles about mouth cancer. In this one, I’m going to outline what the disease involves and some of the problems that can arise from mouth cancer.
What is mouth cancer?
Cancer is a general term for diseases where some of the ...
Some pretty fundamental advice about retainers - wear them!
Here at Swords Orthodontics this week, I had several patients in who hadn't worn retainers after treatment and they were very disappointed about the changes in their teeth since treatment. Some seemed surprised, and even more surprised when I told them they'd need to have orthodontic treatment ...
Every patient at Swords Orthodontics gets advice on how to look after the different kinds of braces that they have to help their teeth. But we have a video here with one of the fundamental rules of fixed braces!
Orthodontic braces are fixed to the teeth with special dental glue. It's been around since the 1970s ...
So here's the Swords Orthodontics Logo 2013:
Swords Orthodontics is one of many dental practices all over Ireland that is offering FREE oral cancer screening on Wednesday September 18th 2013, which is national Mouth Cancer Awareness Day, and this is the first of a few articles about this disease.
Although it's not a widely discussed illness, the mouth is a relatively common area for cancer to occur. If ...
Hi folks
just a quick blog today, to let you know that you can follow things from Swords Orthodontics on our new pinterest page
http://pinterest.com/swordsortho/
there'll be updates and info from the all the gang here, and maybe the odd special offer, so go ahead and follow us there.
Stephen Murray