Orthodontic conversations July 2022

Had a young patient in for the first time last week, accompanied by her mum. They both knew what needed fixed - a top tooth biting inside the lower teeth instead of outside them: a crossbite.

I went through my usual orthodontic assessment for a new patient, measuring this and that, but I also asked “would your teeth stop you smiling for a photo?”

“Yes.”

I could see her mum’s face change tone, and she said “you never said that, you never told me you didn’t smile.”

At the end of the appointment, after she’d left the room her mum said the same thing to …

It was something like a scene from Derry Girls or The Inbetweeners, but last week we actually had a teenage patient phone the practice pretending to be his own father to cancel the appointment he was meant to attend that day.

So…. his parents would think he was taking time …

I had a patient come in this afternoon for an appointment that was marked in the diary as “retainer review”.

When I opened up his notes, it turned out that his orthodontic treatment finished over 3 years ago and we hadn’t seen him in almost 3 years. At that stage we had made him a spare retainer and he never came back to us to have it fitted.

When he came in, I said “so we haven’t seen you in nearly 3 years.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry about that. Really busy with the leaving cert and that sort of thing,” he said. He explained that …