After a busy day of orthodontic treatments, I was in the practice one evening doing some treatment planning for the patients that would be coming in later that week and the phone rang with Prof Stassen’s name on the screen.
As he does the jaw surgery and other special procedures for my patients that need them, I’d always take the call ...
I have blogged about mouth cancer before. We had mouth cancer screening days in the practice, there was a national mouth cancer awareness day.
It’s not one of the more famous ones, there isn’t a national campaign where we wear a ribbon or a flower or have a coffee morning at work for it, but it’s certainly there in the background ...
It’s a given fact among orthodontists that every child should have an orthodontic examination by the age of 7. This is to look for healthy development of teeth, their positions in the developing mouth and the way they relate to each other. Some problems might be obvious but some are lurking unseen by parents - and the kids themselves - ...
I often get asked what does an ideal bite look like, how should teeth meet together, that sort of thing. That’s very important, because working to achieve that is what we do at Swords Orthodontics day in, day out. But there’s a bit more to it than that – you have to think about the teeth in the context of ...
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 - ...
There was a phrase trending on twitter recently: #lastnormalphoto. The idea was that you’d share the last picture you took before lock down. At first I thought they meant any photo not dealing with teeth, because it’s not normal to take photos of teeth…..is it? But they meant photos taken before lockdown all kicked off.
Strangely, my last “normal” photo was ...
Well, yesterday was a lot of words about how an orthodontic practice can reopen after the Covid Lockdown restrictions are lifted in Phase 1. (Phase 1 restriction lifting allows dentistry - which is good, because a lot of people need to get to their dentist now)
Here's the same idea in diagram form!
Hi there
First of all, a big thanks from me and everyone here at Swords Ortho for your patience and understanding at what’s been going on over the last 9 weeks....and more importantly, what wasn’t going on – specifically regular orthodontic treatments.
Two weeks after the first recorded coronavirus case in Ireland, on the day before St Patrick’s Day, I made the ...
In various navies, the fifth toast of the week is to The Nation.
Classically, this toast was “to a willing foe and plenty of sea room”. I’m still not sure exactly what that means, but I presume it means that your adversary is taking responsibility for the consequences of the engagement and it’s ...
It’s over a month since the government brought in the serious lockdown measures and last Friday, it announced its plan to gradually lift the restrictions in 5 phases. For our part, Swords Orthodontics has been seeing patients in pain or distress but we haven’t been conducting regular orthodontics. We’re looking forward to getting back to treating people and we’ve been ...
In various navies, the classic second toast of the week is “Our Men”.
Over the years this has modified to “Our Sailors”. In the dental world this is the team members that make our practices perform the way they do. This is a work force that is predominantly female. Given that from now on, 50% or ...
In 2003, Russell Crowe starred in a movie called Master and Commander which I’ve always enjoyed. He’s Jack Aubrey, the captain of a ship (HMS Surprise) during a war between the UK and France about 200 years ago. What I didn’t realise when I saw it first time was the amount of leadership lessons in it that would come back ...
It’s about 6 weeks since I took the decision to postpone seeing patients for routine orthodontic treatment at Swords Orthodontics. I did this because I felt it was the safest thing to do for my patients and my team, given that Ireland was heading into its coronavirus challenge.
We didn’t really close but it’s certainly not normal service at the practice. ...
Well I’ve lost count of how many days we’ve been into this, and I don’t know if we even agree on when it started but we’re clearly in the middle of it now.
For Swords Orthodontics, the big day was March 16th, that was the day I decided that we’d stop routine orthodontic treatment until it was safe to resume. Normally, ...
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 ...
Yesterday at Swords Ortho we completed a refresher BLS ( Basic life support ) course.
BLS (Basic life support) is a level of medical care which is used for victims of life threatening illnesses or injuries until they can be given full medical care at a hospital.
As we work in healthcare we are required to be certified in Basic Life support.
We ...
In September 2016 I did a part-time makeup course with Vanity X makeup academy in Swords which lasted for 12 weeks. I attended on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6.30-9.30pm, I had written exams and practical exams - my overall result was marked on these and my attendance to each class. We all had to do a portfolio and take ...
Parent: "My son's brace is broken again. I am not happy with this, that's the third time and the braces are only on 3 weeks. I don't think you've done a very good job here"
Swords Orthodontist: "What happened when the bracket came off?"
Patient: "Well I was eating a (insert well known brand name here) mint and it got stuck between my ...
This is the third Lumix DMC TZ (the TZ stands for Travel Zoom, apparently) that we’ve had in the practice. Although not an obvious choice for dental photography, its predecessor was very handy when we needed to shoot video and we didn’t have an SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera with video. It’s also handy for blogging ...
On behalf of my team at Swords Orthodontics, and my colleagues, and myself, I sincerely wish a happy Christmas, and every happiness in the New Year, and many smiles ahead, to ...
Well, it's only a few more sleeps to Christmas...
But an orthodontist's work is never done, and the Swords Ortho elves are as busy as ever.
I could stick up photos of Christmas trees in the practice, but the big thing about Christmas here is the extra ...
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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 ...
Most people have heard of Invisalign as a brand name for a particular kind of clear braces treatment, and if you need Invsalign in Dublin, Swords Orthodontics has been providing this kind of treatment for almost a decade now.
That said, since then, Invisalign has evolved a fair bit. For a start, the actual system is a lot more predictable and ...