A few doctors have mentioned to me that patients can agonize over picking a color or design for their retainers, usually while in the chair, wasting your valuable time and setting the schedule back. There is an easy fix for this: Have an appointment card printed that includes a link to an online color chart and a space for the patient to fill in for the colors or designs they want. The link can be to our website, or we can provide you a PDF for your website. You can even contact our graphics company to redesign a color chart specifically for your practice, if you want to leave options out or add options — I would just appreciate a byline as I have been working on the thing for over 20 years.

An oral surgeon from around the corner called my lab the other week with an emergency, wondering if we made flippers? A patient of his, who was about to graduate college, had an unfortunate encounter between a baseball bat and his front teeth and he needed to look good for his big day. –we’ve been making flippers for over 25 years. I can understand the oral surgeon’s lack of understanding of what we do in the lab. After 25 years in this business, my Mom still tells people that I make teeth. So, I just thought I would take a moment to clear up a few things.

An old adage in carpentry is measure once, cut twice; measure twice, cut once. This idea can be applied to guards and splints.

Fitting a guard or a splint can be tricky, with a lot of grinding. But it does not have to be.

I just had a doctor call complaining that the guard they eventually gave the patient was more fill material than it was guard. I get this call from time to time, while other doctors that I make guards and splints for, I never hear from. The difference can be the bite registration.

Sun and fun were plentiful. My enjoyment of said sun and fun were as limited as my sleep. I swear I walked as much in three days as I do during a month.The biggest news came from 3Shape’s Trios. It was announced that Invisalign would start accepting scans from Trios. It is expected in the 4th quarter.The booths from Trios and iTero had the feel of a football pre-game warm-up with tackling drills. Each had their “time to beat” stations where you could scan models. The win clearly went to Trios. The best time I saw from iTero was about 1-½ minutes. The best time from Trios was about 20 seconds.