‘I feel 100 times better, I’m eating more and I’ve a lot more energy’

Almost six months after he had ALL his 27 decayed teeth removed Michael Sheridan is continuing to build his new life.
Fitted with dentures since that day last January when he had the operation that he says, “changed his life” the 32-year-old has found a new job.
That's something, he adds, he simply would not have been able to do before his rotten teeth were taken out by Dr David Murnaghan in the Boyne Dental & Implant Clinic based in Ludlow Street, Navan. In their place was inserted a set of dentures and while it has taken Sheridan time to get used to them, the fact that he can use them has greatly improved the quality of his life. 
The next stage for Michael is getting the permanent implants put in place which will happen next week.

Michael gets the implant procedure explained by Dr David Murnaghan of Boyne Dental & Implant Clinic

Employed previously as a kitchen porter at the Aviva Stadium, Sheridan has recently a new chapter in this life when he started working as a barman in Sweeney's, Kilbride. Such a scenario would, even last year, have been far-fetched; impossible. 
“I wouldn't have even applied for the job before,” he said from his Ashbourne home. “I wouldn't have had the confidence to apply for it. In the back of my head I would have said: ‘What's the point of going for the job, I'm not going to get it.’
“People would have seen my teeth the way they were and what would they have thought? I would have been the first point of contact. That's just how I would have thought before so I didn't go for jobs. Now I can smile, have a chat with the locals I'm really enjoying it.”

Michael's teeth before his procedures

Years of consuming fizzy drinks, particularly Coke, along with an innate “aversion” to dentists and their clinics, resulted in the Ashbourne man's teeth becoming so bad over the years he was confined to a restricted diet. “A sandwich before I had my teeth done was a problem, all I could have had was a bit of bread and a bit of butter. 
“Now I can put meat on the sandwich and can eat it comfortably, people are commenting on my weight, I've started to fill out a bit, it's all been good. I can eat a lot more food now, I can eat my dinner without the fear of having a tooth-ache afterwards.”

Having re-found his confidence Sheridan does not now feel awkward in social settings. He's not fearful of getting too close to anybody in case they smell his bad breath or are reluctant to laugh in case it would reveal the sorry state of his teeth. He has been re-born.
“I feel 100 times better, I'm eating a lot more, I've a lot more energy, I'm eating the right things, I'm now drinking a lot more water,” he adds pointing out that since he had the dentures put in he has only drank two cans of Coke. 

Michael and his partner Linda have two sons Callum (six) and Darragh (8) and at the end of this year the couple are planning to have a wedding ceremony with the wedding reception in the Newgrange Hotel, Navan. 
By then, all going well, Michael will have his implants in and he will be able to walk up the isle with the kind of new-found confidence that has enriched his life since that morning in January when he walked into Dr Murnaghan's clinic in Ludlow Street, had all his teeth removed, and walked out a new man. Last month, David Murnaghan told the Meath Chronicle that the new Sugar Tax should Tax should be ringfenced for dental health and education.