AirwayCentric® is a new way of thinking about your health and the condition of your mouth. While functional medicine and dentistry have a much needed individualized approach to health, practitioners often ignore the importance of an open airway, breathing properly – and the relation to sleep.
It is my hope that greater awareness of sleep disorders and narrowed airways will lead to more patients being tested and diagnosed with Airway Centered Disorders and Sleep Disordered Breathing.
Malocclusion is only one part of the puzzle of TMJ, and it’s important to recognise that the condition can have a number of interlinked causes.
Here are two examples of patients whose health I have improved using AirwayCentric® dentistry. I have alleviated their pain and improved their sleep – while enhancing their looks.
Juvabite is an alternative to surgery that treats the underlying facial changes caused by menopause and aging.
Mouth breathing in your child may be more noticeable when your child is asleep – or it may be a constant habit. Regardless, this form of breathing is bad news at night for developing brains.
Ever been woken by your alarm only to feel like you haven’t slept at all, with brain fog or a headache? What if I told you may have an airway sleep disorder (ASD) – like sleep apnea?
Sleeping disorders can play a big part in the development of Alzheimer’s, so it’s worthwhile exploring exactly why – and what you can do about it.
The sixth leading cause of death in the United States is Alzheimer’s disease. You likely know someone with, or have lost someone to this awful disease. As age expectancy rises, it can be a real concern whether you, or someone you love, is likely to develop Alzheimer’s.The good news is that scientists and doctors are working hard to research the cause – and find a cure. Additionally, there are a number of risk factors associated with Alzheimer’s disease which you can counteract through diet, exercise, and changes to the way you sleep.One of the risk factors may surprise you: gum disease.
Sleep related breathing disorders are not exclusive to adults. Because it’s not as easily recognized in children, it is often left undiagnosed.
The two words you never want to hear from your dentist’s lips: Gum disease. Gum disease symptoms include: Swollen or inflamed gums Bleeding gums Sensitive teeth Wobbly teeth Bad breath At your dental appointment, you agree to brushing and flossing more thoroughly, and using the mouthwash your dentist recommends. That’s that, right? But while gum…
If you live with an autoimmune disease, then you know that it’s life-changing. Managing your disease can be exhausting. But what if your exhaustion wasn’t just down to the stress of dealing with autoimmunity, but down to the health of your mouth – or even the way that you sleep?
Every child is unique, and although you may have been stymied by western medicine before, you may be able to improve the day to day life for your autistic child. Autism doesn’t start and end in the brain, it’s a systemic disorder brought on by a wide variety of factors – some of which can be altered.
Does your child fidget and have endless energy all day, but then struggle to wake for school? Perhaps you feel they’re not hitting their developmental milestones, or achieving the grades they want? What’s going on?
You wake up and your face hurts, your jaw locks and then there’s the clicking! The clicking is seriously distracting when you eat! Does this sound familiar?
You had a dental x-ray years ago but during your last check-up, your dentist recommended a cone beam CT scan (CBCT). So why the change?
Do you find you’re reaching for the bottle of painkillers each morning while you make your coffee? Maybe you don’t even think before you take them because it’s been going on for so long — the intense head pain you feel as you wake, like someone set a vice around your head as you slept.…
You’ve felt tiredness before but this is different. The combination of fatigue and poor thinking power makes up a symptom known as brain fog.
All of us should consider what is in the best interest of the patient and overall public health.
You’ve felt tiredness before but this is different. The combination of fatigue and poor thinking power makes up a symptom known as brain fog.
TMJ, neck, shoulder and ear pain as well as headaches should be resolved first prior to clear aligners. Here’s why…
Breastfeeding goes back thousands of years as in other mammalian species for good reason: at birth the infant is nourished by breastfeeding which coordinates the respiratory system, cardiovascular system and orofacial reflexes.
Reading is power! Patients and fellow colleagues alike always ask what I’m currently reading, or what books have impacted my practice and my life. Below is a recommended reading list for the next few months. Please note, I’m also adding any books by Dr. Mark Hyman and Dr. Dennis Goodman. Comment your favorites below. Gasp!…
Interrupted sleep is so common that most of us don’t stop and second guess why we wake up at night. However, just because something is incredibly common doesn’t make it normal or healthy, making this a question worth a second look.
When it comes to aging, I always recommend solutions that offer real results through addressing the underlying issues. As you age, your body needs all the support it can get in reversing and slowing it’s natural processes.
While most people realize they need enough sleep (though that doesn’t mean they do it!), the big problem is most American’s have interrupted sleep. Take an inventory of your sleep space tonight and take note of anything that could be interrupting your sleep.
Cutting edge protocols on preventing dementia and Alzheimer’s disease are revealing steps we can take beyond preventing cognitive decline. You might be wondering why a dentist is talking about how to get a sharper mind. Well, research is clarifying concepts dentists have known for decades.
We no longer live in a time where you have to wait for a disease to develop to take action. Today, you can take the necessary steps to identify disease as it develops, well before it becomes a problem.
The American Dental Association recently came out with a Statement on Breathing Related Sleep Disorders (BRSD) recommending that dentists monitor the effectiveness of oral appliance therapy (OAT) with home sleep testing.
Clenching or bruxism have recently been linked to sleep disorders such as obstructive sleep apnea. Because of these new findings, The American College of Prosthodontics recommends that dentists screen for Sleep Related Breathing Disorder (SRBD) in all patients who clench or will undergo restorative dentistry.
Numerous evolutionary shifts have taken place that prevent us from breathing properly. You may not even notice you don’t breath well through your nose because from an early age you started breathing through your mouth to compensate for these evolutionary changes.
As a result of the retracted narrow face of the human today, over 50% of the population has airway pathology.
If you’re wondering, “How in the world can a clean mouth and an open airway prevent heart disease?” it’s time you hear this vital information about the mouth and heart disease connection. Unfortunately, the myth that fat clogs your arteries to cause a heart attack is an easy picture to paint and therefore has stuck around, even with mountains of evidence indicating otherwise.
Impacting between 50 to 70 million Americans, sleep-disordered breathing is proving to be a silent health crisis. Dentists are a patient’s best hope for catching sleep-disordered breathing early and preventing chronic illnesses later in life.
Alzheimer’s disease and Dementia is an epidemic in the United States. Now the third cause of death, Alzheimer’s affects an estimated 5.5 million Americans.
You’ve probably heard this a thousand times before – if you want to be truly healthy, you need to get a solid night’s sleep. Most people still aren’t getting the high-quality sleep they need due to undiagnosed sleep conditions, increased inflammation in the body, and disrupted sleep breathing. In fact, a very recent article by NPR warned that many are “walking through life in an underslept state.”
Everyone has experienced a headache or neck ache at some point in their life. The pain can be overwhelming and render you temporarily helpless. While some causes of head and neck aches are well known, such as caffeine withdrawal, colds, sinus infections, and cases of flu
Did you know that approximately 70 million Americans have a sleep disorder? And of this 70 million, an estimated 80 percent are undiagnosed? And it’s likely that these individuals will remain undiagnosed for the rest of their lives.
Imagine this headline splashed across the cover of a tabloid newspaper: “Your Mattress is trying to Kill You!” This sounds silly, and of course, it is! Mattresses are harmless things, and they won’t cause you any harm. Or will they?
John Mew, the developer of the Biobloc Orthotropic Appliance, was honored at AAPMD’s Oakland conference on sleep-disordered breathing.
William Dement is an American sleep disorder pioneer and founder of Stanford’s Sleep Research Center, the world’s first sleep laboratory. We talk about all things sleep in my interview with them. Check it out here.
In a presentation before a Seminar sponsored by the AAPMD on March 9th, Dr. Stephen Sheldon, a noted pioneer in the field of pediatric sleep medicine, explains the relationship between attention deficit disorders in children and sleep disorders.
Learn how sleep apnea increases inflammation in my podcast with Shirley Gutkowski.
Sleep texting fragments sleep and may point to additional sleep disorders. Sleep disorders are especially a concern in teens and young adults because their developing brains lack restful NREM or memory enhancing REM sleep.
Reading and responding to text messages while asleep — called “sleep texting” — is an abnormal sleep behavior
