Medical Center Dental Group

10/19/2022

Children who have trouble paying attention, don’t learn well, or have poor impulse control are behaviors commonly associated with ADHD.

Or, are they really signs of lack of sleep?

Whether it’s sleep, or ADHD, for parents and clinicians, the two issues can be hard to separate.

For a start, the most common treatment for ADHD, is to prescribe a stimulant, Ritalin.

ADHD is a disorder that begins in childhood and encompasses symptoms of inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity.

These symptoms interfere with functioning at school, at work, and in social situations. ADHD is present in approximately 5% of children, and it is more common in boys.

An estimated 25 to 50% of people with ADHD experience sleep problems, ranging from insomnia to secondary sleep conditions.

Doctors are starting to connect the importance of treating sleep problems and the impact this can have on both ADHD symptoms and quality of life for ADHD patients and their families.

The big issue may be that sleep disorders are likely underdiagnosed in children. Physicians depend on polysomnography that use parameters that are only diagnosed, when obstructive sleep apnea is detected.

That requires an AHI (apnea hypopnea index) to reach a certain threshold, ie. the child has to stop breathing for long enough.

In a functional dental examination, sleep disorders are screened for through a broad set of symptoms and anatomical presentations.

It allows for additional information to identify the risk of airway resistance, hopefully before any sleep condition can reach apnea.

These may include:

• Narrow high palate
• Open mouth posture
• Mouth breathing
• Snoring
• Crooked teeth
• Underbite or overbites
• Teeth grinding
• Bed wetting
• Day time sleepiness
• Dark circles under eyes

If your child has one of these signs, and you suspect it’s affecting their performance at school, they may be suffering from a breathing related sleep disorder.

Does your child show any of these signs?

08/15/2022

What can cause dental wear ??😬

➡️ 🦷⚙️

What is Bruxism??
👉 “defined as a repetitive jaw-muscle activity charac- terized by clenching or grinding of the teeth and/or by bracing or thrusting of the mandible which may occur during sleep (sleep bruxism), during wakefulness (awake bruxism), or both.”

👉 ”clinical risk factor for tooth wear, dental damage and fractures, jaw muscle fatigue, and pain.

👉 “While the pathophysiology of bruxism remains poorly understood, the prevalence of bruxism appears to be significantly increased in participants with sleep and breathing disorders.”

👉 “altered resting oral posture (low tongue position due to mouth breathing and/or ankyloglossia) may predispose to bruxism in the pediatric dental population. “

AND DRUM ROLL PLEASE..........

👉 ”Dentists are encouraged to look for signs of psychosocial stress, nasal obstruction, mouth breathing, tonsillar hypertrophy, and restricted tongue mobility among individuals with moderate to severe dental wear prior to restorative work as a potential underlying cause of the individual's recurrent poor dentition."

Oh, J. S., Zaghi, S., Ghodousi, N., Peterson, C., Silva, D., Lavigne, G. J., & Yoon, A. J. (2021). Determinants of probable sleep bruxism in a pediatric mixed dentition population: a multivariate analysis of mouth vs. nasal breathing, tongue mobility, and tonsil size. Sleep medicine, 77, 7–13. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2020.11.007

07/28/2022

Oral posture guides head, neck, and spinal posture.

To say it simply, you’re not supposed to breathe through the mouth.

The incorrect use of our airway depletes the respiratory immune system, and at the same time imbalances the oral and gut microbiome.

However, many people suffer from symptoms of mouth breathing, and they don’t know it starts with their breath.

Today, crooked teeth are a functional consequence of mouth breathing. Nasal breathing allows the upper jaw to expand and fit the upper teeth, and create a wide patent airway.

Your skeletal system moulds around your breathing patterns.

The tongue, is the rudder of oral posture, and should seal to the roof of the mouth. The muscles that connect to the back of the tongue, connect to the back of the throat and base of the skull.

When the tongue is pressed up to the palate, and the back of the tongue is up to fully engage the throat, the cervical spine is engaged.

When the tongue is down, we mouth breath, and the head falls forward due to lack of support.

Exercise tolerance and respiratory muscle strength in relation to forward head posture (FHP) and respiratory mode in children, is far better in kids who nasal breathe, compared to mouth breathers.

Abnormal swallowing patterns and facial characteristics, postural problems may also be present in those who habitually breathe through their mouth.

Mouth breathers tend to assume a characteristic posture, carrying their heads forward in order to compensate for the restriction to their airways and make breathing possible.

Exercise capacity is negatively affected by mouth breathing; and that the presence of moderate forward head posture acted as a compensatory mechanism in order to improve respiratory muscle function.

This forward head posture often leads to muscle fatigue, neck pain, TMJ pain, and headaches.

If you suffer from jaw pain, neck pain, teeth grinding then reconnecting to tongue posture and nasal breathing is a long term solution.

Imagine creating space at the back of the through by sealing the tongue up to the roof of the mouth.

Do you suffer from any of these problems?

07/11/2022

07/04/2022

Have a safe and happy 4th!
🥳❤️😊

06/30/2022

Read that again 👃

What does this mean ?!?!

➡️ narrow palate can effect your ability to breathe through your nose optimally

➡️ narrow palate -> low tongue posture

➡️ low tongue posture ->mouth breathing during critical growth periods -> maldevelopment of the jaw -> increase in the mandible plane angle (longer face), a higher palatal plane (affects upper airways), and narrowing of both upper and lower arches->malocclusion ->sleep disordered breathing

There are several influences which can effect facial growth and development

One of the most common one in children is caused by a compromised airway - The inability to breathe properly through the nose.

06/30/2022

Sleep apnea and sleep disordered breathing (which can be snoring or grinding) are not normal or healthy! Let’s get to the root cause!

Understanding the root cause is central toward resolution.

06/28/2022

Breathing is everything for your overall health!
If you can’t breathe through your nose all the time it will make dental appointments harder, create more anxiety, more grinding, more sleep problems, and more changes to your oral health (decay, perio concerns, and worn teeth). Let’s talk about this at your next dental visit!

If you’re not doing breathing exercises daily, now is the time to start.

Personally, understanding how my body breathes has helped in so many aspects of life, in particular concentration and application during times of stress.

The scientific literature backs up what I felt during the process.

Increasing your lung capacity is one of the most powerful and effective ways to improve your health.

Your lungs not only exchange vital gases to all the cells in the body, they also relay information to the immune system. By slowing and increasing the amount of surface area that air has to your lungs, you increase the amount of time that your immune system gets to ‘look’ at the air around you.

Then your immune system can respond as needed.

Simply put, breathing is a fast tool to calm your nervous system. In order to do so, you need to have a handle of the muscles that control breathing.

While breathing is complex, the first step is to understand your diaphragm. Breathing properly allows the calm, which activates your vagus nerve, the cranial nerve that triggers the relaxation response.

In a 2017 study, highly anxious people were assigned to take a course in diaphragmatic breathing relaxation

After eight weeks, they reported feeling less anxious compared to a group that didn’t receive the training. They also showed physical signs of reduced anxiety: lower heart rate, slower breathing, and lower skin conductivity.

The truth is your lungs can do more than you think they can. You just need to connect to their ability.

Try this exercise daily to increase lung capacity:

1) Take a deep breath in expanding your diaphragm and taking as much air in as possible.
2) When you reach your peak, pause for 2 seconds, then breathe in further
3) Pause again, and breathe in further
4) Pause again (don’t think about it) and breathe in further again.

Now the exhale:

1) Exhale all the way to the bottom when your lungs feel empty
2) Pause for 2 seconds, then exhale again
3) Pause again, exhale further
4) Pause again (don’t think about it) exhale again.

Take a deep breath in again and repeat 10 times.

Did your lungs do more than you expected them to?

06/24/2022

06/21/2022

Snored to death- the book

06/15/2022

This!!! If you aren’t breathing and sleeping well the rest of your body will suffer… Including your brain and heart!

Breathing is the beginning

06/05/2022

This photo shows several areas where soft tissues can interfere with breathing... kind of like a freeway construction roadblock.
Adenoids, tonsils, and the tongue can all lead to a child or adult experiencing airway roadblocks.

We can do a screening to see where your airway barriers are...