Omar's story

When I was 11 years old in 1989, my mother brought me to an orthodontist at the referral of our dentist, because he thought I had an over-bite.

My mother and I had the initial consultation with the orthodontist, and in that meeting, he told me that I had an overbite and crowding in my upper teeth. He said that my upper jaw had grown too far forward, and that he needed to restrict its growth so that the lower jaw could catch up.  He said that I needed cervical headgear or extractions, headgear being the better option.  He also told me that not only would the headgear allow my lower jaw to catch up to my upper jaw, but that it would create room for my crowded upper arch by pulling teeth back.  I asked him if there were any alternatives to headgear and he said there were none.  I asked him if there were any side-effects to headgear, and he said there were none, except that in extremely rare cases, the lower jaw continues to grow forward uncontrollably and that the remedy for this is a quick surgery where we cut a nerve under the neck at the side of the jaw, which stops the forward growth.

As a child, I never had trouble sleeping or waking up.  I always ate breakfast with my family in the mornings, and had time to do things that a kid did, like watch cartoons, or run around and play while my mom made us breakfast.  The short version of the story is that a few months after wearing headgear, those morning rituals gradually faded away and were replaced with the struggle of waking up more fatigued than when I went to bed.  Fatigue eventually mapped out a large portion of my life, and it was something that I battled with on a daily basis.  Finally, in March of 2013, at the age of 35, I was diagnosed with moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea.  The cause:  A maxilla and mandible that had not grown forward enough, causing an upper airway obstruction. 

I have since learned that by 1989, many orthodontists had stopped using cervical headgear due what studies call "disastrous" side effects on craniofacial growth, namely a backwardly grown or underdeveloped maxilla and mandible causing a flattened and vertically grown face, and that these abnormal effects were not yet understood at the time.  The side effects have been published in peer-reviewed journals countless times since the 1950’s.  I have also learned that since the early 1900’s, orthodontists, otolaryngologists and other doctors have identified an underdeveloped maxilla as being a major cause of upper airway obstruction, which, according the literature, wreaks havoc on a person’s health.  The part that baffles me the most, is that orthodontists have identified that without orthodontic treatment, a child’s face tends to grow more forward than with treatment, and in untreated cases, the lower jaw tends to catch up to the upper jaw during adolescence.

After reading the research, I had no doubt that headgear can cause sleep apnea.  And I am not alone in that conclusion.  Between 1999 and 2012, there have been at least six peer-reviewed, published studies done which state that cervical headgear impacts the patency of the airway, that it reduces the volume of the airway, that it puts a patient at risk for obstructive sleep apnea, and that it has been clinically observed to cause sleep apnea in children while they wear it.

Despite the published evidence to the contrary, there are orthodontists today who still restrict natural growth using cervical headgear or other means, also without disclosure of the known risks to their patients.  I believe this is unacceptable and needs to stop.

If you’re interested in learning about the consequences that growth restriction of the airway by way of hindering the growth of the upper jaw can have on a person’s life, I invite you to read on.  I've also included some before and after pictures at the end of this write up so that you can understand the types of growth changes that the public has allowed the orthodontic industry to get away with.

As I mentioned, at the age of 11, things changed when I started to wear headgear.  I started waking up fatigued on a daily basis, literally within months of wearing the headgear but never in my wildest dreams as a kid did I connect the two.  The fatigue crept up on me gradually enough such that I could never notice that something was drastically wrong.  As I started to wake up tired, I also started to wake up later too.  Gone were the days of eating breakfast with the family.  I would be out of bed long after breakfast was made and I’d be in a rush getting ready for school while my mom and my little sister were in the car, waiting for me and late for their destinations.  Since then, I became known as the person who made everybody late.  At the age of 11, my mornings had become rushed and this is something that would never change for 25 years.  I’d eat breakfast in the car as fast as I could, and on many days, I’d be so late in the morning that I washed my face at school. 

As the years went by, my fatigue increased and coping with it had become a way of life for me.  I learned to sleep in almost any situation, and to take almost any opportunity to close my eyes and nap.  I learned how to take tiny 30 second naps to get me through the next 15 minutes if I was particularly tired, and I could even do this while playing sports.  Sports became a particular challenge for me because I never thought I was any more or less fatigued than other kids, which made me wonder why keeping up with them put me in so much physical distress, and why I’d be out of breath so fast. When my braces came off, I was put in a fixed upper and lower retainer designed to limit the effects of natural lateral growth during my growth spurt years, and my fatigue became worse.  In my final year of high school, I napped during almost every recess in the school nurse’s room because it had a bed, and I napped during most of every lunch break.  On rare occasions, I was so tired that I slept through the entire lunch break without eating and on those days, concentrating in some afternoon classes became a challenge because I was hungry, but it beat being exhausted from a lack of sleep which caused my body to twitch in fatigue if I waited too long before taking a nap.  Having a social life for me was not much of an option.  I had to work twice as hard as most kids to maintain my grades, and at night on the weekends while other kids were partying, I needed to sleep.

Fatigue followed me everywhere.  College was a particular challenge, as after doing my best to listen intently to a professor, I would find myself being woken up by the student next to me at the beginning of the next lecture. I would go to the library to study, and after twenty minutes of reading, I would always need to take a short nap. I cannot count how many times I have woken up from those short naps, only to realize that I had been asleep for hours.  However, I managed to finish an engineering degree with dreams of one day starting a desalination company.

After college I started to work, and again, fatigue followed me there. The issue with work is that I had to be on time at a desk, the entire day, and there was no nurse’s room to get me through the morning, so finding places to nap became quite a challenge.  Finding time to eat also became a challenge because if I had any break, lunch included, I would use it to sleep, otherwise, I could not function. It was always a choice between fatigue or hunger. Fatigue usually won the battle, and I would skip breakfast or lunch to get that extra sleep.  Hunger, however, can be as debilitating as fatigue.  Sometimes one can feel like the other, and I maintained a constant balancing act between the two.  If I could, I used to eat in work meetings.  I carried food with me everywhere I went, eating small amounts here and there during work, doing the best I could to have energy.  I was like a car with only enough gas to go the next half mile, where I had to refill, and could only refill enough for another half mile.  If I could summarize a typical day for me, it looked like this: Micro nap, bite of food, work for twenty minutes, micro nap, micro nap, too much pain, twitching from fatigue is starting and head is starting to fall, go the bathroom and sleep while I pretend to be sick, pain lessened, work for an hour, sleep at lunch time, back to work, stomach is starving, eat a little bit, work twenty minutes, in pain again and need micro nap, need food, in pain from hunger, work for twenty minutes, too hungry to concentrate, eat a little bit on the way to a meeting, close my eyes for five seconds while the person I’m meeting with looks away, stomach is hurting during meeting but cannot eat in this meeting, meeting is finally over and I couldn’t even think about what was being said but did a good job pretending, go to the bathroom and eat there, back to work.  And the day was done. 

After work, the first thing I would do is go home, eat a meal right away while exhausted and then sleep for an hour.  The sleep would get rid of my headache and stabbing pain in my eyes, and the fact that I had eaten an hour ago allowed me to have my workout without a full stomach.  After my one hour nap, nearly every day, I forced myself to go for a run or do some type of workout.  My father was an athlete – a distance runner – and my mother, a health nut who raised us on a very healthy diet, came from a family of sportsmen so the importance of being in healthy physical shape was instilled in me as a child.  So I ran, and if I could sum up the effects of running in one word, it would be “depression.” My parents would always tell me about the “runner’s high” and how happy running used to make them, and I never understood it.  Running and exercise in general depressed me.  However, I still ran and worked out regularly, in addition to keeping a healthy diet, because not only did those values from my childhood never leave me, but I also found that running, if done in the right amount and at the right time, helped me to fall asleep faster.  After my run, it would be 8pm and that’s when I’d have my dinner.  By 9pm the dishes were done and I had an hour or two in my day to buy groceries, meet a friend, run any errands I needed to run, make any phone calls I needed to make, prepare food for the next day, shower, do some reading and be in bed.  I tried my best to make 11pm my curfew. If I didn’t touch my pillow by around 11pm, it made a huge difference in my fatigue the next day. There was no time for television, no time for extended socializing, because if anything interfered with me getting enough sleep, enough food and my workout, there was no room for it.

The next day, I’d wake up in the morning at 8am or as early as I could, ritualistically more fatigued than when I went to bed, and as usual, there would be no time for breakfast.  I’d put my clothes on as fast as I could with my eyes closed, grab my razor so that I could be on time at work and shave there in a bathroom on another floor, grab my pre-packed breakfast, run as fast as I could to catch the bus and grab a few bites on the way, button up my shirt while on the bus, do my tie on the bus, tuck my shirt in, do up my belt with people oddly watching, eat a few bites of my breakfast and save the rest for later because I had to be at work on time. I also learned to eat and run at the same time. If I was running to catch the bus to work, that was an opportunity to eat. If I had any spare still time on the bus after getting ready, that was my time to close my eyes. If I was late for anything in the morning, it was always because I was struggling to get more sleep and if I could scrounge an extra minute or two in the morning for a little more sleep, I would. That was my formula.  And it rarely worked.  I have been fired from almost every job I have ever had. Bosses and colleagues wondered why I would come to work late, why I was always nibbling, why I spent so much time in the bathroom, why I made so many mistakes, why simple things would take me so long, and in all fairness to them, why they hired me.

Maintaining a career and earning an income were probably the most difficult parts of living with sleep apnea.  As entrepreneurial and motivated as one can be , careers and businesses cannot thrive when a person cannot breathe.  My first job out of college was in California working for a residential designer as a engineering draftsman.  I lost that job after less than a year due to fatigue at work.  My next job was working as an engineering technologist for a buildings assessment company and after six weeks, I was let go for fatigue again.  This was a reflection of all the summer jobs and internships I took while in school, in which I could never be both alert and on time; it was one or the other and rarely either.  After losing the technologist job, I remembered the fatigue throughout all of those summer jobs and internships I had and I lost faith in being able to have a career.  With enough money in my pocket for one month's rent and some groceries, I managed to find a job working for an apartment building owner who needed somebody to help him coordinate maintenance and keep his database updated.  He wanted somebody with ten years of experience but I was desperate so I offered to work for him for far less than what it would have cost him to have that ten-year individual, and I got the job.  It was only for four hours per day and it was almost enough to pay the bills.  My day there would start at 9am and would end at 1pm.  From 2pm to 4pm I would nap, and at nights, I telemarketed on commission.  That is how I paid my rent and survived from 2002 to 2005  

In 2006, I decided to go back to school and do a master's in engineering at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.  Because my courses were in the evening, I was able to excel.  I was the top student in my class and in 2007, I met a professor who had a patent-pending desalination technology that I believed could solve a part of the world's water crisis.  He was looking to take to market and I instantly jumped on it.  I found an investor who agreed to fund the initial prototyping, and in the afternoons before class, I would cold call industrial water users who could potentially demo the technology in order to prove it out.  By the time I graduated, I had list of customers, an investor and my dream of a desalination company was close to coming true.  My investor offered me a job and a small partnership stake in his venture fund while we worked on the desalination business and foolishly, I took the job.  The comute was half an hour by car and having to give up that amount of sleep was a sacrifice that I ultimately could not afford to pay.  Not once was I at work on time, and I need both hands to count the number times per day I would go the bathroom pretending to be sick in order to sleep.  Although I believe I performed my job well, managers would notice me coming to work late and I could never sneak in because of the position of my desk relative to theirs.  Relations at work soured with my co-workers due my lateness, people wondered why I spent so much time in the bathroom, and this dried my investor's confidence in working with me.  In the summer of 2008, after investing two years into this new venture, the investment in the desalination company was halted.  Dejected and not knowing how I would earn a living, I decided to move back home to my parents house in Vancouver.  I also vowed never to live more than a few minutes away from a place of work.  Nonetheless, given that my investor's office was in an industrial park, I didn't have much choice in the matter.

In Vancouver at the suggestion of my mom, I started tutoring in the evenings and did this from 2009 to 2011.  I excelled at this job because I could sleep as much as I needed and work in the evenings.  Out of over 1000 tutors in my agency, many of which were licensed teachers, in 2010 I won the teacher-of-the-year award.  During the daytime, for the the three years between 2009 and 2011 I tried to revive the desalination company while volunteer for a housing non-profit I was starting but I would always crash and burn with fatigue.  After three years of tutoring, I ended up working as a consultant for the father of one my students who greatly appreciated how I helped his son learn French.  He was a real estate developer who I had approached to fund a non-profit housing project.  Although he declined the project, he offered to hire me as a consultant on a few of his own projects.  At that time, I did not know I had sleep apnea and although I feared that I would get fired from not being alert or on time, I took the job.  Anytime I had a day job, I always knew that the rainy day, and days, were on their way.  One or two important morning meetings missed because I didn't wake up, and I was out the door.  So, I learned to save my money while I earned, and to live well below my means.  As a result, and to this day, I have not had more than a few hundred dollars of consumer credit card debt, and never more consumer debt than cash in the bank, and regardless of what the future holds, I'll probably maintain that habit.

Despite some valuable habits I learned, fatigue, over the past two and half decades, has been my greatest rival. During that time, I have taken naps in almost every type of location and during almost any activity or event imaginable.  I’ve slept in rock concerts, in lecture halls, during exams, while playing soccer, on the job, during a conversation, on a date, on the bus, in public washrooms, while jogging, under my desk, on my desk, while on hold over the phone, during breakfast, while showering, while brushing my teeth, while shaving.  The list goes on.  I never knew that I might have a tangible health problem.  I simply wondered why everybody else could wake up refreshed, keep a job, and be chipper with time for breakfast and morning activities. I always thought they were just as tired as me, and simply had a better mind to cope with it.

My fatigue was paired with constant depression. Not being able to participate in normal activities, pretending to be awake to maintain politeness and a job, constantly fighting off fatigue and hunger throughout an entire day along with the physical pain and twitching that came alongside took a toll on me personally.  So, when clinicians talk about the correlation between sleep apnea and depression, I know first hand exactly what they are talking about. 

I also feared going to sleep.  Over the years, albeit rare, I have had nightmares of choking.  More than sleep itself, I dreaded the fatigue that sleep would bring the next day, and the physical pains of waking up more exhausted than I was before I went to bed.  I found myself waking up several times a night, panting, sometimes sweating and never knew why. Ironically, sleep became something I did my best to avoid, tried my best to have, and fatigue paired with hunger were my constant enemies. It was a vicious three-dimensional cycle that I knew no way to end.  I thought all of this was normal and never told anybody, because it started when I was so young.

While tutoring in 2010, some sudden changes in my sleep patterns started that alarmed me.  Several nights in a row, while on my side, the feeling of a bead of sweat falling from one arm onto another would wake me up, and I'd try to wipe it off my arm thinking it was just a drop, but my entire hand would end up covered in sweat and I'd wake up only to realize that these were not just beads of sweat, but that my entire body was soaked.  I was so drenched, it was as though I had gone for a swim.  My pajamas, my bed sheet, my blanket and pillow seemed as though somebody had poured a bucket of water on them.  I became concerned that I was losing electrolytes very quickly and I was sluggish, to say the least, if I tried to go for a run or do any type of exercise during the day.  I had experienced night sweats in the past, but never to this intensity and they were rare.  Now, although unpredictable, they were often and I could not avoid them.  So I went and saw my doctor to discuss this and my sleep, and was referred to a sleep specialist in Burnaby.  He put me on an overnight oximetry test and made the conclusion that I was simply restless.  The following year, I started to gain weight rapidly, and no matter how much or how hard I worked out, I had developed a gut.  I went back to my doctor who ordered blood tests, which came back normal.  I still knew something wasn't right, and thought that perhaps it was dietary, even though I was eating a very healthy diet.  So I brought my diet down to a bare bones menu, eating only the most basic foods, cutting out anything that had been the slightest bit refined.  My weight did come under control, and by what I think is a stroke of luck, the night sweats diminished greatly.  Today, I wonder whether sleep apnea impacts digestion, and given its mechanics, I'm sure it would.  However, the next three years were plagued with constant colds, what seemed like incomplete digestion and an overall inability to stay healthy.  

Then, in January of 2013, in one night, my fatigue grew by orders magnitude.  I woke up one morning so exhausted that I literally did not have enough energy to get out of bed.  That morning, I felt as though I was velcroed to my mattress with limbs heavier than I had ever experienced.  I felt as though I had not slept for days.  I was dizzy and my vision was blurred.   I had the sharpest shooting pains in my eyes and head I had experienced thus far and this continued for several days.  I told my older sister about this – who was studying to become an naturopathic doctor (ND) – and she said to me that this sounded like sleep apnea and told me to see a doctor.  I went to a walk-in clinic in New Westminster where I was seen by the first doctor available.  He, too, suggested that I may have sleep apnea and recommended an overnight oximetry test.  I took the test at home on January 17, 2013, which, although not conclusive, indicated that I may have severe sleep apnea.  I then booked an appointment with my regular physician, who referred me to a respirologist, who sent me for an overnight polysomnography (PSG) at Surrey Memorial Hospital, which was taken in March of 2013.  The results of my PSG showed that I had moderate to severe sleep apnea, and the doctor who interpreted the results stated that he suspected my sleep apnea to be more severe than the PSG indicated.  It turned out that I stopped breathing 23 times per hour in my first stage of sleep, and 76 times per hour during REM.  Each time I stopped breathing, the doctor explained, my oxygen levels dropped and that this would cause my body to wake up without me knowing.  He said that as a result of waking up so many times during the night, I never really got much rest, which explained my constant fatigue.  I then went to see an ear, nose and throat doctor about options to treat my sleep apnea. He put a camera down my nose and throat, and told me that my airway was one quarter the size it should be, which explained that my sleep apnea was caused by an upper airway obstruction. He indicated that due to the severity of my upper airway restriction, than an oral appliance would likely be ineffective. I was given surgical options and was told to get on a CPAP machine. I took a second opinion from another ear, nose and throat doctor, and he told me the same thing that the first one did.  He also noted that both my upper and lower jaws were positioned too far back than normal, and that this interfered with my airway.  Two oral surgeons I saw and two dentists told me the same thing, “Omar, your maxilla is pushed too far back.  It is trapping your mandible from coming forward and both your jaws need to come forward to expand your airway.”  25 years ago, in 1990, a backwardly positioned upper and lower jaw were well-known and well-documented side effects of cervical headgear.  The enclosed pictures of me as a child before headgear do not exhibit these traits.

I have been on CPAP therapy for nearly two years now, and I can honestly say, up until January of 2015, these have been the best two years of my life.  Instead of being fatigued and starving all day long at work, every day of the week, this only happened two to three days a week.  I also told bosses, clients and colleagues about my sleep apnea, and that if I came to work late, it is because I needed the sleep.  They understand and I simply work longer hours to get my work done.  And, thanks to CPAP, I've been able to earn a living working as a consultant for five years in a row for the same father of the son I who I taught French in 2010.  

CPAP therapy had literally changed my life and I am eternally grateful to its inventor.  Getting used to a CPAP machine was not easy, and I didn’t tolerate the machine for the first six months.  At certain pressures, CPAP leaves it’s user with an extremely dry mouth, so dry in fact that the inner cheeks become stuck to the gums and have to be peeled off during the night, or sometimes it leaves the user with the feeling of being punched in the nose and it has to come off. Nonetheless, my life had changed for nearly two years after I found CPAP and it became my best friend for a time. I also learned to tape my mouth shut while I sleep, and the Sahara-like dry mouths became a thing of the past. At times during that period, I would wake up to find my CPAP mask mysteriously sitting beside me, and on those days, I knew I had to face fatigue because I didn’t get the oxygen I needed.  But it only happened once in a while and I had no major problems up until January of 2015.

I started the 2015 New Year having just recovered from a cold that started in mid-December.  (Having a cold that lasts two to three weeks, I've recently learned, is normal for someone with obstructive sleep apnea.)  I was looking forward to a new year at work, having kept a job nearly four years in a row.  The problem with CPAP is that it drives an unnaturally high velocity of air down the throat, and over those two years, my airway had become narrower. My doctor doesn’t know the reason for this, however, a dentist who specializes in sleep apnea suggested that muscles in the throat may grow larger due the counter pressure they exert against the CPAP’s inflow air pressure, and that this could explain my further narrowed airway, that my overgrown muscular tissues in my throat were crowding my already narrow airway. From January of 2015, up until the beginning of April of 2015, my health went into rapid decline and CPAP stopped having its positive effect on me. At times, air would go down my stomach or would shoot out of my mouth, and would go anywhere but through my airway. I again started to wake up fatigued, and this time, the fatigue was more painful and debilitating than I had ever experienced prior. I would wake up with headaches that felt as though a worm with a scalpel on its head was crawling through my brain and eyes. I had to sleep 11 to 12 hours a day to be barely functional, and during those months, I would still need one or two hour long naps each day. My productivity at work dropped greatly, and as each week went by, the pain got worse. If I went for a run, I could barely do it and I would be sore for over a week. The pain from my fatigue became so bad one day that I went to the emergency room at St. Paul’s Hospital on the way home from work, because I had so much pain in my head and eyes, and I couldn’t walk in a straight line. There was no conclusion at the hospital, however, my vision became blurrier by the day and in the kitchen at work one day, I tried to open a cabinet door and missed the handle. I became extremely worried and the decline was rapid. I lost hope when I realized that in order to have enough time to keep a job, I had no energy or time in my day to look for ways to help myself. I feared going back to the days of not having an income. In my 20s, it was somewhat acceptable because I could always live with my parents, however, in my mid-30s, I didn’t feel this was an option. I had little time to see doctors, because it took time away from my already compromised work, and when I did find time to see one, there were no conclusions or answers. I tried to increase the pressure on my CPAP machine, but the fatigue was getting worse and worse, and in the downward decline I began to fear for my life. I was living a nightmare and I knew no way to make it stop. By that point, I knew quite a bit about obstructive sleep apnea, and what I feared most was a stroke or heart attack. In constant pain and debilitated most of the day, all I could think about was ending my life.

But I got very lucky. A friend of mine who had a headgear-based orthodontic treatment course similar to mine and who had battled similar issues discovered a dentist in Australia who had invented a bite-plate that freed the lower jaw from being trapped behind the upper jaw. As a last resort and a desperate last hope, I booked a flight to Australia. I arrived on April 4th 2015, and I wore my appliance to sleep for the first time on April 6th. For the first time in my life since I was 11 years old, I woke up naturally. It was a religious and transformative experience for me and I phoned home and wrote to my closest friends. I celebrated that night and took the dentist and his family out for dinner. What I'll never forget is the look on the dentist's face when I gave him the good news.  It was 7am, and I was at house eating breakfast.  He was standing and eating and I was sitting at the dinner table.  When I told him how I had slept, and that I hadn't slept like this since I was a kid, he looked at me blankly, took a bite of his toast and the look on his face said "and the sky is blue...why are you surprised?", as though he's seen this day in and day out.  After he put his toast down, he picked up his coffee and right before his next sip, he mumbled "good, keep it up."  It was truly no big deal for him, just another Tuesday.  I now call him the miracle worker.  By April 9th, I had woken up refreshed three days in a row and the scalpel-sporting worm crawling through my head and eyes was no longer there. I got back to Vancouver on April 14th, and the past two mornings have been nearly painless with 8 hours of straight sleep each night. I regained hope in my life and in my health. I also regained a sense of motivation at work, because waking up earlier and not being fatigued means that I have more hours in the day to be productive. For the first time in my adult life, I now understand how a person can have time for a workout, to eat breakfast and to read the paper in the morning. By the way, the dentist's name is Dr. Joseph Da Cruz.  I want to give him credit and thank him not just for putting me up in his home the entire week, but for saving my life.

Dr. Da Cruz explained to me the dangers of stunting the growth of any part of the skull.  He explained that with headgear, the maxilla cannot come forward to it's genetically-intended position and that with retainers, a child's jaws cannot widen while they sleep.  He explained that during growth, the nerves, arteries, veins and soft tissues of the skull need room because they are expanding.  A headgear will push the maxilla back, using the spine as a fixation point.  He pointed that first of all, the spine is not fixed, it moves.  Therefore, headgear can in fact displace the vertebra that it pushes against in a growing child.  Secondly, he pointed out that not only is the spine impacted, but when the maxilla is held back, other bones in the skull are also held back, and this includes every bone between the spine and the maxilla, which all hold the brain.  These bones include the sphenoid and the occiput.  He looked at my CT scan and showed me how certain points in my skull were too far back from their correct anatomical positions, and explained how backwards forces in there areas exert compression on nerves, arteries and veins.  The problem with this, he said, is that we don't know the degree to which this affects blood flow and neural signaling, but he said that these are essential for good sleep, which is essential for growth and healing, which is why he doesn't dare restrict any growth in a child.  One of the problems, he said, is that when growth is stunted and the jaws are smaller, the airway becomes smaller.  Because the tongue grows to it's normal size during the headgear phase of orthodontic treatment, it then appears large, and is too large for the airway when the mouth is closed during sleep.  To compensate, the person starts to breathe through their mouth, and the muscles that facilitate breathing have to work unnaturally in order to keep the mouth open.  This unnatural muscular pattern further retrudes the jaws because when the mouth opens, the lower jaw comes down and back.  He explained to me that we needed to release the muscular stain pattern I had, which would allow the lower jaw to be released forward.  This, he said, would decompress my TMJ, and may reduce pressure on nerves, veins and arteries.  He said that the light maxillary expansion created by his appliance would expand my capacity to breathe through my nose, because the base of the maxilla forms the base of the nasal airway, and this expansion, also in the forward direction, would also help bring my lower jaw forward, untrapping it from my backwardly positioned maxilla, helping me to breathe better at night.

Two years ago in April of 2013, when I was told that my airway was one quarter the size it should have been, and that this was so because my maxilla and mandible were not far forward enough, I immediately recalled the first appointment I had with the orthodontist, during which he told me that my upper jaw was overgrown, and that we would have to restrict its growth with headgear.  I recalled his statement that there were no alternatives other than extractions, and no side-effects other than an overgrowing lower jaw which could easily be corrected and happened rarely.  After recalling that, I began searching scholarly journals for the negative effects of headgear and growth restriction and I discovered that since the mid 1900s, cervical headgear was under controversy due its ability to cause the maxilla and mandible to grow downward and backwards, unpredictably.  I found journals that were decades old, in which orthodontists stated that cervical headgear did more harm than good, and referred to the side effects as "disastrous."  I then learned that the orthodontic profession was divided into camps, those who favored headgear and those who did not, and that there were alternatives to headgear at the time that did not rely on growth restriction as a means of alleviating crowded teeth and undergrown mandibles. I also discovered orthodontic journals dating back to the early 1900’s, in which the practitioner and writer states that a poorly or backwardly grown maxilla can cause an upper airway obstruction, and that this could both change the shape of a person’s face for the worse by forcing them to be an oral breather, and wreak havoc on their health through poor breathing during sleep and constant fatigue.  More alarming, I found a 1986 paper published out of the University of British Columbia by an orthodontist named Dr. Allan Lowe, who is now the head of the UBC Orthodontic Division.  In his paper, he states that a tell-tale sign of sleep apnea is a backwardly positioned maxilla and mandible, and a steep occlusal plane, which we know are clinically observed and documented side effects of cervical headgear. 

Dr. Lowe’s paper was a surprise to me.  I thought to myself:

“My orthodontist must to have known about Dr. Lowe’s work.  They worked together.  He also must have known about the controversy of cervical headgear and the observed side effects of a backwardly grown maxilla and mandible and steepened occlusal plane.  He had to have known about some of the papers that connected disordered breathing to a backwardly positioned and constricted maxilla.  Was he concealing this from his patients, or was he not even checking?”

I also thought about his use of fixed-width upper and lower Hawley retainers that adolescents wear during their growth spurt years. I have since learned that they are designed to restrict the lateral growth of the jaws so that the teeth remain where the orthodontist put them.  If the jaws can't widen, what happens to the growing airway?

I also discovered a set of papers that analyzed the craniofacial growth of a child, and the conclusions are that the upper jaw comes out first, followed by the lower jaw that grows roughly one and a half times faster than the upper jaw during adolescence.  In other words, children can be naturally buck-toothed and that this tends to correct itself over time.  If orthodontists know this, why are recommending treatment for a normal part of facial growth? 

I then called a few dentists I knew, and asked about my orthodontist's reputation.  I was told that he was “old school, and definitely a ‘headgear’ man”.  I also discovered that the orthodontic industry is made up of camps - the “headgear" and "no-headgear" camps, and the "expansionist" and “extractionist" camps, among possible others.  I then started contacting orthodontists all over the world, and I discovered that these camps have literally been at war with each other, and I came to the conclusion that those in the "headgear" camp had to have known about the side effects pointed out by the opposing camps, and can only be in deliberate denial towards their patients in order to maintain their methods, otherwise, if they were transparent about the known side effects, no patient would consent to the corresponding treatment.  In regards to those in the "no headgear” camp, the reason they stopped using headgear is exactly because of its observed side effects – a backwardly positioned maxilla and mandible. 

 Little did I know, that there was a war going on in medicine in which children bore the casualties.

Every day, I wonder how many kids have a major portion of their lives mapped out in one meeting with an orthodontist who either isn’t aware of the damage his work can do, or chooses to ignore the calls of his peers, and then hides these calls from patients.  All in the name of what?

I also question why our society deems growth restriction of the jaws to be an acceptable practice.  If a doctor told you that your child’s feet were too big and needed to be restricted with metal foot-gear, how would react  What if a doctor told you that your child’s ribcage was too wide, and needed to be restricted with a metal corset?  I’m almost sure you would understand that this process would destroy a child, because the heart, lungs and other organs within the rib cage are growing.  Is restricting the maxilla by banding it against the back of the neck any different than restricting any other body part?  Just as the ribcage holds vital growing organs, so does the space between the neck and the maxilla. Within that are arteries, veins and nerves connected to the brain, the pituitary gland, the tongue, and most importantly, the airway. I cannot imagine that restricting the space of a growing airway, or any growing part of a child, could ever be healthy.

I believe that an orthodontist’s use of any growth stunting appliance cannot be rooted in common sense.  I also believe the correction of bucked-teeth is based on a myth - that the upper jaw can overgrow.  To convince a patient to receive orthodontic treatment which restricts growth, the practitioner must convince the patient of a lie.  To sell the lie, he must first convince himself of the lie.  Welcome to university.  Not all lies are the same, and this one is particularly dangerous because obstructing a person's airway can kill them.  I believe this practice needs to stop, once and for all.  It's been 100 years too long. 

I have since started Right to Grow. It is an organization with a mission to ban growth restriction on children.

The 1959 Declaration of the Rights of the Child, states in Principle 2: 

The child shall enjoy special protection, and shall be given opportunities and facilities, by law and by other means, to enable him to develop physically, mentally, morally, spiritually and socially in a healthy and normal manner and in conditions of freedom and dignity. In the enactment of laws for this purpose, the best interests of the child shall be the paramount consideration.”

Does restricting the normal growth of a child’s upper jaw allow him to develop physically in a normal manner?

On November 20th, 1989 the International Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted as a binding treaty by 176 nations at the UN General Assembly.  It was based on the 1959 declaration.  This new document states in Article 6.2:

States Parties shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child.”

In Article 24.3, it states:

States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children.”

How many more children need to suffer as a result of having their natural growth impeded, before we can abolish from our society what needs to be abolished?

If you want to take action, print out the research on this website along with Article 24.3, and feel free to use my story.  Present it to your local government representative.  Get in touch with your local parent-teacher association.  Make live presentations to those groups in school gyms.  Go to community organizations, ask them if you can present to an audience of parents.  You don't have to be a doctor or an orthodontist to have a say here.  The information contained in the "Research" section speaks for itself and you can use it.  The scientific papers it refers to were written by doctors and orthodontists.  Parents, more than anybody, need to know where and when their kids are at risk.

If you know a healthcare professional who stands by what has been said here, get them to write a letter of support.  That will only add more credibility to an effort to change our laws.

If you have a similar story, write in.  If you know of any other people who have similar stories, and I’m sure there are many, get them to write in.  The more stories we have, the more power we have to move forward.

I can be contacted at [email protected]

Sincerely,

Omar Lalani

 

To give you an idea of how dangerous orthodontic growth stunting is, and what vertical and backward growth of the face looks like here is my face the summer before I started wearing headgear.

The next picture is me about two years ago.

 pre_treatment.JPG

omar_face_after_ortho.PNG

Showing 196 reactions

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  • Jon Snow
    commented 2020-10-16 01:34:00 -0700
    One more thing kim you said we are inherited with small jaws and lack of space in our teeth is the cause of crooked teeth.So i want to ask when we are inherited with small jaws extractions of two premolars can even make your small jaw smaller and you have to agree with me that if i remove two premolars from any persons teeth during his growth year his jaw will start narrowing and melting and reatainers pulls the teeth and jaws further back.Leading to breathing problems.So why not expansion and in case of overbite instead of bringing and retracting upper jaw and meet them with lower jaw.lower jaw can be bringed forward so that it could match up with the upper jaw.I don’t understand first orthodontist retract and pull upper jaw backwards and then at some point of our life we devlop apnea then the same doctor says you need maxillo-mandibular advancement to fix it. If everything health,looks,sleep all lies in forward and fully grown maxilla and mandible then why retainers to pull them backward..?And why most of the orthodontists don’t tell the risk involved in the treatment.Now if someone’s teeth are crooked and you extract two teeth from jaws the teeth will automatically get straight without any braces. And that is because of space.And yes you said how frequently you remember about the tongue.I see many child at the age of 12-20 and i ask them to put your tongue up on the roof of palate then they do so and then they reply my tongue is already on roof of the palate so if many general populations tongue is at roof of the palate normally as a child.why you don’t fix the tongue the tongue posture of child who visits for orthodontic treatment.Many orthodontists have made appliance for tongue posture correction example biobloc appliance,SOMA appliance why don’t orthodontist use them if they don’t have brain to come up with their own appliance to fix tongue posture.You said how frequently you remember your tongue is at roof of palate or not .as a patient i visited you and if my tongue or oral habits are wrong its you duty as an doctor to fix it no matter how much efforts it takes.Remember one thing Kim Wrong is Wrong even everyone is doing it and Right is Right if only 1 person is doing it.
    Lastly Treat your every patient as your own child and think before doing anything wrong that i am ruining my own childs life.
    And Tongue posture fixing is possible but for that orthodontists needs to communicate about tongue posture to parents and their child.And then parent will make sure to remid theor child to keep entire tongue on the roof of their palate.May be orthodontists are worried if i told them about tongue posture they will know the truth and Internet they will come to know the truth and about orthotropics.So now if any patient and their parents visits you.tell them about the tongue posture even if you can’t fix it first tell them about the tongue posture and say clearly i can’t improve child’s tongue posture.That child himself will fix his tongue postire when he will come to know about the benefits.You orthodontist are wearing a black cloth around your eyes,truth is infront of your eyes and your ego is not accepting it don’t know why.Then after ruining face and lives doctor says this happens and gives excuses.So for this thing i would like to say that LIES ARE NECESSARY WHEN TRUTH IS HARD TO BELIEVE.
    Put your ego aside and accept this.Change in orthodontistry is the need of time.
  • Jon Snow
    commented 2020-10-16 01:34:00 -0700
    One more thing kim you said we are inherited with small jaws and lack of space in our teeth is the cause of crooked teeth.So i want to ask when we are inherited with small jaws extractions of two premolars can even make your small jaw smaller and you have to agree with me that if i remove two premolars from any persons teeth during his growth year his jaw will start narrowing and melting and reatainers pulls the teeth and jaws further back.Leading to breathing problems.So why not expansion and in case of overbite instead of bringing and retracting upper jaw and meet them with lower jaw.lower jaw can be bringed forward so that it could match up with the upper jaw.I don’t understand first orthodontist retract and pull upper jaw backwards and then at some point of our life we devlop apnea then the same doctor says you need maxillo-mandibular advancement to fix it. If everything health,looks,sleep all lies in forward and fully grown maxilla and mandible then why retainers to pull them backward..?And why most of the orthodontists don’t tell the risk involved in the treatment.Now if someone’s teeth are crooked and you extract two teeth from jaws the teeth will automatically get straight without any braces. And that is because of space.And yes you said how frequently you remember about the tongue.I see many child at the age of 12-20 and i ask them to put your tongue up on the roof of palate then they do so and then they reply my tongue is already on roof of the palate so if many general populations tongue is at roof of the palate normally as a child.why you don’t fix the tongue the tongue posture of child who visits for orthodontic treatment.Many orthodontists have made appliance for tongue posture correction example biobloc appliance,SOMA appliance why don’t orthodontist use them if they don’t have brain to come up with their own appliance to fix tongue posture.You said how frequently you remember your tongue is at roof of palate or not .as a patient i visited you and if my tongue or oral habits are wrong its you duty as an doctor to fix it no matter how much efforts it takes.Remember one thing Kim Wrong is Wrong even everyone is doing it and Right is Right if only 1 person is doing it.
    Lastly Treat your every patient as your own child and think before doing anything wrong that i am ruining my own childs life.
    And Tongue posture fixing is possible but for that orthodontists needs to communicate about tongue posture to parents and their child.And then parent will make sure to remid theor child to keep entire tongue on the roof of their palate.May be orthodontists are worried if i told them about tongue posture they will know the truth and Internet they will come to know the truth and about orthotropics.So now if any patient and their parents visits you.tell them about the tongue posture even if you can’t fix it first tell them about the tongue posture and say clearly i can’t improve child’s tongue posture.That child himself will fix his tongue postire when he will come to know about the benefits.You orthodontist are wearing a black cloth around your eyes,truth is infront of your eyes and your ego is not accepting it don’t know why.Then after ruining face and lives doctor says this happens and gives excuses.So for this thing i would like to say that LIES ARE NECESSARY WHEN TRUTH IS HARD TO BELIEVE.
    Put your ego aside and accept this.Change in orthodontistry is the need of time.
  • Jon Snow
    commented 2020-10-15 22:14:57 -0700
    Kim what are your views on Omar’s before after pics of treatment.plus i have read in a orthodontic book that our face is only 10% og generics and rest depend on our growth.example i have nose which parents have inherited but the jaws which were healthy only teeth were crooked after extraction teeth are straight but face is crooked,airways are narrowed.plus thousands and lakhs of people have been the victim of retractive orthodontic treatment you can read it on realself jaw surgery and orthodonics question sections.All those people are idiot that they are saying its not right. If only 1 person says so then you can prove him/her wrong but when lakhs of victim says so orthodontist should understand and need to make big change in their practice.We aren’t idiot who are fighting these kind of malpractice you orthodontists do selling strainght teeth and ruining lives. Even Galileo when said earth is round got trolled and was convicted by idiots but the truth prevailed and everyone agreed after his death. You orthodontist need to make change in your practice tongue posture should be corrected before any kind of orthodontic treatment and extraction should be done minimally and if doing then with proper planning and execution.Considering the overall health.My orthodontist never corrected my mouth breathing habit.If orthodontists will not make the foundation of any treatment strong no matter which appliance they use or for how many years they use they will not be able to get the optimal results.
    Kim one advice on any one of your patient child try to fix his tongue posture,body posture,lip seal and swallowing pattern and then straight the teeth and then see the results you will be happy after doing this and patient will also thank you.
    TBH i don’t think you have many or any orthodontic patients.
    Many orthodontist all over the world are now understanding and trying to address the causes of crooked teeth and malocclussion.They understand the importance of over all health of child.Yes i agree we are inherited with narrow jaws sometimes from our parents but why this happens my brothers have class 1 mallocclussion fully grown maxilla and mandible and wide palate on the other hand i after having orthodontic treatment narrow palate high arched palate with class 3 skeletal open bite.Moreover extraction causes maxillas structure to colloapse and then teeth pulling by retainers gives the finishing touch in ruining jaws and face.I hope one day you’ll understand all this and instead of supporting your fellow orthodntists you will understand how it feels to getting growth stuntee by a doctor having sleep apnea and ruined face which is stopping you from enjoying your life to its fullest.
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-28 18:24:49 -0700
    Sam,

    “This is where you and I disagree, the animals we keep in captivity are raised on there natural diets. Modern humans for the most part are not. From an epigenetic point of view I believe that I would have grown up to be my most intelligent, bright, beautiful and strong self. I have had the knowledge of nutrition that I have now. "

    As I told one poster a while back: It is impossible to know how an alternate future would have turned out. Like it or not, we are prisoners of our own genes. My mother had trouble with kidney stones, and I have lost a kidney because of it. Our blood chemistry is also very similar. I have the same varicose veins of my father, and will probably have a stroke the same as happened to him.

    Again, be careful of blaming something you or someone else did for the deficiencies in the esthetics of your skull. If we fed a rabbit our exact human diet, would it eventually develop a beautiful human head? Or is his cranial development limited by genetics?
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-28 18:17:04 -0700
    Siddhant,

    You are a most excellent constructor of straw men.

    1. As I said, every orthodontic workup involves assessment of airway, INCLUDING MOUTH BREATHING, and tongue posture, especially during swelling. Some guys with a cone beam x-ray even assess it in 3D .
    2. We make tons of referrals to ENTs, BUT FREQUENTLY THEY CANNOT RESOLVE UPPER BLOCKAGES THAT CAUSE MOUTHBREATHING.
    3. Myofunctional therapy sounds nice, but it is frequently unsuccessful in changing habitual tongue posture. How often do you think about where your tongue rests?
    4. Orthodontics do not “ruin faces.” Some faces, especially those with overly procumbent incisors, look horrible to start with. Sometimes it takes premolar extraction to improve the profile. Mostly we try to avoid extractions these days. But talk to a patient with buck teeth and ask him if he wants to maintain and ugly smile so he won’t have to lose premolars.

    What are the causes of crooked teeth? The main one is lack of space. Why is there lack of space? Most frequently, the patient inherited small jaws and large teeth. My guess is through evolution, people with small jaws and small teeth interbred with human with large jaws and large teeth. OF COURSE OTHER FACTORS CAN AFFECT FINAL ARCH CIRCUMFERENCE, BUT THE EFFECT IS LIMITED. The most successful appliance to do this in children was the Frankel appliance, but compliance in wearing them was low and they were easily damaged.

    I don’t care what you people and your quack websites say. Growth of the maxilla and mandible is virtually impossible in adults. My colleagues and I have tried many of these voodoo devices that are supposed to grow jaws.
  • Sam Elsmore
    commented 2020-09-28 04:25:42 -0700
    Another truth that I learnt from this experience is that once you are down and hurt you see how many people want to keep you in your pain and torment, I lost my innocence, life can be so hostile.
  • Sam Elsmore
    commented 2020-09-28 03:47:52 -0700
    When I was young I didn’t think anything could hurt me, I was arrogant with my head in clouds. Its easy to place the blame but ultimately my parents and I decided to have the treatment ignoring any thought of consequence, not really paying attention, no matter how much bad news you hear you never assume it could happen to you.
  • Sam Elsmore
    commented 2020-09-27 13:56:12 -0700
    Dr Kim,

    This is where you and I disagree, the animals we keep in captivity are raised on there natural diets. Modern humans for the most part are not. From an epigenetic point of view I believe that I would have grown up to be my most intelligent, bright, beautiful and strong self. I have had the knowledge of nutrition that I have now. I must work with the knowledge I have now, I don’t wish to be an angry chap anymore and I don’t see the value on casting blame on anyone to be honest its not really how I roll. Anything I have said that has appeared to be damming is just my inexperience and exasperation with my current situation.
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-27 13:41:19 -0700
    Sam, please be hesitant in assigning blame to why your skull is built the way it is. A lot of people will disagree on this forum, but the final shape of the human body is mostly genetic. How prominent your lips, nose and ears are, how close or distant your eyes are, how long and narrow your skull is, the slope and shape of your forehead, how dominant your zygomas are- all are almost exclusively genetic traits. If they were not, we could raise other animals to look like humans.
  • Sam Elsmore
    commented 2020-09-27 13:09:53 -0700
    Dr Kim,

    Yes I feared the nerve damage and the relapse which is why I stayed clear. I will have a chat with the great people I am seeing at present.

    Thank you so much for all of your knowledge. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me about the potential benefits and disbenefits of the different options during adulthood. I only wish I was more knowledgeable as a youngster in terms of nutrition and growth. I was at boarding school we were fed pretty badly, despite most of us being athletes. Iv spent so much of my young life being angry about this.
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-27 12:56:05 -0700
    Sam, moving either the maxilla or mandible surgically in any direction is a lot of trauma, with fair danger of nerve paraesthesia. Sure is easier than in the old days, though. It is always an expensive hospital procedure, very seldom covered by insurance.

    An orthodontist friend of mine did them with an oral surgeon pretty often. He said when only one jaw was moved, the result was pretty stable. However, if surgery is done to both jaws at the same time there is no certainty of stable results. We need a stable reference point when moving one jaw or the other.

    These days most ortho/surgeon teams would do the surgery virtually to see what could be achieved. Then the teeth are moved orthodontically to fit the new jaw position. It looks worse before it looks better. Then the surgery is done, then the orthodontics is finished. Probably would be a task of 2.5-3 years.
  • Sam Elsmore
    commented 2020-09-27 00:55:13 -0700
    Dr Kim,

    It would be interesting to here your opinion on jaw surgery please?
  • Jason
    commented 2020-09-26 21:04:40 -0700
    This is where your ignorance shines brightly. The AGGA does not apply force to any teeth. There’s a pad that is placed on the incisive foramen, this stimulates palate growth (hardly noticeable force). I hardly felt any pressure while wearing it. Go to stamforddentist.com (not my dentist), it explains it well. There are many, many other websites with information. For the love of God start reading and learning.
  • Sam Elsmore
    commented 2020-09-26 21:00:41 -0700
    All the dental work I have received in the past has been poor and has damaged my health and appearance.

    Thank you for all of your thoughts Dr Kim, When my treatment is complete I will show you what has been achieved.

    Best wishes

    Sam
  • Sam Elsmore
    commented 2020-09-26 20:30:39 -0700
    All fairly scary, but thanks I will keep all of this in mind. I trust the people I am with, they know what they are doing.
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-26 20:13:19 -0700
    One other thing about trying to achieve growth in adult jaws by putting outward force on the teeth. A real danger is root resorption. When heavy forces are used in adults to shove teeth against bone, root resorption can result. Osteoclasts eat up the exterior of the root surface(s) instead of remodeling the bone. Occasionally we lose teeth this way. A colleague said a patient lost her two upper incisors because of heavy forces by poorly designed Smile Club Defect aligners. But heavy expansion forces with fixed orthodontic appliances can do the same thing.
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-26 16:21:41 -0700
    Sam,

    All the ligaments, bones, osteoclasts, and osteoblasts know is the magnitude, duration and direction of the forces applied.

    Amount of movement potential depends on whether there is bone on facial or roots or not, and how thick the gums are to start with. In the lower arch, we do a measurement on the ceph to somewhat assess the risk. There a limits to how far the roots can be moved in bone before patients start to get either gum recession or root resorption or both. Once roots bump up against what is called the cortical plate in adults, that is as far as they can be moved. But sometimes the gums limit comes into play before this.
  • Jason
    commented 2020-09-26 15:39:21 -0700
    Go to any dental practice website that uses AGGA to see the before and after images. It is probably difficult to perform reasonable research if you went to school before the internet existed. It’s not that hard.
  • Sam Elsmore
    commented 2020-09-26 15:33:47 -0700
    Dr Kim,

    Ah I spose not the brand, but I’m sure the bone recognises the forces being applied.

    That is interesting, I have experienced mild recession after wearing the brace for almost two years, My current orthodontist says far to mild for concern, but I am touch with a periodontist who says this problem is common in adults who seek orthodontic treatment.

    I was going to consider jaw surgery, this option seemed far less risky and ultimately appeared to aim for what I had in mind. Jaw surgery appears to have far more complications. To be honest leaving the problem as it was unbearable.
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-26 15:23:14 -0700
    Jason,

    But up your traced pre- and post op cephs, for all to see. Then we will believe. I would really like to see a freaky face with a maxilla advance 12mm. That would be one for the history books. Now your nose must be hardly discernible in your profile, with such a prominent maxilla.
  • Jason
    commented 2020-09-26 15:17:58 -0700
    I’m done explaining this to you or any other incompetent dentist, which most of them are. Your information is outdated. Most dental practices that have AGGA have cephs, before and after photos. Just read and learn. Research Dr Galella. I also went back to multiple dentists to show them my face to prove it to them since they are unfortunately ignorant like you. They were amazed. You need to look up the definition of ad hominem, get educated and stop doing it. Stick to the subject. I know adult jaw growth is possible, because it happened on my face. I could care less what you believe, but you better remain respectful when you address people here. It makes you look weak and stupid.
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-26 14:38:23 -0700
    Sam,

    Sorry, but bone doesn’t know the brand or type of brackets an orthodontist is using.

    Damon brackets are good (and expensive) brackets, but they are designed to minimize friction by virtue of not using rubber elastics. This PURPORTEDLY decreases treatment times. They don’t have a thing to do with creating bone.

    When the arch circumference is expanded in an adult, the danger is gingival recession, especially in thin tissue biotype patients. When we HAVE TO proline the teeth outward, we do gingival grafts to make sure the gums do not recede down the root! This is a real danger treating adults with arch expansion.
  • Sam Elsmore
    commented 2020-09-26 10:32:49 -0700
    If we dentists were not interested in expansion, we would not do it in children via Hyraxes and other appliances, would we? Fact of the matter is, growth potential slows down with puberty. The maxilla and mandible are bones like the humorous and femur. Ever hear of a grown person applying force and growing his legs longer in order to be a better basketball player? No? Because the growth centers are closed. You cannot do it.

    Dr Kim,

    I would agree that you cannot grow new bone per say but The brackets I am using can rebuild my broken down jaws through remodelling, I agree my results will be limited but stable due to permanent retention. I am very lucky.
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-26 09:48:01 -0700
    “That’s the problem right there; this isn’t about what I believe or what you believe; it’s about getting results for the patient. You’re saying the adult jaw cannot expand and they used to say man can’t fly; this is about achieving something for the patient. Someone like you who is clearly not the patient wouldn’t REALLY have a vested interest in achieving this flight, would they?”

    If we dentists were not interested in expansion, we would not do it in children via Hyraxes and other appliances, would we? Fact of the matter is, growth potential slows down with puberty. The maxilla and mandible are bones like the humorous and femur. Ever hear of a grown person applying force and growing his legs longer in order to be a better basketball player? No? Because the growth centers are closed. You cannot do it.

    Look, this grow-the-jaws-in-adults mythology gets resurrected every few years. All that is really happening is the teeth are tipped outwards in the arch. Very seldom is this stable. When x-rays are reviewed, there is no growth in width or length of bone. The fact that kook websites claim otherwise with no evidence does not change the impossibility.
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-26 09:41:01 -0700
    Jason,
    “I’m well into adult age, and my maxilla grew (new bone) 12 mm forward! I experienced this myself, with my face. So get out of this antiquated pedagogy from ancient studies from decades ago. I’m a mechanical engineer”

    Wow, Dawn aced physics, and Jason is an engineer, making them both experts in craniofacial growth. Looks like I wasted a lot of money going to dental school.

    Jason:

    1. Antero-postertior maxillary deficiency is rare in Caucasians. If your maxilla grew 12mm forward, you must have a freaky-looking face! Maxillary deficiencies, when they occur, are seldom more that 3 or maybe 4 millimeters. Most of the time we find it in Mongols (orientals.)

    2. If your orthodontist achieved 12mm forward maxillary growth in an adult he needs to document the case by serial cephs and publish it in a reputable journal. It would create a scientific sensation and he would probably receive the Nobel prize in medicine.
  • Jason
    commented 2020-09-25 17:54:40 -0700
    I’ve had to adjust to changes in my speech, but my voice has not changed much. The best way to handle any questions or concerns would be to have a consultation with an orthodontist (CERTIFIED AGGA). I am grateful to have a board certified orthodontist/DDS/AGGA provider. I suggest you research any potential orthodontists extensively. The AGGA therapy requires extensive knowledge. In the wrong hands it can cause serious damage, but that is the case for most orthodontic work.
  • Dawn Turmenne
    commented 2020-09-25 16:03:36 -0700
    Way to go, Jason!!! That’s VERY ENCOURAGING to us that are looking to get PAST the suffering! Is your speech affected st all? I depend on my voice, so NEED to know. Thank you!!!
  • Jason
    commented 2020-09-24 20:24:40 -0700
    I already posted long ago. I’ve been using the AGGA and controlled arch braces for a year and a half now. I’m well into adult age, and my maxilla grew (new bone) 12 mm forward! I experienced this myself, with my face. So get out of this antiquated pedagogy from ancient studies from decades ago. I’m a mechanical engineer, so I’m well aware of the scientific validation process. It works, it’s real, get over it. Look it up online and just read and learn. Welcome to next-gen dentistry.
  • Dawn Turmenne
    commented 2020-09-24 19:32:59 -0700
    That’s the problem right there; this isn’t about what I believe or what you believe; it’s about getting results for the patient. You’re saying the adult jaw cannot expand and they used to say man can’t fly; this is about achieving something for the patient. Someone like you who is clearly not the patient wouldn’t REALLY have a vested interest in achieving this flight, would they? Good night!
  • Kim Henry
    commented 2020-09-24 18:40:45 -0700
    Goody for you, Dawn. Have you studied growth of the lower skull for over 30 years, and effected growth changes in children? Have you quantified the growth changes on serial cephalometric x-rays? I am really trying to understand how a lay person like you thinks they know so much about something they have never been trained or educated to do.

    I received an e-mail today from another orthodontic colleague saying how expansion even with Temporary Anchorage implants does not even work in adults. But by virtue of merely reading junk on the internet, you are the final arbiter in matters like this?

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