Latest / Motherhood Alliance Podcast / Can Braces Be Avoided? YES! Here's How w/ Amanda Lapean | Chin Up Myofunctional Therapy
Transcript
- Britney Suttner: Hi, we are Britt Andrea from motherhoodalliance.com and we are excited to welcome you to a new four episode series with Amanda Lapine, a myofunctional therapist, massage therapist with advanced training in facial work, dental hygienist, wife and mom of two teen boys. She's also the founder of Chin Up, where she helps kids and adults get to the root cause of issues like poor sleep, snoring, crowded teeth, mouth breathing, jaw pain and chronic muscle tension. What sets Amanda apart is that she even goes beyond the mouth, integrating massage and fascial work to create deeper, longer lasting results. Through her virtual and in-person practice, she's known for her fun, simplified and positive approach and her ability to connect the dots in a way that finally makes sense for families. And we are excited to introduce her to you now. Let's get started with today's episode. Andrea Renkas: Hey everybody, welcome back. We are back here with Amanda with our final episode with her. We have just had a lot of fun, haven't we? It's just, Britt and I kind of geek out on this stuff too, because we love fascia. We just love learning about how the mouth and the tongue and the nose, everything just has such, it just has such an effect on the entire body. And it's absolutely fascinating. Amanda: Absolutely have, yeah. Andrea Renkas: I mean, we went into that in the first and second episodes with mouth breathing, how nose breathing is the best, why, you you even gave us some little tests that we can do and like instant kind of things that we can just understand about ourselves. The last one about fascia was super fascinating too. If you guys haven't listened to any of those, definitely listen to those. They're not just going to help you, they're going to help your kids. They're just going to help you with more awareness about how you're breathing, how you're, how you're doing daily life, just little things that really could. just help you. And it's just, it all comes down to breath, like breathing. This is what we do every day. And we don't even think about how it really affects us. It's just fascinating. So in this episode, we're going to be talking about how braces could be maybe even avoided if we are expanding our jaws, doing different things with our mouth. You are a myofunctional therapist, you know, this kind of arena. So let's just kind of get into this. our braces and mouth breathing, are they correlated? And like, just tell us about how this how this all works. Amanda: Yeah, so braces and mouth breathing are completely related. You can't always do one without the other. They're very closely linked. So before we dive too deep, I think a really cool way to look when we talk about the mouth and braces is the tongue. our tongue is a muscular hydrostatic. So if you think of an elephant, an elephant's trunk, it's a muscle. There is no bone in there. It is amazing what it can do for movement and strength and the tricks an elephant's trunk can do. Our tongue is the same way for us. So for having no bones, it is crazy highly maneuverable. It can twist, it can turn, it can stretch. It is so strong for its size. And I think that's why the tongue is so famous. People always talk about how strong it is. Tongue strength can actually trump bone growth. It can actually put enough pressure to change how our bone is created. But our tongue, it's very slow to fatigue. Think of how much talking Chewy, know occasionally you have that something really chew in your mouth. You're like, my tongue's actually getting tired like how little does that actually happen? So it's an incredible muscle that's in our body and I don't think it always gets the credit that it deserves for how much work it it does for us so Andrea Renkas: I also think, well, and with kids, you know, we're talking about kids, because we're talking about the tongue being so strong, like how it's positioned and the habits we have starting young. This is why it's so important to be talking about this, because it can affect positively or negatively how your mouth forms, right? Amanda: Absolutely. So this is one of the reasons that really caught my attention when working as a dental hygienist of where my functional therapy started to come in is I would see patients of mine that I saw for years come in and tell me why I'm in braces for the second time. I've had multiple people actually tell me they're in braces for the third time. And one thing I saw in common as a hygienist myself, is when they swallowed the tongue would pop between their front teeth when they swallowed. Some people would call that like a tongue thrust, but when the tongue goes forward with a swallow it's not doing the proper movement pattern and we look at how strong that tongue is from what I could see it was pushing those front teeth back forward. It also the tongue was not going up. So when we swallow, our tongue should kind of do a movement pattern. We should hit the front, the middle, and the back, and it should push up against the roof of our mouth. And so think how many times we swallow a day. Constantly we're swallowing, and our tongue is helping to create upward and outward pressure, keeping our teeth separated, keeping the... the roof of our mouth, which is the floor of our nasal cavity, nice and wide. And so when I would see people with a swallow pattern where that tongue was not creating pressure in the right spot, that's where started to connect the dots. And I think that's, like personally, my thought is why they were going into braces multiple times, because we fixed the structure with wire. but the function didn't follow. We did not have the proper movement patterns to support where things got moved to. And that's really what intrigued me. Where I'm like, people need to hear this message. Like you spend so much time and so much money being in braces. How can we get these results to last? How can we keep you in this healthy breathing pattern? Because what's awesome is a lot of times I see so many success cases. of when braces are coming off, the smile is beautiful and the airway is beautiful. You can see a lot of widening of the upper teeth. You have the proper room and you'll even see facial structures change as people go through their journey of shifting their teeth. Andrea Renkas: I actually had braces as an adult not too long ago. It was for not necessarily just aesthetics or whatever. There was other reasons for it, but I definitely had that bit of a benefit. I know with some people too, some orthodontists are really great about the mouth structure and working with an airway dentist and things like that. Mine was because I had Dr. Tovar, who is my dentist, refer me to the right people. So I was in the right hands. But I do know that there's a lot of times people just want the aesthetics and that's where you kind of see that third time coming through where they're not actually fixing the mouth structure. You know, that's not the goal. It's more of just the aesthetics of the teeth. Do you see that often too? Amanda: Yeah, I know initially people want to know like, can I eliminate even going into the braces? Well, we're going to start out with where a lot of people are when they start to get curious and start to ask questions is, okay, I am in braces, or they've come off and I'm not happy with what has happened. Britney Suttner: Well, I want to actually back up a little bit just based off of what you were saying in the beginning. Is the reason that so many kids need braces nowadays is because their mouth is not wide enough for their teeth to come in straight. So if their mouth was naturally wide enough and their palate was formed in a proper way, their teeth should naturally... just come in straight and braces wouldn't be needed. And so we really have more of a chronic condition of maybe perhaps because of mouth breathing, our palates are actually more narrow and they're pushing up into our nasal cavity. Like you said, the floor of the nasal cavity is the roof of the mouth. And so because it's more narrow, and I'm using my hands a lot here for those of you who are watching on video, but it's like it's creating this almost cave effect. Is that the ultimate bottom line problem? And the reason why so many people are needing braces? Amanda: think you're pretty accurate in what you just said. So our tongue is a natural orthodontist for us. Our tongue naturally creates the pressure and yes naturally widens. So from a little on if someone is a mouth breather their tongue is not up on the roof of the mouth creating the pressure that it should. So yes, that is one of the causes we see of mouth breathers is we are not properly developing to an ideal width to create the space for teeth naturally to come in where they want to. Absolutely. Like anything, there can be factors of why somebody would need braces, but if you want the best chance to avoid going into braces, if you want to set your kid up for success is making sure their nasal breathing so that tongue is up on the roof of the mouth creating the pressure because that is your natural orthodontist like that's how nature created us to have that pressure to create the space that we need. Britney Suttner: Okay, so if somebody is listening to this and they're like, you know, I think we have some mouth breathing going on in our family. number one, is it ever too late? Like can adults still change their palate or are they kind of like locked in? And then how long does this, would this process take? Amanda: You know, it's never too late to start to move in the right direction. It is never too late for an adult to change their breathing pattern. An adult is done growing, so that's the advantage children have, is that pressure is creating as you grow for it to properly develop. Once you're developed, that's where you really need other options to help. And that's where I would send somebody to an orthodontist or a dentist that does airway orthodontics. So you would need greater force than what your tongue can just hold to actually move. Britney Suttner: You know, something we haven't talked about all that much yet in our series is sleep apnea. So a lot of the times people can be even if they're being aware during the day and they're starting to create new habits during the day, they're going to be doing things subconsciously at night, probably a lot of mouth breathing is so is mouth breathing and sleep apnea directly correlated? And does this kind of all loop into this conversation of their their palate might be too narrow. And that's why the tongue isn't quite fitting in the palate. How does sleep apnea fit into this conversation? Amanda: Yeah, so sleep apnea, that is the end stage of being a mouth breather. So having apneas where we actually stop breathing is the final stage of like a breathing disorder or disease. Mouth breathing is the starting point. So there is a study that's out there. that says with doing myofunctional therapy and typically when you're talking about breathing nighttime subconscious patterns it can be a long journey. This is not a quick fix of doing myofunctional therapy to address sleep apnea but you can reduce your apneas by 50 % based on doing myofunctional therapy and if you think about it you're working with muscle tone. You're increasing the strength, the coordination and that neurological pattern that subconsciously when you sleep you're more capable of holding your airway open. I am not a doctor. I can't diagnose. So what I can tell you is work with someone who is strong in those areas and who can diagnose. I would never tell anyone to stop wearing their CPAP machine. People who are on them And it's a great solution. I shouldn't say great. It's a solution that people jump to for having apneas to keep them breathing. It's a great idea to stay breathing through the night. But where I love to help people, even if you can reduce the pressure your machine is at, you can tolerate it a lot more. And sometimes it's structural. Sometimes it can be weight. Sometimes it can be just structurally how we are. We cannot always just reverse apnea. But if we can get closer to an ideal that makes it easier, that's a huge win. Absolutely. So when we look at Atanias, if it's happening during the day, as far as dysfunctional breathing, most times there's something definitely happening at night. Subconsciously, we can get ourselves into positions orally that we cannot even do when we're consciously awake. An example, when we're not breathing well at night, we talked about survival in one of our earlier podcasts of our bodies are wonderful at compensating and they will do anything to keep us breathing. So one of the things that we do is we clench really hard. When we clench, we're flexing those back muscles. It's a way for us to open that airway to start to breathe again. So we can do three times the amount of pressure. when we sleep at night than when we're awake. So when you start to look at what are the ramifications of not breathing well and what happens at night, you start to see teeth chipping, you start to see the gums dropping in height, you start to see recession. You can get a lot of expensive long-term dental issues to deal with just by your body trying to compensate to keep you breathing at night. Britney Suttner: And obviously sleep apnea is going to be more so for adults because you said it's like a later stage. But if we're talking about our kids and setting them up for success in the beginning, how much does something like thumb sucking or nooks or things like that have on our palate shape? Amanda: Absolutely. It has a direct correlation to the shape. So when we have a thumb in our mouth, it is putting pressure on the roof of our mouth. So one, a pressure, it's creating a very narrow, high vaulted arch. It's also putting pressure. We have a nerve, we have a vagus nerve. It's very good at calming and soothing us. And so Sometimes you think, well, why are we even sucking our thumb in the first place? Why is a baby using a nook or pacifier in the first place? Sometimes it's a compensation because our tongue is not there. If our tongue was there, would we really need these things to self-soothe, to calm our nervous system? And so when our tongue is regulating our our vagus nerve for us, it's creating the ideal pressure. But a nook or a thoma will not create that pressure while also soothing for us. Britney Suttner: So I feel like so many parents are just like, okay, but we have this habit. have any tips for breaking the habit? Amanda: You know what? That is golden and it's so individualized. So one, I would look at when there's nothing in their mouth, do they have a lip seal? Can that tongue soothe for them? You know, and so that's a first question that I would look at. And different kids are very different. And you know what? Let's put this out there. There are adults who still thumb suck. It's not talked about because it's very embarrassing, I've worked with adults who are thumb suckers and they typically are mouth breathers. The habit really comes back at nighttime subconsciously, which can be very embarrassing once you hit your teens, college, early on. Sometimes when you start to look at kids, even adults, there's great icky, bitter flavored nail polish even you can put on your teeth. And some people just need that gentle reminder. I actually, I bring this up because I did it with one of my sons. He actually had a nail biting habit is how he kind of soothed himself. And it was just like a nervous tick. And so he did not have his tongue up with a proper lip seal because he bit his fingernails. And just by getting a nail, a clear nail polish, his son, you couldn't see it, but it kept his fingers out of his mouth. And that was just enough to correct that behavior. And he was maybe in second or third grade at that point. Britney Suttner: Yeah, that's that's helpful. And it's I mean, it's a battle and both of my kids sucked fingers. My son sucked his thumb. My daughter had like her two fingers that she would suck on. And I think it was around age four that we got them to stop, which is probably a lot later than what would be ideal. But Amanda: just have to make it inconvenient for them. I have heard of people who will take a tube sock, and we're talking thumb socking like nighttime. People put a tube sock over a sleeve and get it to adhere to a pajama. Like they'll put like a piece of tape or your comfort level like safety pins, some way to hold that sock on. So when you try to put the hand or the thumb in your mouth, it doesn't have the same sensation. But I think it's really important to understand that when you're trying to remove a habit, what is that coping mechanism? You you have to be very understanding. Like this is an addictive property. And if you're working with a child, they don't always have the words to explain of how they're feeling. So you may deal with other behavior. issues. You may deal with anger, frustration, like they don't know how to tell you they can't regulate themselves. It could be, you know, reducing screens, getting more outside time, getting them more tired and fatigued, that they're just too exhausted to to worry about this. And rewards, you know, we all are highly motivated by rewards. It can be as much as a sticker a day, you know. Sometimes you have to use people's imperfections to their strengths. Like some people just want to achieve getting that gold star every single day and it makes them feel awesome to know they're doing it in a streak. Sometimes as a parent, like, okay, you're finally going to break down and get this thing they've been bugging you on and you're not going to wait till their birthday. Rewards work really good. We're highly motivated by food. So you just have to really look at each person and see what motivates them. why that habit's there and make sure that you can provide support for long-term success. And sometimes in order to keep something out of your mouth, you gotta find a way to make sure that that tongue is up there to replace what they're trying to do. Britney Suttner: Mm-hmm. Yeah, and for my kids, it was really about awareness, which is why how we started this whole series, right? It's just becoming aware of the habits that you have when it comes to breathing. And so for my kids, when they were young and they were still sucking fingers, what they was typically when they were tired, right? There was a correlation with their blankies a little bit. I mean, they would do it without it. So we started just having like baby stuff. So would tell them to leave their blankies in their bed in the morning. So the blankies weren't like laying around and they wouldn't grab it and start sucking. But another thing is either if they were watching a show or if we were reading a book, thumb would go into the mouth. And so I would have them give me a thumbs up. And if I saw their thumb or fingers, whatever, whichever kid start sucking again, I would either hit pause on the show or I would stop reading. I would just stop. I wouldn't say anything. And then they would just like realize, and they'd have to like give me a thumbs up again. Like, okay, thumbs up as a go, right? I can watch this again. And so it was just building that awareness that they have a habit. Well, this is really interesting and I want to bring it back to braces to finish this out because what I'm really understanding from what you're saying is there are multiple ways to start moving more toward nose breathing. Sometimes it's going to take some structural change like seeing an ENT Sometimes it's going to take structural change of widening the palate so that their tongue can fit better and they can breathe more easily through their nose. And there's multiple ways to widen the palate. Step number one is going to be using that tongue, right? Like you talked about to be the natural expander. Sometimes kids are going to need more traditional expanders. There are like those Martha Goddard programs like Vivos or Toothpillow or MyoBrace that kids can do for that as well. A quick question though is, do braces actually expand the palate then or do they just straighten the teeth? Amanda: I as a very general blanket statement, braces are made more to straighten teeth. With that being said, you can get slight expansion. I'm not an orthodontist. I'm not trained in this. I'm speaking of what I have seen with my two boys. One had a form of expansion done. The other, they felt he was wide enough. They could gain the small amount. while he was in braces to get him to the ideal width. So just speaking for my own kids, I have had both done and both have been successful at getting them to a proper width that we knew their breathing would be an ideal spot. Britney Suttner: Okay. But really what all this comes down to is if somebody has currently a bad habit with either breathing or structural issue that needs to get changed, unless they change the actual habits behind it, like the way that they swallow and the way that they breathe and the way you know, like a tongue thrust, like you talked about, unless they change those habits, they could relapse. And so that's where you come in, right? Is you are like the therapist that's walking alongside them because the dentist doesn't have time to be walking everybody through all of these different, like, how do you actually swallow properly techniques? And so that's where someone like you comes in to make sure that they're building the foundational habits that's going to help them have long-term success and put this behind them. Amanda: Absolutely. I want to see people be so successful on their journey of getting not only beautiful smiles, but healthy smiles. And that I think is the huge takeaway. No matter who is doing your braces, you now have a resource to figure out how are you going to sustain this. So proper oral breathing, having that tongue up, that's your insurance policy. That's how you're going to make sure things not only stay healthy, but also Beautiful. Yeah. Britney Suttner: Mm hmm. Yeah. Well, and to finish this episode, it's really just like, okay, the question, can you avoid braces? Yes, you can. And it's not guaranteed. Obviously, everybody's going to have a different situation. But if you have proper breathing and proper mouth size for your teeth and your tongue, yes, you can avoid braces. So that's pretty exciting. All right. Well, to finish our four episodes together, we always like to ask our guests, what does the future of your business hold? What's the future of Chinup? Amanda: You know what that is the fun that things are always changing always growing just like our bodies and we don't always know what's next but I really hope to continue to do more support for the entire body along with my functional therapy because I have seen faster results better results and just ideal success when we don't all work in a silo on our own specialties and in our small arenas of being able to look at it from a really unique perspective of supporting the fascia and looking where are we stuck and where are other restrictions in supporting what's happening in the mouth. And I think it's a really unique standalone area a lot of people aren't looking at. So I'm just excited to explore that and specialize more in that particular area. area. Britney Suttner: Yeah. Well, through this conversation, it's like your work is key and there's so many people that still don't know about this. So we're excited to help spread the word for those of you listening. If you know anybody in your life, actually just share this with everybody in your life, because everybody knows a mouth breather. It's just, or somebody who's going through some of those symptoms and they don't even realize that mouth breathing is the actual bottom line culprit. So go ahead and share this. Let's get the word out about what my functional therapy can do. and thank you so much, Amanda, for joining us. We're so happy to have you. Andrea Renkas: Thank Amanda: Absolutely. This was very enjoyable and I'm glad to get the message out just to help educate and let people feel empowered that when they meet the right provider and they make the right choice, they're going in the right direction and health is priceless to have. Britney Suttner: That is for sure.