← Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark
How to Avoid Braces, Fix Tongue Ties, and Stop Mouth Breathing | Dr. Kalli Hale, DDS
00:46:44
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- [00:00]
A
What are some of the most shocking health and behavior problems that mouth breathing can create in a child?
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B
ADHD bedwetting alters the entire shape of your face.
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A
Are traditional braces the best way to straighten teeth?
- [00:12]
B
They are a temporary solution for straight teeth. They need to go jaw development and breathing route. I personally feel like this platform and what you're able to do with how you reach people with what we're talking about today is going to change the face of dentistry because everybody needs to know about this and dentists really need to pay attention.
- [00:52]
A
Everything you thought you knew about your child's health might be missing a vital clue their airway Today I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Callie Hale, a leading pediatric airway dentist, founder and Chief Dental Officer of Toothpillow and a trailblazer in early orthodontic intervention. With a Doctor of Dental Surgery from the University of Texas School of Dentistry, a Master of Public Health from Texas A and M and advanced training in dental sleep medicine, Dr. Hale has revolutionized pediatric care by creating Toothpillow, a device transforming how we address jaw development and breathing issues in kids. Dr. Hale's expertise and obstructive sleep apnea and passion for holistic health shine through as she lectures nationwide, helping families prevent lifelong health challenges. We get into tongue ties, ADHD bedwetting. All of this could be because your kid is a mouth breather. Watch this episode on the real Alex Clark YouTube channel or culture Apothecary on Spotify, which has video as well. Find like minded women who love the show in the cute Servitude Facebook group and make new friends in your area. Follow the show on Instagram at Culture Apothecary and me at Real Alex Alex Clark Pause before we get started here. Leave us a 5 star review please. It's free. Takes 2 seconds and helps our show be more discoverable, attractive to potential guests and climb the podcast charts. Also just helps encourage my team that they're doing a great job. Please welcome Airway dentist and co founder of Toothpillow, Dr. Cali Hale to Culture Apothecary. What are some of the most shocking health and behavior problems that mouth breathing can create in a child?
- [02:26]
B
Alters the entire shape of your face. It can lead to behavior disorders like ADHD bedwetting. Things that you would never think to associate with your face or dentistry or mouth breathing.
- [02:37]
A
Is this why you're seeing these kids today that like have virtually no jaw?
- [02:42]
B
Absolutely.
- [02:43]
A
So the mouth breathing look that people have, I mean it's a real thing?
- [02:47]
B
Absolutely it is. In terminology in medicine, it's called adenoid facies. Nobody know what that means. But they knew that if your adenoids were swollen and you couldn't breathe well through your nose, that you would look a certain way. So it's so important to make sure that your child is breathing their nose, because if not, the shape of their face will literally change as they grow.
- [03:05]
A
How does mouth breathing do all of that?
- [03:07]
B
It's all muscles. Muscles drive bone growth, right? So if you think about it, if your tongue is where it's supposed to be, in your mouth, which is up, we're all sitting in here right now, and your lips are closed, your tongue should be resting at the roof of your mouth. If it's not, your lower jaw is going to grow in the direction that it's stimulated. You don't want a vertical lower jaw. You don't want a mouth that's open where your jaw is literally hanging low, because it will be back. If your mouth is closed and your tongue is up, your jaw is going to grow forward and your upper jaw is going to widen, which is going to give you that full, beautiful, wide smile.
- [03:38]
A
See, I feel like I have a leg up in life because I was a chronic thumb sucker as a kid. So my tongue is behind my front teeth.
- [03:45]
B
Oh, my gosh. You know what the crazy thing is? It's actually the opposite. And I was a thumb sucker, too. But you don't want anything blocking the roof of their mouth, so. So a thumb in a pacifier. Don't even get me started on pacifiers. Will literally alter the shape of the upper jaw to be more narrow, not wide.
- [03:59]
A
Are pacifiers really that bad? If only just for a couple months? When they're a baby.
- [04:02]
B
When they're babies, it's totally fine. A little bit. But when I'm seeing your child in my office and they're 2, 3, 4, 5, and they still have a pacifier in their mouth, they call it the greatest orthodontic appliance that exists because it will literally mold to the shape of that pacifier. So they've gotta go.
- [04:17]
A
When you talk about people needing their tongue to naturally sit on the roof of their mouth, how do you get it to then go up if it's naturally on the bottom?
- [04:26]
B
Exercises. So myofunctional therapy is one of those things. But here's the key. If your jaws are not wide enough, your tongue can't fit. So if your orthodontics isn't done right the first time to where your palate is nice and wide, and broad. You're gonna be told your tongue's too big and it doesn't fit, which is not true. Alex, your jaws are too small.
- [04:43]
A
You are a dentist who believes that mouth breathing is a hidden epidemic in kids. This seems so innocuous to me. Like, if this goes ignored, what should parents be aware of for their kids future in their health?
- [04:55]
B
They're not gonn. This is such a critical decision. I truly, firmly believe that the decision parents are making while their child is growing, this is a critical component to their health. I know how mouth breathing ages and it turns into obstructive sleep apnea, hypertension, coronary artery disease. This is very serious. And when we miss it in children while they're growing, because we in dental school were not taught to identify those signs and symptoms, we are setting the kids up for failure.
- [05:20]
A
I think what's interesting is when I talk to my friends who are parents who do have kids that are mouth breathers, they'll say, you know, well, our dentist told us they'll grow out of it. It just give it time. Why is that bad advice?
- [05:31]
B
Yeah, I got that advice, actually. So one of my biggest regrets being a dentist early on is telling a parent that their child's snoring was normal and they'd grow out of it. Because that's what I was taught in my peds rotation. That's what you say. You say, their tooth grinding, don't worry, they'll grow out of it. They're snoring, don't worry, they'll grow out of it. That's preposterous. We actually have no evidence of that at all. A snoring child turns into a snoring adult. A tooth grinding child turns into a tooth grinding adult. And when we have a solution that literally cures it from the root cause, but the vast majority of dentists don't know about it. It's really sad.
- [06:02]
A
What was the moment in your career where you realized that traditional dentistry was really missing the connection between job development, airway health, and kids overall well being?
- [06:11]
B
Well, I started screening for sleep apnea. I knew that it was this buzzword, like 10 years ago. And I just, I was like, okay, if what they're saying, these people are right, that your tooth grinding, your crown falls off, you break a veneer, maybe your implant actually comes loose. Like, that might not just be, oh, you needed a night guard. Which is what we were taught. If you grind your teeth, you get a night guard. And, yeah, that might protect the one arch that you're covering, but it's not treating the root cause. So for me, as I started screening for it, I started catching it, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, what? You stop breathing 15 times per hour and like, your doctor never caught that. Nobody's looking for that. It's huge wait lists. To get sleep studies, you have to actually have a physician that knows about it and would recognize that maybe something that you're dealing with, like tooth grinding or headaches could be sleep apnea. And if your dentist isn't trained in it, you're totally screwed. Because there's glaring signs in our mouth that we struggle to breathe at night. Glaring. And if they don't know, not that they're doing any harm potentially, they're just not going to talk to you about it. So as I started hearing about it, I started screening for it, and I was catching it and catching it and catching it, and at the time, I had no idea what to do about it. I would just send you to physician for your cpap. And a lot of people don't want a cpap. That is like the gold standard in medicine right now is you get a CPAP if you're diagnosed with sleep apnea. And the understanding of oral appliances is pretty low. Generally speaking, everybody knows what CPAP is. You see it on Hollywood, you see it in movies. People are strapping it to their face for oxygen at night. But when there are other options that are way more convenient, way more comfortable and equally effective, the public deserves to know about it. So I just dove in head first. I was like, I'm going to learn everything there is about this because there are not enough dentists that are trained in it. They're not enough catching it. And then people started healing. I have crazy stories. Women go missed the most. Okay? You're young, you're healthy, you're thin, you've been sleeping a certain way your entire life. Maybe you had braces like I did too late when you were 13 or 14. I have crazy orthodontic story. And you just sleep that way and you get used to your dysfunction. You really do. You don't know that you're tired because maybe your sleep quality is really poor or you stop breathing at night, because why would you think that if nobody had ever asked you about it, or if it wasn't normal to have a sleep study done that's not in our physicals, which I wish we could change that. Every child in America at school would have a sleep screening done. Really. We look at vision, we look at scoliosis, how do we know that they're actually rested so that they can be good learners at school? That is such a heart for me in the background of toothpillow of how do we increase the access to this care? Because I started treating it and I started getting kids off medication and I started having kids go from C students to A students. I had kids that were bedwetters way too late in life. Suddenly they're able to go to church camp or they can go to a sleepover or whatever. And I was just sitting there like, what did I just figure out all by myself? There was. I. I had a couple of mentors. I mean, this was a huge target on my back, huge target on my back 10 years ago of this. And it's just gotten so much better now because more people are opening their eyes to it and because we created a giant company that was going to bring it to mom's doorsteps.
- [09:08]
A
What is the cutoff age where like if your kid is still wetting the bed, this is a huge red flag.
- [09:14]
B
So I usually tell parents that if they can hold it during the day, they should be able to hold it at night. So I mean, if you're a two or three year old and you're potty training, there's going to be accidents sometimes at night and stuff. I've got three kids, that's very common. But once you're getting closer to 4, 5, 6. My oldest, Bedwood, was actually 19. That is a problem, wetting the bed.
- [09:33]
A
At 19 years old. Yes, and totally because they were a.
- [09:36]
B
Mouth breather and nobody could figure everything was normal. The bladder function was normal. All the ultrasounds, they could not figure out what's going on. And this person had severe obstructive sleep apnea at 19 years old.
- [09:46]
A
How does mouth breathing connect to your bladder?
- [09:49]
B
It's crazy. Nobody thinks to go to the dentist if their child is bedwetting. But the kind of inflammation and taxing nature of the body when you lack oxygen is huge. So your brain senses a lack of oxygen which can pull from the bladder and cause children to void. There's so much that obstructive sleep apnea causes that I do think more people are paying attention to now with, with various influencers and various people talking about it. But at the heart of it, you are not a healthy individual if you stop breathing at night. At the heart of it, no organ in your body can survive without oxygen. Right. That is literally the lifeblood driving us every day breathing. And when you go to bed and you get data on these Kids and adults that show that their oxygen levels drop to the low 80s. I saw a patient last week in my office, had full braces on. The parents are like, she sleeps terribly. This is a problem. We need to come see you for a second opinion. I didn't do the braces. Right. And this beautiful little girl's 13 year old sitting across from me and she's telling her mom every day, I wake up tired, I feel miserable. And there's some measurements we do in dentistry to see how wide your mouth is. It's a very basic one. It's one of the first ones I do if you come see me. And I'm just like, okay, let's see how much your mouth grew when you were, when you were younger, she was the size of a 4 year old. At 13 years old, her pallet width was the size of a four year old. And her mom had spent thousands of dollars on orthodontics at that point. I did a sleep study and she stops breathing ten times an hour. That's massively severe. It's dangerous. They're even saying that some of the hypoxia, some of the brain damage that's happening while these kids are growing and developing is not reversible.
- [11:14]
A
Holy crap. From mouth breathing, brain damage, brain damage. Are traditional braces the best way to straighten teeth?
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B
They are a temporary solution for straight teeth.
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A
Temporary solution?
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B
Yes.
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A
I thought it was like you get braces once your teeth are straight for life. Maybe you need to wear a retainer.
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B
Oh, yeah. See, that's where we get you. We tell you that your teeth are going to shift if you don't wear your retainer. Yes, we blame it on you.
- [11:35]
A
That's what happened to me.
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B
Me too.
- [11:37]
A
Okay, hold on a minute.
- [11:38]
B
So wait, it's not your fault if.
- [11:41]
A
Your kid has totally jacked teeth? Maybe they don't necessarily need to go the braces route.
- [11:46]
B
They need to go jaw development and breathing route.
- [11:48]
A
Explain all of this.
- [11:49]
B
Okay, so you go in and you get braces when you're 13. Let me tell you something. A girl is 94% developed in her head neck by 12. Okay, so we wait. The narrative in dentistry, Alex, is you wait till the baby teeth fall out before you would ever do anything. Like, why would you ever worry about your kid's baby teeth? Like, that's literally up there with negligence. They say to treat early. Okay. And I'm telling, I'm here to say the negligence is in seeing a child that is suffering from sleep disorder, breathing and not catching it. That's the negligence, because that's going to follow them forever. So you go in, you get braces. They line them up, which is what they did for me. I also had headgear the wrong direction. Like, I was really cute. There's pictures of me nobody will ever see. Okay. Wraps around the back of my head to bring things back. Braces, by nature, if you do not have a properly trained airway provider, are retractive. They're going to take things and squeeze it this way, make it nice and tight and pretty. They're not focusing on your tongue. They don't know about your lip posture, your swallowing. Are your muscles where they're supposed to be? Are you tongue tied? They're only getting any of that stuff. Your muscles dictate the position of your teeth. People don't realize that, like your tongue position and your lips are going to dictate the position of your teeth. So if that's never addressed and identified, they're going to line them all up. You're going to pay thousands of dollars to have your kids teeth straightened and they're going to look beautiful when you take them off, but that's not stable. And then they're going to have to go back into braces when they're older.
- [13:01]
A
So you shouldn't have to wear a retainer for the rest of your life.
- [13:04]
B
You shouldn't have to if you start early enough. I have no way. Thousands of kids who have done nothing but a guided growth appliance like what we do at Tooth Pillow, and their teeth are gorgeous. You would not even believe it. And they'll never see retainers for the rest of their life.
- [13:15]
A
What is your opinion on Invisalign versus braces?
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B
So I'm one of the largest Invisalign providers in Texas.
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A
Okay, so you like Invisalign?
- [13:21]
B
Yes. When you need phase two orthodontics, which is the tooth movement part. Huge fan I can do. We can do pretty much anything that you could do with bracket. Mario, you can do with Invisalign now.
- [13:31]
A
Because I got Invisalign a couple years ago, it's like the best thing ever.
- [13:34]
B
Fabulous. Yeah, I love it. And I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things in dentistry, but one is the physically being able to take them out and giving the ligaments of your teeth a break is good.
- [13:42]
A
Oh, really?
- [13:43]
B
Yes. Take it out, you eat, you put it back in. Versus and I had bracket wire braces two times and they sanded in between my teeth. They call it interproximal reduction because they said My mouth was too small, which it was. I had to fix that later after I learned all of this stuff. But having braces done twice, second time in dental school, they lined everything up and I was like, okay, everything looks great. But I didn't realize that my grade four tip to end tongue tie that I'd had my entire life had changed the way that my palate didn't actually widen.
- [14:10]
A
Do you like Invisalign for kids?
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B
Yeah, I have my daughter in it.
- [14:13]
A
How old is she?
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B
Yeah, she's eight actually. So she did beautiful with all of her expanders and stuff. But you just have to do tooth movements second. You have to do the jaw development and muscle first. Does that make sense?
- [14:24]
A
So what does that mean, jaw? Who does that? I don't even know an airway dentist.
- [14:28]
B
And that's what we started with. Toothbuild. Yeah. So you have to have jaws that are wide enough to accommodate all your teeth.
- [14:33]
A
Okay.
- [14:33]
B
So even wisdom teeth. Right? Like, what if we just had room for those teeth instead of. They were all crowded, they came in sideways. I had mine out. I was the product of that. Mine were like horizontal, impacted, crazy. So they had to come out. But maybe had my parents known something about early interceptive orthodontics, basically phase one orthodontics, I would have root for them and I wouldn't have had to have surgery to have them taken out.
- [14:55]
A
What is your hot take as an airway dentist on wisdom teeth?
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B
Make room for them and keep them.
- [15:00]
A
Keep them.
- [15:01]
B
If you can keep them clean, you can keep them.
- [15:03]
A
Okay, so ideally, when does all this jaw moving and all of that stuff happen? Like what?
- [15:09]
B
Age, Birth. Explain you need to breastfeed longer. We need to be in. We need to be talking about hard food diets with our kiddos. We have all this melts in your mouth, applesauce. I did all this with my kids too, like in the beginning, because you don't know any different. So food squeeze pouches. Like yogurt melts. Like your child's lip and tongue need to work while they're chewing. It's like working out, you know, Gotta do squats, you gotta do weightlifting, you gotta build that muscle. And you need to be inducing that early on with your kiddos as well. So with toothpillow, we start at 3. So if your child is showing us signs of sleep disorder, breathing, we can already see crowding in their baby teeth. Baby teeth that are lined up perfectly and straight is a huge red flag. What huge red flag? You need gaps between all of them because the permanent teeth counterparts are huge. They're twice to three times the size. So if they're all touching and they look cute and we're doing all these selfies with our babies and they look like they've got, you know, they've had braces already or something, that's a red flag. In the old days, they would take a nickel and a nickel should fit in between every single baby tooth, even the molars. That's how they knew if they were developing right or not.
- [16:13]
A
So my personal trainer recently told me that she's ready to make the switch to non toxic deodorant. Yay. And I was like, okay, girl, well, welcome to the club. But buckle up because it is a process. Switching to non toxic deodorant if you're used to conventional. If you've been using conventional deodorant odorants for years, your armpits need a little time to detox. So you might try three or four brands before you find your match. What works for one person might totally flop for someone else. And here's the thing that most people don't realize. When you clean up your diet and eliminate toxins, your body odor naturally improves too. So for me, the one deodorant that stuck, I've tried a lot. The one that really worked was Zebra. It is aluminum free. It's baking soda free, toxin free, and still keeps me fresh through tough workouts and long summer days in Phoenix. And of course, cleaning up my diet. Also huge plus. So if you're ready to make the switch, start with an armpit detox. So a clay mask works wonders. I would do that. First. I would drink tons and tons of good healthy water and electrolytes. I would. Give yourself some time to adjust. And just remember that not every deodorant totally works for everybody. It's going to be a process. I really like Zebra. That really made the transition smooth for me and I'm really confident that you're going to like it too. And you're not going to want to go to something else. You can try it@yay zebra.com use code Alex for a discount. That's yay zebra.com code Alex. Do you have a baby shower coming up? Want to nail your baby shower gift? Gift them Branch Basics cleaning products. Yes, because every single surface of their home, every single dish that's going in the dishwasher, all of their laundry, it's all ending up in baby's mouth or on baby skin. That is why I love to recommend Branch Basics. I keep their concentrate on display. Just add water and oxygen boost if it's needed. It works on counters, laundry, toys, high chairs. You can wash with it. You can remove your eye makeup with it. You can even wash your produce with it. It is fragrance. It is human safe, no endocrine disruptors, no synthetic fragrance. I cannot even tell you. Like, nobody is thinking to give this at a baby shower. It needs to be you and every ingredient is EWG rated one. And as a parent, you can feel so much safer knowing that everything that what your child touches is non toxic and it genuinely works. Handles tough messes without harsh chemicals, saving me from juggling multiple cleaners. One concentrate bottle equals about 12 refill bottles and 64 laundry loads, which makes it a small, smart, sustainable swap. If you want to upgrade your home, use code ALEX15 for 15% off your premium starter kit at branch basics.com that's code ALEX15@branch basics.com for 15% off. So as a dentist, when you see a parent handing their one year old baby like a huge slab of steak or a rack of lamb or something, you love it.
- [18:49]
B
Oh, I love it. I'm like, chew that baby. Chew it. Yes. Like give them the best that they can. Because we are so many generations in now that the odds of every child needing a tooth pillow or expander or whatever that phase one orthodontics is very, very high anyway. So do whatever you can to give them the best boost in their muscles and their jaw growth and development. Basically, when I'm talking about phase one, I'm talking about making sure that the bony skull changes happen in kids to where we're getting them back to normal.
- [19:17]
A
You do that with an airway dentist?
- [19:18]
B
Yes. Yeah, yeah. So we get, we make sure that we assess them and we realize, okay, you have a low lying tongue posture, your mouth breathing, we've got to get in there with nasal spray. We need to make sure you can breathe well through your nose at night. It's critical. I don't care if you're 100 years old or you're 2 years old, you need to be breathing through your nose at night. And there are many ways to track that and many ways to figure that out. Easy for the public, but you've got to know whether or not you are mouth breathing because it's, it is very detrimental to your health. The older you get, the more your health is going to decline. And everything for me and my family and my husband is just on longevity. Let's take care of ourselves, let's eat healthy, let's make sure. That we age as good as we can, because the medical care and the medical system right now leaves a lot to be desired. And I don't want to end up in the wrong hand somewhere and not healthy. Right. For my kids, I feel like knowing what I know and truly understanding how my children are going to age means I have this little window between 3 and 12 to get it right, because it's much harder after that. I treat kids that are older. I treat adults with expansion and do what we need to do to help them with their sleep disorder, breathing. But why wait until that time? We know that they're not going to age well at that point. When they're little and they're growing, that's when you get in and start taking care of it.
- [20:24]
A
Are we seeing an increase in the amount of kids that are needing braces? Like, comparatively to decades past? Are kids today needing them more? Is it about the same? And are there specific modern factors driving a rise in crooked teeth and weak jaws?
- [20:39]
B
Yes, absolutely. I would say in the last 50 years, we've gone from, you know, some kids have braces to everybody has crowded and crooked teeth. And we blame Western culture and diet on that, for sure. When you look at other countries that have better food systems and tougher things, we were talking earlier about making sure that they're using their muscles when you're processed and everything's soft and easy and convenient and on the go, we've seen generational changes in the shape of the skulls. So our skulls are shrinking. What? That is what we've been able to tell with time. And it has created just an absolute epidemic of crowded, crooked teeth where everybody needs braces. And that's one of the largest expenses parents will have with their children as they're growing.
- [21:21]
A
Are traditional dentists taught any of this airway stuff in school?
- [21:24]
B
No.
- [21:25]
A
Why?
- [21:25]
B
Probably politics. So, as I've dug in to figure out, I spent a ton of money, my husband and I both, on dental school. Like, we sacrificed our 20s to learn and be the best providers that we could. And as I learned all of this, I was really upset. Like, one of the biggest pioneers in this space that taught me pediatric orthodontics is, I don't know, 20 years older than me and been doing it forever. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Like, why did I never learn this? I'm really upset. I'm upset that I pulled permanent teeth on children so that the orthodontist could straighten their teeth up. You never do that anymore. You do not need to do that we need to make room things that I just didn't know. And I just got really upset about it. And I started researching and reading and finding myofunctional therapy and orthopedic appliances a long time ago in books. And I'm like, where did it go? Like, why was it suddenly taken out of the literature? And why was it taken out of the orthodontic residencies? That's the biggest question I have. But I am not an orthodontist. Thankfully, I finished as a general dentist and went and did as much training on airway as I could, because I do not think I would be sitting here today with the opinions and the knowledge and the kids that I have helped had I gone that route.
- [22:27]
A
For the parents listening that have children 3 to 12 years old, can they just ask their holistic dentist these types of things? And to help with airway and all of that, or do they have to switch over to an airway dentist?
- [22:39]
B
I would tell you probably the highest likelihood of somebody of a general dentist knowing about airway would be in biological holistic dentistry. 100%. Because that was my training prior to even starting with airway dentistry. And that makes you question the narrative. And it's the best thing, because we're not a healthy society. Our kids are not healthy. They're medicated like crazy for sleep deprivation and sleep quality issues that we're treating as neurological disorders. The more you dig and the more you start seeing, the more questions you have. And it's been really. In the beginning, I was very nervous about it in my town. I had a lot of orthodontists that would, you know, refer me patients, and we would. And all that stopped. And I didn't care because I realized that what they were missing, I was saving that kid's life. And that's all that mattered at that point. In the beginning, it was a little bit difficult, but now I'm just like, bring the target as big as you want.
- [23:25]
A
So if somebody's listening and they're like, oh, I have a child 3 to 12 years old, we love our holistic dentist, you're saying it might be okay. Ask them if they can help with airway and if they're familiar with all that. So if they had a dentist that was holistic that said that they had knowledge, and then they sought after a myofunctional therapist, those two things, they should be in a good combo. Or just completely switch to an airway dentist in the meantime.
- [23:48]
B
Right. Either way, my biggest. My biggest urge for the community would be when you look up toothpillow. What I have created is I found the best airway dentists across the United States. We all band together because we were having these results in our practices that we were like, the parents need to know about this and we need to go straight to the source because it's going to take dentistry decades to catch up, and these kids are going to grow up at that point. Right. And we do free assessments online. You can literally go to toothpill.com, i have a series of pictures I want you to take of your child. I have a medical history questionnaire, a sleep questionnaire. I need to know what's happening that you're suffering from. We screen over 2000 children every single month, Alex. These parents are so desperate for help and they are not getting the right answers. And they somehow will stumble across toothpillow and they will connect the dots between sleep disorder, breathing and adhd. Bedwetting, mouth breathing, headaches, tooth grinding, I mean, whatever. Tossing and turning all over the bed at night, night sweats, like, that's another huge one. And by that point, sometimes the kids are already on multiple medications and it breaks your heart. And I'm looking at these faces and I'm looking at teeth that are so crowded. So the best thing, in my opinion, would be if your holistic dentist doesn't know anything about airway. Submit to Toothpillow regardless, because you're going to get our opinion on where they need to go.
- [24:58]
A
Besides crooked teeth, what are some other signs that parents might notice to let them know that their child's jaw isn't developing properly?
- [25:05]
B
One would be dark circles under the eyes. We call it venous pooling. But if you're waking up and have dark circles under your eyes, especially your child, like, that should not be happening in a child. You need to ask some more questions and paying attention. You know, once your kids get a little bit older, they're not sleeping with you anymore necessarily. So some moms will be like, I don't actually know. Like, I don't know. I. They go to bed, 10 hours later, they wake up. Like, to me, they sleep great. Like, we don't know what's happening in that 10 hours if we're not paying attention. And that's where sleep studies come in. And for me, before a child is ever put on mood altering medications, I would pray that somebody would do a sleep study on them first, because that misdiagnosis rate is upwards of 50%.
- [25:44]
A
Did you know that your gut health is the cornerstone of your overall well being. If you're looking to support your digestive system naturally, Cowboy Colostrum might be the missing piece. Colostrum is rich in growth factors and immunoglobulins that help repair and maintain the gut lining, support a healthy microbiome and reduce inflammation. These bioactive compounds work together to promote optimal digestive health naturally. So whether you're dealing with occasional discomfort or just want to keep your gut in top shape, Colostrum delivers. And not just any Cowboy colostrum. Because unlike other colostrums out there, Cowboy Colostrum tastes great. No chalky aftertaste, no natural flavors, no hidden additives. It's grass fed. It's also full fat. These other popular Colostrum brands are not full fat, just clean, powerful colostrum that your body can actually use. And the benefits go beyond the gut because it also supports immune function, skin health and overall vitality. So if you're ready to unlock the key to better health, head to cowboycolostrum.com use code Alex for 25% off. That's cowboycolostrom.com code Alex so I'm moving into a bigger place soon, which is super exciting. But it also means I officially have a guest room now. And listen, if there's one thing that can make or break your guest room, it is the sheets. You do not want your friends or family waking up sweaty, tangled or just miserable. The other thing that can really make or break a guest room is if you have a little Labubu living under the bed. I don't have that, so it's a really great place place to stay. That is why I'm stocking up on extra sheets from Cozy Earth. Their viscose from bamboo sheets are temperature regulating so they keep you cool in the summer and cozy in the winter. They literally wick away heat and moisture from your body while you sleep. It's like climate control but for your bed. And I have been sleeping personally on Cozy Earth sheets for a while now and I promise you they are worth it. It is the kind of sleep that you actually look forward to at the end of the day and now my guests are going to experience that that same level of luxury without a little abubo living under the bed. They also give you a 100 night sleep trial so if you don't fall in love with Cozy Earth, you can return them hassle free. But you're not going to want to upgrade your summer and your guest room by heading to cozyearth.com and using code ALEX for 40% off. Best selling sheets, apparel and more. Sleep cooler lounge lighter. Stay cozy. Cozyearth.com code Alex for 40% off. How does underdeveloped jaws and mouth breathing contribute to ADHD symptoms?
- [28:13]
B
So think brain health when you're thinking neurology, oxygen deprivation, and then total sleep deprivation when you're not sleeping well. I equate it to being on maternity leave when I had baby. Like, I'm up multiple times a night. I'm so exhausted. I was not the friendliest person to be around. And it was just. Life was hard. And during that period of time, I could verbalize that. I could be, I need help. I need a nap. Like, I need somebody to come hold the baby. Like, I. Whatever. Kids can't do that. They're stopping breathing, they're having these issues. Their brain is not recovering. Your deep sleep is so critical for recovery and health all the way through aging. Like, even for dementia and Alzheimer's prevention, you've got to have enough deep sleep. So that's not happening. Things are not working well for them. But they were expected to wake up and go to school and sit still in class all day and be quiet. And it's a really. Those are big shoes to fill if that kid has sleep quality issues and chronic sleep deprivation.
- [29:04]
A
What exactly is myofunctional therapy?
- [29:06]
B
It's like PT for your tongue and lips. It's like a workout for your mouth. Things that you would never think that you should be doing in your mouth to exercise your tongue muscle. Like, we don't, we don't think about exercising our tongue. But I tell you what, all these younger generations are talking about mewing and jawlines and all that stuff. They're doing myofunctional therapy. They just don't even realize it.
- [29:26]
A
So the Rizzler is gonna be the mascot for toothpills?
- [29:31]
B
Yes, dude is. And it's crazy. Like, I didn't know a lot about mewing per se, but I did have the pleasure of knowing Dr. John Mew and I don't any what he has developed in making faces beautiful. And the whole tongue thing caught on with younger generations, but they're not talking about it. Like, even their parents would be like, mewing, what do you mean? And I would say it and they would just look at, it's like 12 year old boy just look at me. And he starts laughing. He's like, how do you know what that is? I was like, bro, I got you. This is. I'm going to give you a good jaw and your tongue's Going to function like it's supposed to. And then they're really motivated to wear their appliance and do the things that they say. If they think they're going to have a chisel jaw, look, you're going to be mewed out. It's going to be great.
- [30:06]
A
You're going to have all the Riz Skibidi Toilet Ohio, whatever.
- [30:10]
B
Yes. Oh, my gosh. And I say that stuff. I don't have a clue what it means. And they just laugh at me. And their mom's like, I'm sorry. Like, are you professional? Like, what?
- [30:17]
A
How can undiagnosed tongue ties in a child silently sabotage their sleep, their behavior? And why is that often overlooked by parents and doctors?
- [30:28]
B
Unfortunately, the narrative around tongue ties is really, really wrong. And it stems from pediatricians, unfortunately.
- [30:34]
A
What are they getting wrong?
- [30:35]
B
They believe that they're not a problem, and they are often dismissive to the families, the mom that's having trouble nursing or whatever else.
- [30:42]
A
Why do they say it's not a problem?
- [30:44]
B
Were taught it wasn't. And they are not qualified to make growth and development decisions in jaw development, in my professional opinion. Because for you to miss that, for you to miss that and think it's okay means you don't understand that your tongue is your natural palate expander. So if you don't realize that your tongue is your natural palate expander and that its ability to sit at the palate and stimulate width, if you don't understand that, then you will miss tongue ties and think that they're a fad and they shouldn't be done.
- [31:10]
A
So why is there all this obsession with this generation about tongue ties and all this, but nobody cared about it with us.
- [31:17]
B
So interesting story. So personally, for me, on the day that I was going to go get my tongue tie fixed by an incredible pediatric dentist friend of mine, I called my parents. I'm driving there, I'm like, couldn't you have just done this when I was a baby? And my dad goes, you know, honey, they told us not to clip those because they just grow back.
- [31:33]
A
Oh, weird.
- [31:34]
B
So. And my dad's been practicing 45 years. Yeah, well, in what they didn't have any understanding of, he's been practicing 45 years. Which means 45 years of this being told to people, right? Yeah. Like generations, that if they. They just grow back because they didn't know anything about myofunctional therapy, which. That is how you prevent it from reattaching. That's how you prevent having a scar. Scar tissue under there, potentially making it worse. You have to. I won't even do a frenectomy on a patient if they have not had myofunctional therapy period. So I had a little bit more grace for him when he said that. I was like, okay, you didn't know any better, you know, and then I got it done. So it's really important to understand that, you know, obviously my parents weren't trying to do any harm to me or didn't realize that there could be impacts on my face development and my palate and my breathing as an adult because of a tongue tie like that. Just those dots weren't connected, and we are massively trying to change that narrative.
- [32:25]
A
How does it affect a kid's speech?
- [32:27]
B
Some children really struggle with speech when they have tongue ties. I personally did not. So I think it's easier to get dismissed if you don't have any issues, especially at your pediatrician appointment. So, like, I would go and I could talk. My dad was like, you came out of the womb talking Like, I had no issues. I could eat fine. Like, my mom was able to nurse me. So there was just no reason in their mind to do something invasive. Like, it's really not invasive, but to do anything about it because she's fine. Like, why would you. Because the orthodontic growth and development part of this was, like, completely unknown in the 80s.
- [32:59]
A
If you have a kid that is a mouth breather, how do you teach them to start breathing through their nose?
- [33:05]
B
Well, one, you need to get them in a tooth pillow. First and foremost, they need to wear something that will help them instigate nasal breathing. So the appliance looks like a little football mouth guard. That's what I tell to dads, especially, like, yeah, that is. You look at it and you're like, okay, sure. And I'm like, this will be the greatest decision you ever make for your child in their growth and development. Because they're like, couldn't I just go to Academy and buy something like this? And this stimulates your tongue to go up and you to breathe through your nose. You are not going to naturally breathe your nose if you haven't been breathing through your nose. And now your jaws are kind of small. Maybe your tonsils are inflamed. Maybe your adenoids are a little bit irritated now. So getting air in through your nose is a little more difficult. So your body is naturally going to go back to breathing through your mouth, especially at night once you fall asleep. So we have to give them something that's going to instigate nasal breathing. They put this in. The best way to get air in is through your nose at that point and you start retraining those muscles.
- [33:59]
A
Do you wear this only at night?
- [34:01]
B
We ask for some daytime wear, an hour or two if they're reading, watching a movie or whatever, just to get used to it. Swallowing with it. A little bit of active wear is great, but this is for sleep.
- [34:09]
A
How does Toothpillow's approach differ from traditional orthodontics? And why is this more than just a cosmetic fix for teeth?
- [34:16]
B
They couldn't differ more from traditional orthodontics. I personally feel like this platform and what you're able to do with, with and what you. How you reach people with what we're talking about today is going to change the face of dentistry, because everybody needs to know about this and dentists really need to pay attention. So when you're talking about phase one versus braces. Braces are tooth movement. Okay. Braces are a temporary solution for straight teeth, like I like to say. So you're going to go in with braces with a child that has jaw under development issues like that doesn't make sense. That's. You're missing the entire point of what we need to correct before they're done growing. Really, really critical. What we're posting with Toothpill and what we're talking about is to make sure that the muscles are addressed and the nasal breathing is addressed. The biggest thing this Toothpill does is redirects breathing through the nose and redirects musculature to make sure that the lips are off the teeth and the tongue is up. The side effects of what we do are cosmetic. The kids you look at before and after pictures, and it looks like we put braces on these kids because their teeth are straight. Literally, that's what they were wearing. Wow. Because when you're breathing right and your muscles are where they're supposed to be, your teeth line up and they. It's like natural what was supposed to happen to us. But we've lost that generations in with our diet and all the other things we talked about. So they couldn't be more different. And that's what I hope the public understands. Like, we want you before anybody touches your kid, before any. Before you give anybody thousands of dollars for braces that you have checked the list more than once to make sure that they don't have any of the symptoms that we talk about on our website.
- [35:45]
A
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- [36:53]
B
So you'll go to the website and click is my child a candidate? And from there I have a lot of questions for you and your child needs to be present because I need pictures, I need to see what they look like, mostly profile. And their bite I need to see do they have a cross bite? Meaning is the upper so small that the upper teeth don't even overlap on the outside? We see that all the time. Do they have an open bite like they bite down and their front teeth don't even touch because maybe they were sucking their thumb for a long time or whatever else. So I have a series of things that I need to know. Medical history, surgery history, are they on medications, like all the obvious stuff. But I can take photos and bite analysis of your child and tell you whether or not they need early interceptive phase one orthodontic treatment.
- [37:30]
A
Do you ever say they don't?
- [37:32]
B
Yes. So what is the sadder thing is the amount of kids we have to deny because they're too severe. And I think that's a really important thing for people to understand about Toothpillow. I am not a direct to consumer. Click here. Buy it. You're going to get get the same thing. Everybody gets the same thing. Our age we let you submit your child from the ages of 3 up to 12. Our denial rate on 3 is very very low obviously because if there's symptoms and you're telling us they're snoring or you know, wetting the bed or night sweats or whatever. Like, we're going to help you and we want to be a part of that. The 9 to 12 year olds can be so horrifically severe that they do need to go in office for upper and lower expanders, and that is a huge difference versus traditional braces and traditional orthodontics in our generation, where most of your friends had a palate expander, an upper expander only, which we have known and seen now to fail. So we do a very thorough vetting process on all the doctors. Like I said, I found the best ones in the world to help us with this because I needed doctors that had already been doing this in their private practices that knew exactly what these kids would need and I needed a home to send them when I deny them. And it's really hard. If you're in the middle of Ohio, in the middle of Kentucky and you have nobody, you gotta drive six hours for your child to go see an airway dentist. It's crazy. So it is really sad to know and I want everybody to understand that these are very unique treatment plans and we don't want your child to end up in the wrong hands. But if we have to deny you, we will work like crazy to help you get connected with the right provider.
- [38:50]
A
Does somebody wanting to go into dental school and do airway dentistry go to a special airway dentist school? Is that like a special course you tackle?
- [38:58]
B
It's like residencies after. Yeah, so it's continuing education after. And I will, I'm proud to say I went to the University of Texas Dental School in Houston and they are starting to teach airway. They've asked me to come in and teach their prost department. I'm like, I'm so sorry, I'm really busy. I don't. But it is. It's important to understand that it's not enough and it won't be enough for years and years and years. So the CE after is highly coveted for airway dentistry. I mean, it's a buzzword now. And it was not when I started this, let me tell you. It was like you had your couple of people and a couple of mentors that you could talk to about it. And now it's like there's an airway course all over that you can go learn from because they've realized how impactful it is. So it is changing in dental schools. It is. They're at least talking about adult adults more. More than kids. That's good. Yeah, it's. They're talking about it, which I can.
- [39:41]
A
Appreciate, what is the cost difference between traditional braces and tooth pillow?
- [39:45]
B
It's pretty substantially less money. It depends on where you go. That's a harder question to answer. You know, you're five, five to $7,000 for braces roughly, you know, in, in America. And when you do your phase ones, they're, you know, between 2 and 4,000. Teledentistry allows for us to make this cheaper. So in my heart, in building Toothpillow was we need to increase the access to care. I want to bring this beautiful box to the doorsteps of these families so their kids can start breathing better on night one. And that allows us cost savings that we can then pass to the family. Because you're not taking up chair time in my practice and all of that. And I'm still practicing, I'm still seeing patients and handling virtual cases at the same time. So it's important it is less expensive, which I think is really wonderful. If you have three or four kids and they all need it and they're all suffering, any cost savings like that is really wonderful.
- [40:30]
A
Do you have an approximate of how much it is per month or anything?
- [40:33]
B
We have that broken down on our website. Actually. You can get it over 100amonth. It can be a little bit under 100amonth. I think we're around 1500 to 2000, depending, depending on the case. And that's for 24 months of treatment.
- [40:43]
A
If a child is not approved for tooth pillow, how do you help families ensure that they still get the care that their child needs?
- [40:49]
B
It keeps me up at night sometimes because I know that if they go to the guy on the corner or the person who's maybe in network with their insurance that they're not gonna get the care that they need. So we have an entire team of people at Toothpillow that will get on the phone with these moms. And we're talking thousands per month that we're screening. And I'm like, you need to get on the phone with that mom and you need to express urgency for what I see and exactly how the treatment needs to be done, because it's going to determine the rest of their life.
- [41:12]
A
So is it you that is looking at every single one of these things?
- [41:15]
B
Dr. Ben Moralia and myself are screening 2,000 plus kids a month right now.
- [41:19]
A
How many hours a day do you spend doing that?
- [41:21]
B
Well, he helps me a ton, so he probably does it more than me. But every single week, it is a, it is a all consuming job and I have five dental offices in Houston. I have three kiddos. I also train dentists in what I do. So I have a private mentorship group to make sure that they can help them, their patients the way that they need to. So women, business owner to business owner girl is a full time job.
- [41:44]
A
That is wild. I just commend you. That's so impressive. What is one piece of advice that you would give parents to start advocating for their child's jaw and airway health today, whether through tooth, pillow or other means.
- [41:55]
B
If your child is struggling with a symptom and you're being told, don't worry, they'll grow out of it, challenge the narrative, please get a second opinion. It is the most critical time in their life for their growth and development and will literally determine how healthy they are as an adult. I cannot reiterate that enough. It is the, the most important decision I think a parent will make is who does their child's orthodontics and what their approach is going to be. And if you're just going to whoever is the cheapest in your town, I can promise you there's going to be consequences for that.
- [42:21]
A
Do you agree that cash pay doctors, dentists, the like are always the better option?
- [42:29]
B
Yeah, I've been out of network with dental insurance for a decade. I won't play the games anymore. I won't take whatever pittance of little fee they need. I need to make sure that the materials that I'm using in the fillings, in our cleanings, the lasers, the stuff that we have to really make sure that your mouth is as healthy as possible because it's the gateway to the rest of your body.
- [42:49]
A
So when people say like, well, I understand that I wish I could go to a holistic dentist, I wish that I could go to a naturopathic doctor, etc, but they're not, you know, covered in my insurance. I wish they were. Do you wish that you were covered by insurance? Are you like, no, that's a huge, huge mistake. You don't want these doctors and dentists covered by insurance?
- [43:06]
B
Yeah, I mean, I would have to go with the latter for sure. Just because I've been in, I've been in practices like that. I've seen practices like that, the materials, it's like whatever the cheapest thing we can find. Obviously fluoride is now finally getting banned in multiple states. You're going to get what you pay for and you're also going to get how much that dentist has educated them after school. And so I want to Go to the person who's on the top of their game. They've been to all this extra ce. They're learning everything they can because they know how important their job is. This goes with any physician I see. For me, women's health, like anything, I want to make sure that I'm getting the most up to date information. You should be interviewing your dentist. You should be interviewing your physician because they're going to be making decisions for you that could literally impact the rest of your life.
- [43:46]
A
If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would it be?
- [43:52]
B
Make sure you're a nasal breather. I think that alone has been proven to drop blood pressure and make sure that you don't have obstructive sleep apnea. Those are the two that I absolutely have to say.
- [44:02]
A
Where can people find out more about Toothpillow?
- [44:04]
B
I want you to go to toothpillow.com you're going to be able to find symptoms on there. Think connecting the dots for your child and maybe what you're concerned about seeing when you click is my child a candidate? You're going to be able to answer a ton of questions and give us some pictures. The really unique part about Toothpillow is that you can also request a personalized video consultation, something that your dentist in your state will take your pictures and your documents and make you a custom zoom video in their spare time. And all of my amazing airway dentists are full time practicing doctors. So they're finding the time in the week to pull up the pictures of your child and express the need for what they see and what you need to do. And those videos are what sets us apart from any sort of teledentistry orthodontic company that you've maybe heard of in the past.
- [44:47]
A
And they can actually get this free video assessment by using code AlexClark. So make sure that you do that. And where can they follow you on social media?
- [44:54]
B
You can find us on toothpilloofficial and then my professional account is theairwaycentereddentist dentist. All spelled out cool.
- [45:00]
A
Dr. Hale, thank you for coming on Culture apothecary.
- [45:02]
B
Alex, thank you so much.
- [45:07]
A
Finally did the tongue tie episode and address that. I don't think I've addressed that quite yet. I also haven't really talked about braces before, so I thought that conversation was fascinating. She was telling me if you can help the jaw sizing or whatever it's called early on, you probably don't actually need your wisdom teeth removed, which really blew my mind. I had it a terrible wisdom teeth experience. So if I would have known Dr. Hill back then my life would be so different. But I didn't. And you have the opportunity potentially with your own child to make different choices when it comes to their teeth and their airway health that could really set them up for success for the rest of their lives. So I hope you take her up on it. Toothpillow has been a great friend of the show and they're a fantastic company. Honestly, I discovered them through my friend Dr. Lauren Johnson, who a lot of you guys love. Natural Nurse Mama on Instagram. She's been on the show, did a phenomenal episode. She's also the co host of Red Pill your health Cast. And anyway, I learned about Toothpillow through her and I trust her with my life. So if she says a company is like a plus amazing 10 out of 10 then I tend to believe her. And obviously I don't have my own kids to do Toothpillow on, but I know you guys do and so I just love partnering with people that I think are going to be really beneficial for your life. So if you love this episode, please leave a five star review. We do new episodes every Monday and Thursday at 6pm Pacific, 9pm Eastern. Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and Real Alex Clark on YouTube. You can find the show on Instagram at Culture Apothecary and me at Real Alex Clark. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.