In this round‑table style YouTube discussion, four dental professionals share their frustrations with conventional orthodontic practices that prioritize straight teeth over overall health. Speaker A argues that routine bicuspid extractions are often unnecessary and that many TMJ cases stem from undiagnosed airway obstruction. Speaker B expands the conversation, positioning dentistry as a gateway to broader medical care, especially concerning sleep‑apnea and airway health, and describes how a BioBlock mini‑residency with Bill Hang opened his eyes to the systemic impact of dental work. Speaker C, a general dentist who does most of his practice’s orthodontics, recounts his disappointment with standard appliances that produce straight teeth but fail to create balanced facial aesthetics, and he emphasizes that facial growth is driven by environmental factors—muscle function and airway patency—rather than immutable genetics. Across the dialogue, the speakers critique the status‑quo, highlight the need for a holistic, airway‑centric approach, and advocate for continued education to prevent iatrogenic TMJ and health problems.
Chapters
Well, you know, I work with orthodontists in my area. I've tried to work with them, and after, you know, going to LVI, I understood that bicuspid extraction was not a good idea, but I just can't seem to find anyone in my area to get that message across to. They all say that, you know, it's okay to take out some bicuspids, and, you know, we're not going to lose arch form, and all the typical reasons that orthodontists give for wanting to take out bicuspids. But, you know, for my own child, I wouldn't want to do that, so why would I do it for somebody else? Basically, what I have come to understand is that if you have a TMJ patient, they've got an airway obstruction problem in almost every case that I've run into. You know, if I go back and look at the cases that I've treated, And if I look at the cases that Bill Hang has treated, it seems like every single one of those is an airway obstruction case of some kind or other, whether it's tonsils and adenoids or a deficient maxilla or some sort of thing going on with their nose or whatever. Airway obstruction seems to be the cause and TMJ is the symptom. Because right now what's happening is patients, especially kids, Go to the orthodontist. They don't know, and the parents don't know, there's, you know, the orthodontists have good reputations in the community, they're nice people, and these kids are winding up in my practice down the road with TMJ problems.
I really think dentistry is a lot more than just being a molar mechanic. It really is about being a physician of the oral mouth. I think there's a real responsibility that really has been lost, I think, over the years in dentistry. I think especially with all the stuff we're finding out about airway and sleep apnea and the dentist's role in that, it's becoming very crucial and really a portal into kind of overall healthcare where physicians might not have the time to spend with their patients. I think dentists are in a really unique position to get involved on a really basic health level. Okay. If you don't want to learn more, you're not gonna— you are. You don't know what you don't know. Once you start to find out little bits about this information, it just is My dad and I always talk about it being a rabbit hole. When we took Bill's BioBlock mini residency, it was like falling down a rabbit hole. I mean, all of a sudden you realize how much you don't know and really the ability you have to negatively impact somebody's health if you don't know what you're doing, and really all the positive things you can do if you do know what you're doing. So it just, it moves you forward. You want to keep learning more and more and more. I think I have kind of a unique story. I graduated from dental school a little over a year ago, and I was very fortunate to come out and work with my dad, who had kind of been plugged into this kind of thing. He was, he was starting on this journey too, or he rather, he had been on this journey for a while, and I kind of came right, right as he was getting involved with, with Bill Hang and what Bill had to offer. I've taken on cases I never thought I'd be taking on, and when I talked to my colleagues, Realized that not many people are taking them on, and it has, it has just totally redefined the way I saw, the way I thought my dental career would unfold in a very positive way. I really actually see myself narrowing my scope of practice in the sense of concentrating on the things that, that really matter to me, and I think really matter to my patients' overall health. I mean, Patients walk in, you know, somebody comes in and says, I'd like veneers, and I look in their mouth and based on what I've learned with Bill, see, you know, wildfires burning out of control in terms of maybe their sleeping patterns or grinding patterns or joint dysfunction, and it's much more than just straight pretty teeth. It's really about improving their overall health.
to get a really nice balanced face and, you know, and get people looking like they should if they're spending a lot of time and money with me. You know, to go through 2 years of treatment, 3 years of treatment to have straight teeth but then not look very good, it's not so rewarding. I'm a general dentist, but all I do is orthodontic treatment in a very busy practice. I suppose I was just, I was not quite getting the results that I expected. You know, I was using a lot of appliances that I was told would get those results, but it didn't really. I would get close to where I was trying to get to, but it didn't quite get there. And I suppose I was happy with that because I knew I was doing a lot better than what others would do to achieve that, but I wasn't getting to my goal, you know, where I saw the ideal. Others I've listened to, well, they, you know, they always had a sort of underlying, I don't know, something was going under the surface that they weren't telling you about. And they virtually all spoke the same language. They weren't telling me any different. So I'd go listen to some other people talk and they might use a slightly different appliance, but the actual treatment they're doing is exactly the same. So I came to a point where I wasn't learning anything new. So it wasn't until I looked at this and I realised that there's a whole bigger world out there that I need to explore. Just that, you know, the whole philosophy that muscles and airway and that can actually have an effect on how faces grow. I mean, people just don't believe that. They just think that it's genetically predisposed and that can't be influenced. And what's the truth? Certainly, it's all environmental factors. You know, it's proven without a doubt. So unless you correct that, you're never going to win.
I was a product of 4 bicuspid extractions and 2 types of headgear. I had a cervical headgear my first year because my teeth were sticking out, so what they did was they put a cervical headgear to pull it back, and as they pushed it back, it attached to my neck, so I had this really big 3mm gummy smile. And then after that, then they switched to a Hypo headgear, which attaches to the top of the head and attempts to pull the maxilla up. And for about a year, I had to sleep with this headgear, and I was a very compliant patient. And every time I saw the orthodontist, it was like almost a week of pain. So I didn't want to have my kids suffer. Okay, well, since 1996, I've been taking classes for non-extraction orthodontics, and we are— what my experience experience has been was we develop the arches laterally and sometimes we make the jaws wider and longer so that gives more tongue space, but I didn't know that that was what I was doing, but I just found better things that happened to patients. They had better bites, they looked better, so then when I met Bill and we found another component, it was the patients that had poor oral posture that that I never diagnosed. And then I found that even though they had straight teeth, there was something missing when they grew up or when they went through a growth spurt. Because I see a lot of kids when they're 7 or 8, and I do my corrections early. Then when you watch them grow, when you have a general practice, you can see them every 6 months, and you see some changes in the face, and you're just wondering, they have straight teeth, but why do they look so less attractive than when they were when you treated them in phase 1?
