In this interview, Dr. Bill Hang discusses the case of his patient, referred to as Sauce (Sase), who suffered from a lifelong cascade of health issues stemming from early childhood dental extractions that compromised her airway. Over decades, she consulted more than 100 doctors, endured chronic neck and back pain, forward head posture, breathing difficulties during swimming, loss of singing ability, sleep disturbances, and emotional shame related to her smile and voice. Dr. Hang explains that non‑surgical attempts to reverse the airway retraction were unlikely to succeed, leading to a surgical intervention that fully opened the airway spaces. Post‑surgery, Sauce reports dramatic improvements: balanced weight distribution, unobstructed breathing, restored sleep, ability to sing, and a renewed emotional outlook. She expresses deep gratitude, noting how the surgery unlocked physical, mental, and social aspects of her life. Dr. Hang reflects on the therapeutic relationship, highlighting Sauce’s intuitive body awareness, her commitment to holistic health practices, and the mutual benefit they derived from the treatment journey.
Chapters
Sauce came to me, I found out more recently, she had seen more than 100 doctors before she saw me. She had teeth removed as a child and everything went south for her because of that. Her airway was compromised, her body underwent many compensations which she can describe better than anyone else.
I wouldn't have known that anything was wrong because I was so young. But I can tell you that I had a lot of neck pain and a lot of back pain. My posture was like very— I still have it. I'm still working on reorienting my posture and stretching and strengthening the right muscles. But now I have the potential to do that. But I developed a very forward head posture and rounded shoulders. I had trouble breathing when I was swimming. I can remember when they were trying— telling us to not breathe every single stroke, and I felt like I was gonna suffocate because I wasn't really getting that much air. I got kicked out of chorus, which was my biggest love, because I couldn't pitch. There were just so many things, but I wouldn't have known. There's no way I could have known. I didn't have great balance. I ran cross-country, which is a great love of mine. I could only get so far. And all in retrospect, I can see that it all added up, but at the time, I, I couldn't have known.
But from the get-go, I had told Sauce that I really didn't think her case was going to respond favorably to just reversing the retraction and reopening those spaces. I told her it was likely a surgical case. And she was totally fine with that because after all the years she'd been spent decades looking for answers and unconscionable sums of money to get, get a solution. She said, I'm on board. So I got the spaces completely opened and she was better. She listed a lot of symptoms that went away and she can tell it better than I can.
I felt like my weight was distributed evenly on my feet. And before that, it was always this very unbalanced feeling, and I didn't even know that that was different. Meditation was so frustrating to me because focusing on my breathing was really uncomfortable because breathing was so uncomfortable. And when I lay down, I would have this lump in my throat that felt like it was sort of suffocating me right here. And so sleeping was difficult. Practitioners would tell me that I should be able to breathe, and I was trying to explain that there's this lump here, and Dr. Hang was the first person who believed this sensation, which by the way was completely gone the morning I woke up after the surgery. And so I got criticized for poor posture. I tried so hard to lift my posture and I couldn't. I literally couldn't, now knowing it was that I couldn't breathe. There are just so many things. I can only imagine how many of my chronic health problems could have been helped by better oxygenation. Oxygenation. Oxygenation. I wish I could say that. But there are so many things and so many what-ifs. And at the same time, what I'm experiencing now, I am so grateful for. I'm so grateful for the life that I physically feel, that I emotionally experience. All the things that have opened up for me, all these realizations. I have all of these deep shame wounds from not being able to sing. I literally mouthed the words for 40 years. I mouthed happy birthday, I mouthed— singing in public, I just had a lot of shame with regards to that. I had a lot of shame over just being unable to smile properly. I mean, I think if people saw my smile, they would think it was fine. But my, my mom would get mad at me for not being able to smile without showing my bottom teeth. And the only way I could smile was really to press my teeth out. And so she would say that I had a forced smile. And these little things don't seem so big at the moment, but when you're a child and you're trying so hard to do these normal things and you're getting criticized for them, they end up lodging in and bringing you insecurities that you have to work through later on, which— Which I have, or I am, but there are just so many emotional, mental, physical repercussions that could have been different if I would have known. But at the same time, now thanks to Dr. Hang and his staff and his team, you know, life is really, really different.
Along the way, she was in my office one time And out of the blue, she just said, I would do this surgery 10 times to feel the way I do today. It's not like I asked her to say that. It was just— she just blurted it out. Wow, that's pretty cool. Yeah. She must have felt pretty bad. But being the person that she was, she was doing yoga and other health-related things, I believe, for 4 or 5 hours per day. I mean, I don't know a woman who is more intuitive about her body or could really understand everything that was going on. And I was just amazed at this. But she's been, you know, very complimentary to me about what's been done for her. And she says, I can't thank you enough. And I said, say to her, Saws, you've thanked me plenty. Just seeing you in the way you are now and knowing the woman who walked into my office several years ago, That's enough for me to know that what I'm doing is worthwhile and it's helped you a lot. So I've— she may not know it, but I got a lot out of this relationship with her in my own way, every bit as much as she got.
Wow. Life now is so much— I'm still, okay, so I'm still taking advantage of the surgery and of the orthodontia. Because your body habituates certain things. So I am in speech therapy, I am learning to sing, I am learning to breathe. I didn't know that you could breathe differently than using this mask. I have this very elaborate jaw, tongue, some weird— I won't say weird, but some adapted ways that I learned to breathe which are very inefficient. So I'm unlearning that and learning how to really breathe, which is— I can't even tell you how good that feels. And I feel so much better when I work out, when I do cardio. It's so crazy how much better I feel when I'm breathing. I went to school online to be a life coach, as I mentioned. I have a business from home. Socializing with people as much as you can with COVID So of course COVID is different, but I'm, I, I'm still, I guess, recovering in certain ways that I've habituated. But other than that, life is amazing. Like, it's so, so, so much better. It's, it's night and day better. I can't even begin to tell you.
