Episode 155: The Importance of Finding The Root Cause with Dr. David E. Thome, DDS

Hi and welcome to episode 155 of the Untethered podcast. Today we have Dr. David Thome joining us. Dr. Thome believes in giving back to the profession of dentistry. He hosts training sessions for fellow doctors from across the country on lasers and dentistry. The Fotona Light Walker Dual Laser has opened the door for new and better experiences in pediatric dentistry. No anesthetic required for most fillings and the ability to improve sleep and behavior by enhancing the airway new procedures that make dentistry less invasive and contribute to overall health is a priority of Dr. Thome. He believes that Laser Dentistry, Healthy Start and Postural Blueprint are integral parts of the holistic approach to caring for brand new babies to teenagers. Quick Disclaimer all information, content and material of this podcast are the opinions of the speakers and is for the informational purpose only and not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis and or medical treatment of a qualified healthcare provider. Welcome to the Untethered Podcast. I am your host Hallie Balkan. I'm a certified orofacial myologist, feeding Specialist mentor. This podcast is all about getting your questions answered and collaborating with colleagues to bring you the most up to date information in the orofacial myofunctional therapy, tethered oral tissue and airway space. I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to get this information out to the masses. Let's get started. David, thank you so so much for joining me today on the podcast. I'm excited to chat.

Well thank you for having me. I always enjoy the opportunity to share a collaborative point of view on such a life changing topic.

Absolutely. So before we jump in, will you just tell us a little bit about your practice and the population that you treat on a day to day basis?

My practice is in North Carolina and we have over 15 locations across the state and the population is very diverse so we have access to care and we have children that are referred that have difficult times making any sounds and we also have the population that is looking to thrive and bring the best out for their child.

Yeah, the whole range. That's phenomenal. And I know that we chatted a little bit before recording and that you're someone who really works to getting towards the root cause that we're very similar in that respect that you know there's a lot of band aid treatments or I don't even know if you want to call them treatments but sometimes, you know, non solutions. In my opinion, no one's really looking at the root cause of what's causing the Issues, the symptoms, assigned symptoms, the patients present with. So I'd love to just jump right on into talking about, like, the root cause and how you work towards finding that in your, in your practice, for your patients.

Well, it started with finding it for myself so that I could experience the fundamental changes that are taking place. Because I do believe in all of this, that when we sit down and we talk to a mother about her newborn child, it is about the confidence we have that we are going to help them find the solution that they need. So first off, the root cause is identifying what the mother actually wants and understanding that they are actually on our team and we are not fixing them. We have to help them. They are the primary caregiver in all of this, and we are here to support, educate, and then at some point, we have to draw our boundaries on what we feel we are doing. We have to meet them where they are, encourage them to be better, and actually show them that they are an example to their child and that's what they need to live up to.

I love that. I love that. And that's. It really resonates with my approach to all things myo airway speech. You know, I own a private practice and I changed the way I do everything when I got into this space. And, you know, so in seven years of having almost eight years of having my private practice and having built up a team and everything, and then going and getting into this space about five years or so ago, I mean, we just went down this rabbit hole of, wow, I wish I could go back and have different conversations with parents, have different approaches to looking at these children through a different lens. And so I love both that whole root cause conversation, but also the topic of really understanding that our parents are the primary team member, in my opinion, because if we, we're doing something they didn't ask for or it's not benefiting that, you know, they come to us for reason X and we start working on, you know, we see something else and start addressing why that's not beneficial to this, this parent. You know, whether it's a parent, infant dyad who's breastfeeding or bottle feeding, or it's a child who's a little older and maybe transitioning to solids or having speech issues and whatnot. You know, I, I always tell everybody, we have to, we have to have that parent's input. That's always our first question on our intake. What is your concern? What, why are you here? What can we do? So that really resonates with me. I love that you spoke so highly about having that parent as a main part of that team.

And it's also a main part because the care is given 24 7. You can't go to the chiropractor for a 20 minute appointment, not change your life and expect to improve. We can't be hacking our way through life. We have to get to the part of life where we understand the actual state, cellular energy to function at a higher level. And that is starting with the basics. The oxygen levels we have and how we breathe, everything that we consume needs to be understood and how it's going to affect us. And everybody is different. Two people do not operate the same. Food, oxygen, sunlight. And then also one of the biggest things is purpose, having that direction that you are going in life that you believe in as an energy source. And some parents come in and they just don't have what it takes to make the change in their life and the change in their child's life. And we have to decide help or harm. And sometimes we're in that dilemma. And also we care. And it's hard when you have an infant or a newborn to understand that we cannot hack our way to make that child better. We still have to address the team. The primary caregiver has to fix themselves before they can help fix the child.

Yeah, no, that's, that's such. So beautifully put really, because we do have those dilemmas sometimes where, you know, we've had parents come to our practice and just say, oh, I was told that we have to see you before we can have a release. Can we do an appointment so you can sign off on this form or like called pump the brakes. Like I understand what your goal is here, but we're also not going to change how we do things in order to best serve your end, you know, your end goal. So it's a very interesting conversation and topic because there's a lot of education that takes place. But you're right. At the end of the day, we also have to all be on the same page. And we have to know that what we're asking a family to do is being carried out, can be carried out before we move on to the next phase in the treatment plan or if this is even feasible right now for that family. Because we've had families who are just like, yeah, no, we're not doing that. Okay, that's fine. But we can only help you so much.

You just have to let that flow through you.

Yeah, yeah.

And implementing this philosophy has been amazing to not only my personal life, but the practice and the doctors that we have in our team. And I really have to give a lot of credit to the process that we went through with Michelle, how she trained staff, how I did intensive week courses with her. And it was all focused on me understanding myself in order to have the capacity to actually give and being able to share that is more than words. And when people have that, you actually attract more people like that into your life.

Absolutely. And I. I love. I love this conversation because I work from a place of energy as well, and I'm very, like a highly energetic person. But I'm also, you know, and I. I'll put a little plug in here for Frederick Dodson, who has his book Levels of Energy. I don't know if you've read his book, but I just spent three days on a training last week with my business coach and Frederick, and we were. They were talking about levels of consciousness. And it's completely unrelated to, like, the whole medical field. Right. But just knowing who you're working with and what level of energy they're working from, whether it's a patient or a colleague. And so they broke it up into these four different levels of energy. And, you know, it's many. I think there's a lot of individuals who are very intuitive and who are healers in this space. And sometimes we get people who are at a very much lower level of energy in a more reactive type of state. And it's just very interesting. You're absolutely right. That I almost feel like everybody needs to take a course like this just to understand how to best interact and, you know, manage the energy when working with, like, parents and little patients. Because there's a lot. There's a lot of emotion, there's a lot of energy, There's a lot that flows through these sessions, especially when you're working with a child who's not feeding well.

But imagine if this was part of our lifestyle as we were growing up, and it was a philosophy, the same as your ABCs. Teaching your child to understand their desire and what is influencing them gives them that capacity to. To have their own true happiness and then strive for that. And when you have that level of confidence and that is built into you, when what we're talking about are the habits that are formed as a child, and then you grow up and these are in your core level of energy, of survival, you operate in a purity. And when you get to that place and you understand where your true north and your polar north diverge and that friction of energy and how to Channel it and understand the root cause of your own life and your own decision process. It's easier to convey that to those that are around you.

Yeah, no, that's, that's so very true. You have me over here thinking about my children and you know, they live with me so they're used to me. But having, using some of that verbiage and language and levels of identity and just different things that I can probably do better as a mother who is working on this myself. But I have a four year old and a six year old and we often, you know, I talk to them in, in ways that are very much so aligned with who I am. But I don't know that I've had outright conversations about like, you know, consciousness and I, you know, the energy and everything. It's, it's an interesting conversation. I love this, I love that we're going down this, this path and really.

Being an example at that point offer such a purity of observation because it's not only what we say.

Yeah.

But they clue into everything about us. They understand our conflict more than we probably understand it on our level. Children find your weaknesses. When you're going to cave on giving them that cookie. They know how to approach you because when they want something, it is all out want. There is nothing in the way, whether it's the iPad or the McDonald's ice cream. And understanding a child in their levels of energy. What's the old saying? They either need to sleep, play outside or eat. I mean, there's a lot of truth to that. And when we turn what we're doing on a daily basis into play, that really makes it more efficient for the energy that we are utilizing because our bodies will find the path of least amount of energy to continue on in a project. So building those habits into our own lifestyle, but also understanding when we do hit that wall, to be consciously aware of it and changing your posture and breathing, eating higher nutritious foods that align with you and going into that, even where you live. If we are creatures of energy, that place, specific place on the planet will draw you or push you away.

Oh yeah, no, I. So we actually relocated from the D.C. metro area to South Florida during the pandemic. This was last August. And we had decided the fall prior, a whole year prior to that, to build a house down here. So it was in process and I finally was like, you know what? Just energetically like, I need to go. I'm done. We need to go. And this was March of 2021. I was like, I'm Done. We're going to find a rental. We're going to live down there in Charles Hill. Our house is done. The kids need to be in school. But it was, I could just feel it. I didn't even have to leave my house. And energetically I just, there were just. It wasn't good. And so I know most people won't understand that. And I haven't really talked about this, but that was 100%. It was like, this is where I need to not be on this planet at the moment. We have got to make a shift and you know, going back to what we feed our bodies, right? My kids eat organic, they don't know fast food aside from maybe a quick trip to Starbucks or, you know, we do takeout, but we pick up where we eat from based on certain factors. And you know, I always say 80, 20, you know, let them go to school, they're going to have something. I normally wouldn't feed them. I want them to be able to live life and not be afraid of, you know, enjoying social activities with others. But it was so funny because my daughter said, oh, somebody was talking about like McDonald's chicken nuggets. And you know, this child said like, that's not real food. And you know, Lily, my six year old, she's like, yeah, we don't eat there because it's not real food either. Just like, I don't think I've ever said that, but it was so interesting. She knows we don't eat at certain places because I just won't put it in my body. And so they don't identify as children who put it in their body either. So it's very fascinating to observe this through a child's eyes.

We've started the process of creating little catchphrases and we started good food, good emotions. When you eat well, you're going to respond well. And the factors of how you actually sleep are a big factor in your body's ability to physiologically adapt. So if we go down this into when do you release? If they're not sleeping well, they're not eating well, then their body can't overcome this on its own. And if we add another mechanism, how are they going to repair themselves on top of that? So if we take a low energy unit of a mom and a baby and we add to it without supplementing that foundation and getting that core, they could come out of this on their own. The ability to breathe and the actual physiological function of lungs expanding, hyoid being in the proper position and the tongue because we have all seen it. The patient that comes in, the teeth are perfectly aligned. They say all their words, and they have like 10% range of motion. Then we see the ones that have great range of motion and are still sticking their tongue out. So there is a fundamental part that we have to address. What we have been taught here by Michelle is the structure of breathing, opening up the lungs. And when you break down how air comes in, you have to have that space. If your lungs don't have space, you're sucking in air, you're sucking in air, you're moving your jaw, you're moving your tongue, you're utilizing your mouth to create that vacuum and force versus proper posture. Creating that bow is how she references it. Where your lungs have the capacity to expand, air flows in and out. When we go to the physics of diameter and airflow, these are exponential and they increase. You take a millimeter off of a child's airway, that's a big deal. You're going to compensate pretty quick. So understanding that 6, 8, 10, 12 hours a child sleeps, how fundamental that is and how little we teach and how little western medicine is involved with this part and how we are trained that survival is adequate. How do we manage wanting to thrive, wanting to operate at a higher energy, when the education and the people that are trusted operate at survival.

Right, right.

And that is a part where, well, more and more of us are banding together to expand this portion of energy. Really?

Yeah. And it's, you know, I experienced it as a mom, as a provider, as a patient myself, where, you know, I was trying to find an ENT to help me with my nose in the DMV and couldn't find anybody and moved down here and immediately was able. I had options. And I actually have a procedure for myself planned because my sleep is, you know, I can sleep eight hours at night and I wake up and my body's less inflamed and I feel kind of rested, but not so rested. And, you know, it's. It all comes back to how I'm breathing. And, you know, I worked on my children first, honestly, and then now I'm working on myself. But I've done adult expansion and I've had my tongue tie release. None of that really matters if you don't have a nose that you can breathe through. And so now I'm going for my septoplasty, my turbinate reduction, and apparently I have enlarged nasal swell bodies, so I really can't breathe through my nose very well at all, especially when laying down. Didn't know about the small bodies until my recent CAT scan, like three weeks ago. So I'm going in for this procedure in about a month. And both nervous and excited all at the same time. But it really comes back to what you've been talking about, about with breathing and dysfunction. And I think that's such a basic need. Right. You can't always. It's morbid. But I would say if you can't breathe, you're dead. So why are we not putting more weight into how we breathe? Right. You know, we know that the body is going to compensate and do what it needs to the mad. The jaw is going to drop open, the tongue is going to fall to the floor of the mouth. We're going to breathe through our mouth if we have to because like you said, path of least resistance, paths of least, least energy. I love how you said energy in the way you described that. And you're spot on.

But I want to challenge you now to understand that the breathing, 80% of it is below the shoulders. So how you sit in position. So part of a weekly course is Global Bowsprings, which teaches you. It's a form of, I would describe it as isometric stretching. That teaches you how to open up everything below your shoulders to allow more capacity to breathe. And that actually changes a big part of what happens on the other 20%. When we think about the 80 20, a lot of our function is from the large muscles that happen. And that affects the tongue, where the tongue is attached to the hyoid, the number of cranial nerves that innervate the tongue. This is a dominated factor. And let's start treating that 80% just as much as we treat the 20%.

Yeah, absolutely. And I'm working also on finding somebody down here that I can see. I was working with a pri, trained physical therapist up north. And that's one of the things that, you know, I thanked him as well as a Cairo that I saw because they both helped me. I started seeing him prior to my second pregnancy and my daughter's now four, and worked with him all throughout my dental expansion. I always said I couldn't crank that DNA vivos appliance anymore until I saw Manny. And as soon as I saw Manny, oh, look, things are moving again. And I would go see him, he would do, you know, do his work. But a lot of it was focused on respiration. It was focused on the upper respiratory tract for me because I was so, so tight and so through the chest and the diaphragm. And so we did A ton of work and focus there. And I have a very strong appreciation and I'm a big advocate for that full body work because I know we're connected. Right. Everything's interconnected from, I say, the tip of our tongues to the tip of our toes with fascia and even beyond the fascia. So it's something I highly value. And yes, I'm 100% on board with you there. And this is making me go, oh, gosh, I really need to go find somebody to go see in the next couple of weeks before I go in for my procedure and start, you know, just reimplementing some of my exercises and things that, that he had taught me.

And we have the parents, the mothers, especially on the little ones, where you can hold, demonstrating this postural blueprint. This bow really changes when we have to do a release where the structures change, the freedom changes. We are no longer looking at trying to do a classic posterior tie where with that change in posture, we now have an accessible type of collagen that is truly restricting. And then you have a release and you have a body that is energetically ready for it. It's much easier on the ones you can hold versus the ones that have a short attention span and want to run around. The challenge of meeting them where they are is definitely part of a team approach.

You use some of these non surgical release approaches in your practice.

Yes. And that is teaming up with all the different practitioners. And it's hard to say you need this type of person as credentials when you actually need this type of energy as credentials, because we know different chiropractors do different things. We know OTs all have different experiences, but you need that right energy and that right baseline functional understanding on your team. And you need somebody who can say no to families because that's what they need to hear. We are in Western culture where everything is a quick fix, everything is instant gratification, and we're not prioritizing the right parts of our life.

Yeah, no, it's. I love that. I love that. And it's. It's one of those things that before I started diving more into this and working more from an intentional, you know, place energetically, I used to always go, I don't, I don't know why. Like, I just connect so well. Like, I can almost internalize that energy from these patients that come in, and it's almost like I can get on the same page as the parent and figure out exactly what that parent needs for their child and deliver that. Right. And it's I think it's both an art and a science to some degree. And you're absolutely right that it not. Not all providers can access that and not all providers. I mean, I'm sure though, people are going to listen to this episode and some of them are going to be like, hallie, you're completely off your rocker. Like, I don't know what you're talking about because it's just not something that they've been introduced to in the past. But that's why I wanted to plug Frederick Dodson because I think his book is a great place for anybody who's like brand new to just understanding the levels of energy and what that actually means and get on audible and everything. But yeah, it's, you know, reflecting. It really makes sense. And I then built my practice based on that. I built my practice based on, you know, like what we've talked about, really listening and being in tune with the parent and, you know, really making this. We travel to our families for services because I really wanted, I've always wanted to be in the child's natural environment. That was always very important to me to see. Are they with caregivers in a daycare program all day? Are they at home most of their waking hours? You know, what does that look like? And who is that primary caregiver that we need to be connecting with so that whatever we're doing can actually be functionally implemented. And let's not give five exercises, let's give one functional thing every week that they can work on and we can have a dialogue back and forth on how it's going. And that way, whatever we do in our sessions, we can then build on over the course of the time that we're not there. Because you had also mentioned earlier, we're not there. We see them an hour a week, we see them 30 minutes a week, whatever the case may be. Then there was somebody else until they see us again. And so it's not going to work if we're the only person addressing this issue and implementing this treatment. I really appreciate that from a provider standpoint who lives that day in and day out.

It is difficult because the standard in society, as we talked about earlier, is just survival, getting kids through school. And what are we truly teaching? We are teaching, follow along, be part of, instead of truly identifying where you are, what you are and being you. The sooner we acknowledge that in ourselves, the easier it is to share that with friends, family, our own children and then our patients.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is funny you say this too I had updated my website about a year ago and we changed it and now it says from surviving to thriving because that's truly, that's our goal for our patients. We know some of these, so many of these parents come in survival mode, as you said. And that's unfortunately what medicine traditionally, you know, wants for families. And I'm over here going, we might provide a super bill for you, we might bill medical codes, but we're working from a very different place when we provide our intervention. A very different place energetically. And you know, we don't always say that to our families, but the way that we deliver it is very energetically based and very much so based on what's right for this child and this family right now. So.

Yeah, you have to be an example to start and you have to build a team around you that offers that same energy or they just start taking away from you. And when you do find a group to be in, it's euphoric, it's energizing, it's self propelling and it will attract more and more to us. Advertising is what and we can put that energy out there to have the type of people who want to thrive. And that is how I end conversations with parents. Do I need this? You decide for your child, do you want your child to survive or you want your child to thrive?

Right.

And that is your choice. And you are empowered to have your sovereignty as a parent to do that. I'm not here to make you a better parent. I'm here to show you your choice of being a better parent. And then I separate, I move away because I practice this every day, because I'm going to have a teenage daughter soon. So I'm definitely going to have to practice this concept of sovereignty with a very, very empowered young lady. And nothing makes me more proud than to see somebody who knows what they want and at the same time not have the friction or that anger energy of trying to make somebody else happy. Following your true north?

Yeah, yeah. We always joke that that was me as a child and now I see that in my four year old. And so they all, my whole family says, good luck, Hallie. You've got a, you've got a mini Halle on your hands. And I go, you know, she's going to be a challenging child to parent in some ways, but I know she'll be very successful as an adult. And so bring it on. Whatever, whatever must come, we will all figure out how to, you know, move through this together.

That challenge is inspiring and pure. The way they Operate in the way they approach is so unique. And to see where they come from from the start, and to see their phases throughout a day of how, when they are on high energy, what they do and the simplicity of when they are off high energy and mapping, that is, we see it and we should really implement what they do. More than all the preconceived notions that we were taught from schools, parents, religions on how to be part of the pack versus, you know, finding a direction for the pack.

Yeah, no, I love that. I absolutely love that. And. And I think a lot of that too, then ties back to the whole medical side of the conversation that we were having as well, that these children who are surviving, they're. They're not getting proper sleep because their airways are impacted, whether it's, you know, upper or lower. And that's something that, for my children, it was very important that I address that as soon as I was aware. And so with my first daughter, Lily, when I was mentioning before that, you know, I've experienced some of this firsthand as a mother, I took Lily to a EMT who said, oh, she's not breastfeeding at 24 months anymore. Like, you don't need to do anything. She's fine. I was like, she's not, but that's fine. We'll go elsewhere. So I took her to another ent, more so not to look at the tongue tie, but to look at adenoid and tonsil tissue. Not because I wanted them out, but because her tonsils were enlarged, they were inflamed, they were almost touching. And I wanted some kind of a game plan. Even if he said to me, cut out dairy, cut out gluten, cut out. You know, even if I just got some. Something that wasn't something he had to do, but something I had to do, but nothing. Everything was, well, they're unimpressive. That was. That was what said to me. And I was like, I'm very impressed by those tonsils. I think they're telling me something. I don't know quite what they're telling me yet, because I'm new to this space, but I'm going to figure this out. And we actually ended up putting her into a ALF expansion appliance at age 4. And what do you know, in the middle of cold and flu season, boom, tonsils just disappeared. They just kind of shrunk down to size one from a three plus. And we had changed nothing else. And it happened in just several months time. It was pretty phenomenal. So she had her tongue tie released by an oral surgeon at age 2 as well. And that was also a very big learning experience for me. My second daughter, five days of life, got her tongue tie release. And after I put them both through it, I figured, what the heck? This is now what I do for a daily living. I work with these patients, so I might as well do this myself too. So it's been a very interesting experience to be on the mothering side as well as the patient side while working with all of these moms and little ones as well. It's been. It's been amazing.

That's empowering when you can say, I've been here. The part of putting in the alternative life force is when we change the sleep. We actually change how the brain functions by getting our children into proper REM sleep, by allowing the tissue to contract and all the chemicals that are inside the brain that need to be refreshed. Our immune system resets, our endocrine system resets. And tonsils are a product of an overactive immune system. So getting the body to do its job has to happen first before we go in and alter the unideal form of what we're working with. So by removing the tonsils, what is the impact down the road of removing such a massive part of our immune system? We have consequences down road. What's the impact of taking out premolars in orthodontic cases? We are collapsing the airway. We are changing the electrical capacity of our bodies by removing part of it. And to simply say, this is the easiest way and to have it so fundamentally ingrained in society that, oh, teeth aren't straight, we'll go to the orthodontist. Well, the orthodontist in a lot of aspects is your foundation to. Your house is tilted. But you know what? Let's go put in new windows to make the outside look level.

Right, Right.

So the capacity is. Why don't we address the function of all the tissues, the forces that are in play, the power of the tongue to move, teeth to change the way we breathe. Why don't we look at torsions? The way the actual bones are put together when our sphenoid bone is off and our temporal bones are rotated, our condyles are shifted and we have class threes and we have class twos. But what do we want to do? We want to address the windows. Why don't we address the foundation when our spinal column is not adjusted properly, how does that rotate the whole aspect of the occipital and change how we breathe? Now we have that Chin forward posture just to create an airway. We cannot really say how important airway comes first in everything. So root cause is, is the airway okay? Is the airway adequate? And as we grow, our capacity changes. The symptoms in play for lack of sleep, adhd, asthma, acne. I mean it's.

Yeah, the list goes on. Yeah.

Why don't we make it simple?

Yeah. Yeah. Now that's every time we get a child where a parent checks off ADHD on our intake. You know, one of our first questions is always, has anybody ever asked you about your child's sleep? You know, tell us what you know about their sleep and they'll say, oh, they sleep great. And if you take it at face value because you're just asking this open ended question you miss so much. And we've really learned that we have to dive into asking like 25 questions about sleep to really get a full picture on, you know, how long do they sleep? Do they wait to go to the bathroom? Do they still wet the bed? Are they tired when they wake up in the morning? Do you see them totally melting down after school in the afternoon? I mean there's just all these different, like they've held it together as much as they can and then they get home in their safe place and they just lose their mind because they're done. They're done. They have no more energy left to expend on homework or after school activities or listening to you at home or even just sitting down at the table and eating their dinner. So it's, you know, it's really opened up, I think a lot of parents eyes to have these conversations about sleep as an introduction to airway. And one of the things that really scares me that I didn't know at the time, but Lily, my, for my six year old who went through the ALF appliance and release and she's now actually in myotherapy with one of my therapists. She, she was that baby who constantly, she was so tight and flipped herself onto her belly at like two months and she was a belly sleeper. And then when she was able to, she got her little butt up in the air and did that little tripod sleeping with her hands under her face. And now I understand she was opening up her airway at a couple months of age, which is just absolutely terrifying to know after the fact. But it, it really screams the question, why are we not doing, why are we not screening babies for this? Why, why is this not something that's being asked in, well, check visits? Why are we not, you know, and why are we expecting babies to sleep through the night? That's a whole other conversation. That's not something they're really made to do. They need to feed. And when they do sleep, how are they sleeping? And so I know that's a whole nother podcast episode, but the passionate topic of life.

If we fix sleeping, where do the pharmaceuticals go? Where does Western medicine go?

Yep.

We are talking about a culture of let's hack our way to being better and staying alive versus let's fix the root cause. How many doctor appointments would not be needed? How much healthier would we be if we addressed sleep? The simplicity of sleep.

Yeah.

And when this big machine gets going the way it is in Western culture, it's hard. So it's one group at a time, one set of children at a time, and, you know, it'll work itself out over the next million years.

Maybe. Yeah, right. I keep saying, you know, there's enough parents that are listening to this podcast now that if they can just take this and be, you know, unapologetic advocates for their own child and focus on the children that they're bringing into this world, and we will make so much headway, so much faster than if you go straight to some of these medical practitioners, unfortunately. So the power is in the parents hands on this one.

Well, why don't we make it even more selfish for them? Why don't they fix themselves? So when you're 80, you're still mountain biking, so you're still arriving at an older age. Do you want to be retired and doing what? Have a purpose, Breathe better, live longer, enjoy life better. And when you fix yourself, the kids will follow. The kids will see the example. Watching them is a window into what we should be, because they do turn themselves over to breathe right away. What do we do? We put on a cpap. We put on something else. We do an invasive surgery. All of this comes back to how do we find the least invasive way to inject the most amount of energy into our bodies in an understandable fashion.

Yeah.

And fixing airway non surgically is amazing. And understanding that aspect of where technology meets functionality and it's not enough to just be eating good food. You have to eat food that is growing well and actually pulls proper nutrients because there's a million things out there and you can eat oranges and you can eat apples and you can eat greens, but they may not be grown, they may have no substance, no nutrients. And now you're still in the negative. And when you do find good Healthy food. You need a lot less of it.

Yeah, yeah. No, it's. This is everything that I. You're speaking to my heart. I love this. Absolutely. I absolutely agree. And it's definitely, you know, I look at how many children are struggling with ADHD diagnoses and how many of them end up in our practice, and we go, but no one's ever looked at your sleep. You've never had a sleep study even, or a conversation about sleep or a CT scan or anything before. They just put you on these meds and. Nope, just all based on some questionnaires. When I was little, my mom actually had. I think she talked to three different neuropsychs who basically, I think two out of the three diagnosed me over the phone. One hadn't even met me. The other one I think did do a brief meeting with me, and the third one was like, ah, yeah, I don't really know. This could go either way. But none of them. So they were all, I think they were all. Well, two of the three were willing to put me on medication as a five year old because my, my preschool teachers basically said I was off the wall. Well, my sleep was probably just as bad then as it has been, you know, and it's probably gotten worse over time. But it's just, it, it baffles me because, you know, we, we're definitely a more educated society. And I guess it's not so baffling because it does go back to, as you were mentioning, the money is not in the type of work that we're talking about. Right. The money is in just putting a band aid solution and prescribing a medication. And here's some medicine. Come back in three months. You know, so it's, it's, you know, I really, I strive to not have my family on medications. My kids, myself, my husband and I like, we don't take medications. We use supplements and certain vitamins and things based on, you know, food sensitivities, blood work stuff that we do from a holistic standpoint, we, we engage in more holistic remedies than traditional ones. We only really turn to, you know, the more western stuff if, if we really feel like there's some type of an emergency and, or we've been trying something else that's not working. But, you know, and I don't talk about this that much because, again, it's not something I think is widely understood in the field. I've got my small group of SLPs that I talk to often about this who also are very holistic And I love it. I welcome more of it. I would love for more people to come forward and have these conversations because I do think we need to take our health back into our hands.

Yeah. Imagine the capacity of teachers to refer for sleep. Your child's in here. What do we think? Oh, you need medication versus what is the root cause and how many volunteer? I'd say they might get paid for going in and working at a school, but really it's volunteer. Can't even make a referral outside the school because of the school doesn't want to be responsible or the school doesn't believe it or not, or pediatricians don't want to listen to anything that wasn't taught to them in the 60s. We are operating on such an old school basis, it's heartbreaking.

I have created several screeners. There's both a feeding screener for our little ones and a myo screener for really four years old on up with the idea that dentists can be using these in their offices and teachers can be using these in school.

School.

And there are things just to, you know, just to flag concerns so that you can then refer out. Obviously private schools, private preschools have more flexibility than our, you know, state funded, federally funded programs. But it's something to get the needle moving. Right, get that conversation moving. Because I used to go into a lot of private preschools and I've seen kids, I had one kiddo who was three years old and she had worse obstructive sleep apnea than according to the ent, a middle aged man. They sent her in, they rushed her in for emergency surgery and, and you know, her mom was an OT and she also said, well, she sleeps great 12 hours through the night. And I was like, oh, okay. But I walked into the classroom, heard this child snoring with the mouth wide open. She was like throwing herself all over the place. And what we learned was she was constantly waking up and then falling right back to sleep. And really her learning skills were drastically impacted. Right. It was not, it was not good. And she was three. So this is happening. I use this as an example to show people, obviously this is extreme, but this is happening on a much milder level too for our little ones. And it's just, it's being completely missed. Nobody's asking about it.

Well, I agree with finding the root cause. I agree with making the change in yourself and all of these concepts. I have to give credit for this change in paradigm to Michelle, who has worked with several providers. She's been enlightening I'll send you information on her so you can properly address in the podcast. I'd like for her to see the fruits of her labor, to see the capacity and I take a responsibility in having such a large number of offices that have a platform to start delivering a message. Instead of being a single pediatric dentist out there seeing 5,000 children a year, we have the ability to start laying the foundation for the education of new doctors, the education of staff, to build those bridges into the community of providers, to find ourselves in all of this, to make that life changing recommendation care. And care does not have to be defined as a surgery or in changing away from all the invasive procedures that we need to do.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you. This has been phenomenal. I appreciate you joining me today. It sounds like we're on very parallel paths in our our treatment methodologies and understanding the root cause. So thank you. This has been great.

Well, I appreciate the opportunity and I look forward to us interacting again and thank you.

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