Episode 196: Dr. Molly Hayes Functional Airway Focused Dentist: Slow Down and Breathe!

Hi and welcome to episode 196 of the Untethered podcast. Today we have Dr. Molly Hayes joining us. Molly's a functional airway focused dentist practicing in Omaha, Nebraska. She thought about leaving the profession of dentistry for many years before finding her passion was with helping kids breathe, sleep and live better by treating the root of their sleep disorder breathing. She's a mom of four children who were her original inspiration for pivoting her career in dentistry. 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 and 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. Molly, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you, Hallie. Thank you for having me.

I am excited to chat today, but I really want, if you're willing to share your story with us, I would love for you to tell us a bit about how I know you're a functional airway focused dentist currently, but you once upon a time thought about leaving the profession of dentistry altogether. Would you be willing to share with us? Yes.

Everybody kind of has their conversion story and so this is kind of where mine starts. I wanted to leave dentistry before I even graduated from dental school. I had it in my mind that I was just going to get through this, suck it up and go find what I really loved. Dentistry for me was like, it was like dating a guy who looked great on paper and there was just no chemistry ever. I just couldn't fall in love with it. And even as I got going into my career, it was just drill and fill and tell people to floss and brush and don't drink all that soda and it just bored me to tears. So, you know, I just kind of kept one eye out for other opportunities as I continued to work and, and then I really thought about airway dentistry for the first time. After my second baby, my son ended up in the hospital and he needed an NG tube to feed for about seven months of his life. He just continued to fail swallow tests and nobody could figure out what was going on with him. And so I wanted to fix him. And so I started doing my own research. And then I had another baby and life happens. And I just kept doing traditional dentistry. And for me, the line in the sand was just 2020. I just felt like I couldn't trust the health system anymore. And I was part of that. So I just had to make this decision. Am I going to help people be truly healthy or am I just going to kind of keep being a part of this system, a part of the problem that puts a band aid on top of things? So that's when I just decided, I'm just going to do it. I'm going to. I'm going to take this opportunity in Nebraska, working with Dr. Trino Nuno, who was already practicing biological dentistry. And when I told him, I want to learn about the airway and I can bring it to your practice, he was all on board. So it was just. It was meant to be. I still do traditional dentistry from time to time, but my focus is all about the airway now.

Love that. I love that. I actually found out that a childhood friend of mine, like a really good friend growing up, was working in a practice as a biological dentist. And I was like. I mean, I was like, mind blown. I was like, wait, what?

What?

What? Yeah, 15 minutes away from me. I've since moved because pandemic, things changed and she's still in the Maryland area. But I was like, so spoiled and so lucky to, like, fall into that after never having that, you know, growing up and, you know, having that with my now old. My oldest Lily, at the time, she was 4. We put her into like an ALF appliance because they offered that and they. I went into a DNA vivos appliance and they were really doing a number of different things in their practice in addition to just, you know, biological dentistry using healthier ingredients, trying to. Anyways, so we changed a lot of things.

You get spoiled. You're right.

It was so hard down here when.

I moved in from Florida.

Like, that wasn't like an hour and a half away or something.

And so I can't believe how many patients are willing to drive that far. But I think, I mean, doesn't that just show you how. I mean, people are starting to understand how important this is, that you and I see everything through this lens. Right? I don't know, are we biased? But maybe this is it. Maybe this is the key to health. So, you know, if you're close to an airway dentist or a functional or biological Dentist, you should just take that opportunity.

Yes. Yeah. I'm like, I say all health starts in the mouth. So obviously, you know, you can speak. I can speak to it from, like a mouth breathing, side and chewing and swallowing and oral rest, posture and all that. But, you know, talk to us about, like, what you see as a dentist, too, because I know you said you're still doing some traditional dentistry. I know that there's issues with the teeth, with decay, with, you know, I'm sure there's a whole other host of issues that I don't have throttle off the top of my brain. But as far as mouth breathing goes, all of that. Do you see a lot of this in your practice?

I see it every day. And, you know, the question I've been asked is, do you think it's getting more prevalent, Is it getting worse, or are my eyes just open to it? And I think the answer is both. I've been doing this for almost 10 years, and when I first started, it was very rare to see decay in baby teeth. It would happen to me, like, maybe once a month, and it would be kind of a big deal to see a child with a cavity and a baby tooth. And as the years have progressed, I started to see it more and more. And then again, going back to 2020, it was like someone threw the match in. It was rampant. And so then, you know, and my patients are, they, they're healthy, they are more natural minded, holistic. They care about where their food is coming from. So they're eating healthy, we're brushing our teeth. Well, what's left? It's mouth breathing. And it was when I took the healthy Start course last year that I realized this is it. Mouth breathing is fueling this decay epidemic. And I see a lot of kids in our practice. We're not a pediatric office, but we see a lot of kids. And the overwhelming majority will come in with at least one or two cavities and very narrow palates, swollen tonsils, you know, they're on maybe too soft of a diet. We're busy on the go parrots. And we're maybe just grabbing snacks out of a box or a package or those like, you know, baby food tubes, applesauce tubes, couches. Oh, I hate them. And. And it's amazing. I see all these different kids from all these different backgrounds, different families, different ages, and it all kind of looks the same.

Yeah.

Isn't that interesting?

I mean, it is. Everyone just will write that off to, like, genetics then, right?

Like, oh, it must be genetics. That. Yes. Let's talk about that. You know, genetics are important, but they're not nearly as important as your environment. Genetics can, can set you up for success or failure, but it's, it's all about that environment. What are you eating, how are you breathing, how are you sleeping? You know, those are way more important than genetics.

Are there certain things that you tell your families to like, look out for, like if they're concerned, you know, like, we are getting more and more calls actually just into my speech practice where like they're saying okay, and I should say speech, myo, feeding all the things, but they call and they'll say okay, our feeding is okay.

I don't have any speech or language.

Concerns, but my baby's mouth is open. Like, do I need to be worried? Like, is there something that you advise parents on whether, regardless of the age, whether it's an infant, a child or an adult, as far as things to look out for with like mouth breathing or sleep issues?

Yes. So many red flags. And so I use a questionnaire and it's, it's lengthy. We've got 32 questions to answer. And it's, you know, 90% of kids have at least one of these red flags. And so you, you have to put the pieces of the puzzle together so it's not just one of these things or all of these things. You have to take the questionnaire, look at the child, do an exam, but big red flags. I hope parents know that snoring is never normal. Great reason to bring your kid into a myologist or an ENT or a functional dentist if you can. Never normal mouth breathing during the day or at night. Never normal. Kids who have really restless sleep, so they'll wake up and their bed sheets are all tangled and their head is at the foot of the bed. Bedwetting, it's hard to say what age is not normal. But if you have an 8 year old who's wetting the bed, that's a big red flag. And even like daytime symptoms, these kids are just so tired and sleepwalked. They're moody and they have trouble focusing. ADHD is linked to sleep disordered breathing. And then this can go on if it doesn't get stopped into more chronic illnesses like diabetes, sleep apnea, lots of things that we look out for. But you just have to put the red flags together with what does the child look like? Do they have swollen tonsils? Is there a tongue tie present? That was never diagnosed. Narrow palate. If you have a child with baby teeth and those baby teeth are touching that's not normal. We need to see spacing between the baby teeth. That tells us that the jaws are the appropriate size. So lots of signs and symptoms to look out for. I think the big ones with sleep are snoring, mouth breathing, bedwetting, and then the daytime symptoms of hyperactivity and then attention. These aren't just kids who are choosing to misbehave. Like, maybe they're just not sleeping well.

Yeah. I always like to say, like, you know, kids are not inherently bad and they don't get, you know.

Absolutely.

I'll, like, develop and become a little devious and, like, want to do something like challenge your parents. Yes. That's part of, like, becoming an entire individual and being. But, like, infants are not bad. They're not difficult, they're not stubborn.

There's like. They're not manipulating you.

Right. There's all these terms that get applied. And I just sit here and I'm like, if we actually take a moment to stop and think about what we're saying, it does not make sense. I mean, I know that, like, our brain defaults, but I think when we open up this conversation of parents, because we get a lot of parents who describe their children this way and no, like, they don't have other information. We'll say, look, like your child is not trying to be X, Y or Z or even appear this way to you. This is actually telling us something bigger is going on. Why don't we dive into, Figure out, like, what we can do together to rip off the band aids that everyone else is trying to slap on and get to the root of the problem, which I know you're big on as well. Yes. In your practice, you know, do you. I know you had mentioned you took the Healthy Start training. Do you use anything else? Do you primarily use Healthy Start? Like, what does that look like? What age can they start?

Yes, I only use Healthy Starts. And, you know, there's. And before I decided to go through with Healthy Start, I researched a lot of different appliances. And the conclusion I came to is that they're. They're all great. And I hope that parents know that, you know, you don't need to do the research on the different appliances. There's so many different ways that we can get early expansion. There's a lot of different ways that we can fix the root of sleep disorder, breathing. This just happened to be the route that I decided to go because I think it's very easy and simple. It was easy to bring into my practice. So I only work with Healthy Starts, you can start healthy start at 2 years old. And I love that about healthy start because I am sure you see it too. Holly too. I mean, we have already done a lot of damage if we are mouth breathing or tongue tied or have a narrow palate. A lot can happen in those first two years of life, but they are still very moldable. We can still make a lot of positive changes with this nighttime appliance called a habit corrector. Do I get great compliance in 2 year olds? Not always, but it's worth a try. And it goes all the way up to about 12 or 14 with that nighttime habit corrector getting less great results as the years go on. We can also use healthy start as kind of a straight teeth, no braces appliance. As soon as a child loses that very first tooth, usually on the bottom, and that permanent incisor starts to poke through, we can take impressions. Or in my office, we do scan, a 3D scan, and make a more custom appliance for them to wear for a total of two hours during the day, doing like little clenching mouth exercises, you know, maybe 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there, for a total of two hours during the day. And those are guided appliances. They're not shoving the teeth, forcing the teeth to move after they've come into the mouth. This is guiding them, like almost catching the teeth and expanding into the appropriate spot so that maybe we can avoid braces in the future.

Interesting.

Okay.

I've always like wondered because I, you know, I will, I'm like the first to admit people always ask me, what do you know about healthy start? I'm like, nothing. But I cannot speak to it. I haven't seen it. I haven't had a patient with it. We do, I think have some patients in my practice, but I have not worked firsthand with it. So I'm like, I can't give you information. The other one, like myo brace, for example. Yes, a little bit, but not that much. Both of my girls have one.

Okay.

My 4 year old before putting her into RPE, but she had had croup 9 times already this year. And when the dungeon that she was like, oh, whoa, hold on. That's why keep this in her mouth. Like she's, she's a tiny, tiny mouth. She's almost five. So we were like, let's pause that. She was doing like 20 minutes a day. And we moved her into RPE with like a forward growth component, upper and lower. And she's like already done after like three months. But for her it's because like osa, we were study. But you know, I'm like reviewing all this research and it's saying like in certain patients sometimes, you know, certain models are recommended just based on the presentation of the patient. Whereas like with my older one, like a slower expansion method, you know, I was like, she's got some hypersensitivity. She's, you know, I.

Difference.

Yeah, yeah. And she responded great. She still needed some RPE at age now 7 and so she went into like RPE and she's done already. Yeah, like doing a little bit more like upper and lower, like forward growth a bit, you know, a little bit more expansion. But now we have her in permanent retainers and we were given the MYO brace which we haven't started yet, but it was like a week and a half ago because she got sick and so. Okay, we need, we need to be able to breathe. So we're now going to try and see. But it sounds very similar in that it helps to then direct growth because obviously she's only seven. She's only lost so many teeth space the teeth that were already slated to come in. You know, it's, you know, we haven't.

Done a follow up cbc. You're doing it. All right.

I'm like, I'm like crossing my fingers. I'm like, this child is in her third thing now and like hopefully this is like, this is one of the.

I know, but third thing at seven, I mean that would have shocked me three years ago. And now I'm like, oh, so she's probably like almost done and she's going to have this big, broad, beautiful smile and fully formed face and sleep wonderfully. And I think that there is a place and a patient for these rapid palatal expanders. I do. And I might even have a child at home that will need one too if we're not successful with health Healthy Start. You know, what people need to realize is the sooner, the sooner you catch these problems, the easier my Healthy Start appliances will work. You know, I'm even talking at like age 8, we're gonna have a more difficult road. If it is a severely vaulted palate, I probably will refer you to. You know, we're lucky to have a couple airway focused orthodontists in town. That's just probably out of my hands at this point. So the earlier you can come in and even if it's not for treatment, even if it's just for education, like at 2 years old I can do an exam and I can tell you, well, you absolutely have to get rid of that pacifier yesterday or like a year and a half ago. And we can. And we can start to correct that maybe with the habit corrector at 2. I've closed a lot of open anterior open bites from pacifiers and thumbs up with the habit corrector between the age of two and a half and three. And it took about six to eight months to close those. So the earlier we act or. And the earlier we educate, the easier your path is going to be. Yeah, yeah.

And it's really cool. I mean, I feel like as I learn more about, like, what's out there, it also seems that, like, obviously some of these things can kind of work in conjunction with others or at different parts of this plan. And I love what you said, too, that, you know, we kind of. You have these, like, local orthodontists who.

Are airway centric to you.

And it was so interesting because I took my daughter to one who was, like, around the corner, and she was six, like, six and three quarters.

I don't know.

And the whole idea was like, oh, let's wait six to 12 months. And she had, like, a row of shark teeth. And they wanted. On the other side of the wall was like, no. It's like, they should probably. They're probably going to fall out in, like, the next six months. Like, let's just let that happen naturally, like teeth. And then we'll see what happens with the back teeth. And, you know, even though they were. They did a very amazing, like, airway centric exam, the recommendations were still like, well, let's wait six to 12 months or, let's pull these teeth out and then wait. And I was like, I don't.

I don't get it.

I don't get it. Like, I thought you did.

They know who they were talking to.

And I was like, clients. She's ready for another one. I'd rather get this going now because, like, I'd rather do. Do stuff during the summer, then the school year. Like, I don't. You know, there was, like, a lot of thought behind the whole process. Yeah, you're good. Come back.

Just wait and watch it get worse is what I would say. Right. It's not gonna get better.

Yeah. So good. Until you gave me the recommendations. And then I ended up. I drive to, like, an hour to North Miami without traffic to.

That's what it takes, right, when you're advocating for your children.

Yeah. And I'm like, I know. She offers alf. She offers the Myobrief.

She offers the.

The Hirax like with forward growth components to each child. And so, and she's using like a combination of these things sometimes too. And so it seemed very like child individualized, you know, on that.

Wonderful.

Are following the cbct, following an airway eval and I'm like, and you know, my kids are making great progress, so I'm very happy with it. But it's, it's. People are like, it's so hard to find somebody who does this. And I'm like, I feel like it's becoming a little easier. But yes, you probably will still have to drive a little.

Yes, you're going to. And hopefully it's not every six to eight weeks like you would, you know, if you were in traditional braces. Sometimes it's three, three to four months before I check in with a patient. And I feel very comfortable with that. So it is, it's a sacrifice. I feel like I have made so many more sacrifices for my family's health in the last two years. Because what is more important than this?

Right. Exactly. If you don't have your health, what do you have? Right. And when we know I just can't not, I can't not.

We like have this key to like unlock everybody's health. We're like, let me share it with you. Yes.

So do you then get any like infants in your practice or. Yeah, do.

And I love it. I love it. I get my baby fixed almost every day. Yeah. So I, I started posting on Instagram recently that you can bring your baby into the dentist. You don't have to have teeth to come to the dentist. It's actually much easier when they don't. The, the long held standard, at least the standard I had practiced by was you bring your child in around three, three and a half. That way they can sit still for the hygienist to clean their teeth. But you and I both know how much damage can be done by three, three and a half. They don't have to be able to sit still for the hygienist. If you have concerns or even if you don't, I think you should bring your baby into the dentist so I can take a look. We would evaluate for of course, tethered oral tissues that you might be unaware of. Look at the palate and really there's just a lot of educating. I spend maybe two minutes in the baby's mouth looking at everything and evaluating and then a long time educating parents. You, things that you and I know and maybe take for granted that not everybody knows. I noticed there's a sippy cup on the floor. And we're going to trade that out for an open cup because it's interfering with proper airway development and swallowing patterns. We'll talk about sleep and snoring and mouth breathing. Baby led weaning even comes up for the babies getting closer to six months. I want to give people more value than I feel like I ever got at those famous well checks. I spent wasted so much time in with all of my kids. I would always leave those visits feeling so unempowered, guilty for any decisions I was making as a parent and just kind of like, like I just wasted an hour and a half, you know, sitting in the waiting room and waiting around just to have my baby wait. I really want to add value to your child's life. So when you bring your baby in, I can look, look at the things, diagnose the things, educate you on the things that are going to set your baby up for their best life.

I love that. And I don't know if it was your account or a different account or if we were all just sharing it, but somebody like this past weekend shared.

I'm like, and I, oh, gosh, I.

Probably should look and see, like, who actually said it. Like, I don't know, it's humor in lab or anyways, but it was like, instead of asking, like, how are you? When you like, oh, are you sleeping? How are you? Yes, like, how do we change this? How do we make that the norm?

You and I will just start and we'll probably weird a few people out along the way. Let's see how it goes. Report back. But really, you can tell so much about a person's life and their quality of life by how they're sleeping. I always ask patients at their exam, you know, how are you sleeping? And some people know me, and so they know what I'm looking for. And some people are floored. They've never been asked by any dentist or physician how they're sleeping. It's pretty crazy.

It's interesting because, like, we also have a very long intake and it's pediatric part. We just Mayo. But it's long. And, you know, I'll have people comment, like, during the initial eval to be like, I thought it was really interesting that you asked about, like, how I feel when I wake up in the morning or how, you know, if I've had, like a history of ear infections or, you know, and obviously some of these things can be related to speech, but they can also be like your nervous system. And if Things are off balance and everything kind of is connected. And let's talk about Eustachian tubes and enlarge, you know. Anyways, I'm speaking, preaching to the choir here, but it's so interesting to me because then we get like, we get. That's one of my favorite things is educating and talking about like. Well, I asked about this because we often see that, you know, adults who are kind of on the go, go, go are not really sleeping great at night. Maybe you fall asleep, your head hits the pillow, you think you're sleeping well because you're so exhausted that your body like immediately passes out. But the quality of sleep is not necessarily top notch. And they're like, what do you mean?

Like, what do you mean?

My quality right now? Exhausted. But I got eight hours of sleep.

And I'm like, we've just become so accustomed to assuming. We assume that we're all sleeping horribly, you know, because we are busy and I don't know, the way we live in. Yes, we're hustling and we're all tired and it's just, it's almost like a badge of honor, right, to talk about how tired you are from being so busy. But I mean, I, My life has changed. When I started focusing on my own sleep and doing the things I needed to do, I started mouth taping. I don't know how a biologist feels about that, but it's the best, best sleep of my life. When I'm breathing through my nose, I'm putting my phone away a couple hours before bed, I'm like setting the mood and I'm putting as much effort into my sleep as I do, like time at the gym or preparing a nutrient dense meal. It's really important. And I read something. I don't take credit for this. I can't remember who. Again, an Instagram quote. But the adults with sleep apnea today were the children with sleep disordered breathing, you know, 30 or 40 years ago. And that should knock every parent off their feet that you can do something about it now. You can, you can make their. You can change things now and you're going to change their whole life.

Yeah. Yeah. And I, it's so fun too when families come in because they're like, oh, maybe I have this issue or, oh, I didn't realize, connected to that. And it's like this whole family affair and then we get to work with.

The whole family love.

One improves and they all improve.

And every.

You know, I've had so many adults.

How satisfying.

Yeah. I mean, they're like, I had no idea what I was missing out on.

Which was, oh, that, like, makes me tear up a little bit. I know.

I'm like, you know, the problem is we don't know any different because this is the way you've lived your life in all of it. And so it's like, have nothing to compare it to until you do. And then when you realize what you now have that you didn't, it's like you want it for everybody else because you're like, oh, my God, you guys are zombies. You're zombies on speed walking with absolutely no energy to actually expand on all these things. Like, and no wonder we have all these health issues.

Yes. We're just floating to the finish line. Like, that is no way to spend our life. We get one. I know that sounds really cheesy, but, like, I do. I meet a lot of. I need a lot of busy families. And you can just tell sometimes when parents are really stressed out. And I, you know, my husband and I, we had to have a talk, you know, a couple of years ago, like, what. What do we need to do to simplify our life so we actually enjoy each other? I was so tired of, like, waiting for nap time or waiting for bedtime. We had. We just had to cut, like, everything, you know, activities and extras so that we could really focus on our health and enjoying being together. And now I never thought I would homeschool. And we homeschool our children. We really love being around them. We are sleeping in. We have kicked fast food. We are not doing fast food. We are trying to see how many days we can go without fast food. We are cooking together. I mean, I am not tooting my own horn. I used to be, like, the takeout queen, and I would stay up till midnight working on chart notes and reading. And I was. I was not healthy. Um, but like you said, like, now that I'm here, I just want to tell everybody, like, you have no idea how good it can feel. Do it. Yeah.

Well, it's very interesting, too. There's so many businesses and, like, Instagram accounts and people who are, like, promoting, like, the opposite of the hustle. Like, you were literally hustling yourself into the ground and talking, like, with my husband and one of our neighbors this weekend about, like, you know, European vacation. And we're talking about how, like, you go certain times of the year based on, like, you know, in August, they all just go away for a month and everything. Parts of Europe.

We should do that.

Hi.

Door shut.

Don't know. When we'll be back.

Yes.

Like, don't make a reservation because you know you can't and.

Sounds wonderful.

Yeah. I mean, it's, it's that. And then there's also like certain cultures that have like the afternoon breaks. Like, I know. I don't remember if it was. They were saying either France or Italy. One of the two, I think it's Italy maybe does like the hour break in the afternoon. And then they have like the really late dinner. And I know, like, you know, in Spain they do their cf. There's.

Yes.

Have like those, you know, traditional long breaks in the day. And I obviously haven't like looked at all the research surrounding it to know how healthy that is versus like a long night of sleep or something.

Right.

But prioritize rest and.

Yeah, I agree with you. I'm seeing more of it too. I see, I see it on Instagram and then like slowly I'm starting to see it trickle into the practice. You know, people who are. See a lot of homeschooling families, people who are not involved in like four or five sports. Like, I don't know how my parents did it. They must have been exhausted. Just. Yeah, like, slow down. It's not good to be so over programmed and over busy that your sleep suffers. And if you're tired, like, do you really want to make a nice meal at home? Probably not. Um, you know, it really all flows from, from sleep and good breathing. So there. I'll get off my soapbox. No, I love that.

I mean, I've always been the one who has this like internal, like, you know, like, I do what I want kind of thing, but like reference, not externally. And I see like so many kids who are so overly scheduled. They have like every single day a week. And I have never signed my kids up for anything on the weekends. And like, if we have a birthday party, fine. Like we'll go. That's fine. But like, I don't want consistently to have like a commitment on a Saturday or Sunday morning when that's like time, rest time, like we go. I also have never been one to like push my kids into after school things. Like they ask for things. So like they're both in dance one one afternoon a week and then one does cheer one day, one does cheer another day, and one has a tutor on one of those days and the.

Other one has cheer.

And that's it. Like we basically, and I will add, cheer is at their side school. So they just stay a little longer. And then it's like, okay, the Only thing we take them to during the week is dance, and that's a headache, like, for me, to be honest. And I'm not even doing it anymore. Someone else.

I'm with you.

I.

We get one activity at a time. And we decided that going into this season of winter that we were going to actually do zero activities. And my kids were like, oh, my gosh, we're just going to be at home, like, all the time. And it's been so, so good. We are. We dropped our one activity, and we'll. We'll take it up in the spring when it gets nicer. And it's not a big deal to bundle everybody up into their snowsuit and car seats. And it takes, like, 30 minutes. So I'm a better mom. I. I can't encourage other moms enough.

Like, just.

Just don't feel like you need a reason to drop things. You can do it unapologetically and without any reason. It's really going to benefit your family's health.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, my kids have been begging me for, like, tennis lessons and when they want to do gymnastics, and I'm like, gymnastics would be on Saturday. Tennis lessons would have to be. The way that I operate is this. I'm like, if it can be in our community, which gymnastics won't be, but I'm like, if it could be in our community and somebody is here or can come here, take you, like, you know, half a mile over here, you know, we can walk to where we're going, then that would be a fun outdoor activity to do a tennis lesson. Okay, fine. Like, I can get on board with that, but. Yeah. My daughter's like, why are you signing me up for cheer? And I'm like, I'll talk.

Like, I just.

I'm like, it's too much for me and too much for me. It's got to be too much.

I. Yeah, you know, I think about that, too. And, you know, the. The on the go life definitely leads to more, like, snacks on the go and, like, here's a tablet while you're waiting for your sister to finish up. And all these things come together. You know, it's not. It's usually not just one thing that's causing all these symptoms of sleep disordered breathing. I think it's a lot of things. I think the dyes and the food maybe are creating a little bit of the hyperactivity. I mean, I can. I can definitely say that the processed foods are causing the jaws to. To shrink and recess as the. The jaw is kind Of a use it or lose it thing. But yeah, I think it's, I think it's a lot of things. I see a lot of kids who just look like they could just use a little break.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, and I know like from all the epigenetics and the research and everything being done, like we're seeing that the jaws are shrinking regardless. Like epigenetics, they are shrinking. And to me, that I just sit here and I'm like, well, how can we optimize what we have? Like, how can we at least make or that we protect our airway? Because for me, you know, it's, it's. I always tell people this story. Like I love it and it just happened recently. But when I put my four and a half year old into an upper and lower expander and her teachers at pre K were like, like looking at me, one of them, finally one day when I think I either picked her up or dropped her off or something, late, early, whatever, they were like, so like you're doing this for straight teeth? And I was like, oh God, really think that I have vague baby teeth.

Okay.

Oh my goodness.

I mean, that just shows you kind of where we're at as a society. Right? Braces equals straight teeth. Mouth appliances are for straight teeth. And I am pro straight teeth because then you're less likely to get periodontal disease, gum disease, cavities. But it is all about growing better faces. You know, these sunken in jaws and overbites and flared teeth. Not normal. And it's only going to get worse. Children do not outgrow these issues. They only get worse.

Yeah, well, and I love that, like we have new research coming out to support everything we're talking about. You know, when Lily was four or five or whatever, we did the follow up.

Oh, you know what?

We hadn't even done the follow up CBCT yet. It was three months into her applying, so she had just turned like four and I noticed her tonsils were decreasing with the alf.

That's amazing.

Then she's in preschool and I'm going, oh, that's amazing. Crazy. Like, I posted this in a MYO study group and I got like ripped a new one. I was told to take the post down and was DM'd by the. It was like a whole thing. And like, I'm not claiming anything. I'm asking if anybody else has seen this because this is what I've observed with my own child and I am a professional in this space. But okay, no problem. Take the post down and now we actually have research that supports that this early expansion, or just expansion in general does in fact decrease the tonsil adenoid tissue. We are seeing that it's in the airway. It is a treatment for obstructive sleep apnea. You know, all these things.

Doesn't it make sense? Doesn't it make sense if you can eliminate the mouth breathing by expanding the airway that they would, that they would train. It makes sense to me. And I am very conservative with the tonsils and I'm still learning. I probably could learn so much from you about the tonsils. But you know, parents come to me and like the first thing they'll say is like, I've been told to get the tonsils out. I'm not doing that. You know, like it's, it's not that easy. But I will give you every option to exhaust before, before we get there. And then if it doesn't work, you know, we give ourselves a limited amount of time to try this with healthy start or you know, just different nasal breathing exercises. And if we don't get there, we will, we'll know that we, we gave it our best shot.

Right. Well, and I think it also comes down to like, are we talking about like an emergent case of obstructive sleep apnea where like I'm really actually not comfortable avoiding this, which is rare that, that often we have, we have had kids that were rushed for emergency tonsillectomy is because they were so enlarged and they had, they had study. The sleep study was like really, really, really not good. Like possibly passing in their sleep because it was a three year old, mind you.

Oh my gosh.

And that's what like it gives me chills. Like that is what made me so passionate about like diving deeper and deeper into. I'm like, it's no longer. Obstructive sleep apnea is not a middle aged, overweight male issue. It is present regardless of age, size, health status. Like if you could be the healthiest person in your mind walking around, you eat organic and clean and you exercise and you take care of yourself and you don't have any diagnosed diseases that you're aware of. You know, you've got all this going for you, but you're mouth breathing when you sleep and that's it. OSA and now you've got bigger issues that maybe you're not aware of.

It's absolutely enough. It's, it if you're doing everything right, but you're not breathing through your nose, you're, you're Gonna have a lot of undoing to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, and you had mentioned the mouth taping earlier. And I've done, I've done an episode on it with my colleague and friend Autumn Reed Henning, who's also an slp. You know, myotherapist, all the fun things and our stance on it is it's like you're an adult and you know, your airway is clear. Like go for it. Like, that is your call to make you want to your lips, around your lips. Like by all means. Like, I've used my tape. I like the Myotape. I like that gives opportunity to like breathe through your mouth if you absolutely have to. But what we're seeing is like just blanket. We've been seeing like blanket recommendations to like take kids, mouths and four year olds. And that's where I was like, I'm like number one. If you're doing it in myotherapy and it's an exercise and it's not like long lived.

Okay.

I maybe can get on board with some. That or even kinesio.

You're standing right there in front of the child. Yeah, yeah.

You know, but we need an airway eval to make sure that that's even a fair expectation that they make sure physically nasal breathe before we take away their air supply.

I hadn't heard it was being recommended for kids.

I feel like, really?

I feel like it even says on the back of my package like do not use on children. Oh yeah. There's always, I mean even I should probably do something else for myself, you know, as opposed to the mouth taping. But I'm, I'm going to fix my kids first. I make a decision for myself. Right.

Is like, I feel like they give it as a literal band aid like this. So like before Autumn, it's like a band aid. I was like, autumn is a literal band aid. And I'm like, you know what if it's helping temporarily and helping compensate, great. But like, is that the long term plan? Like has anybody. No. That there are other options chosen to forego. Those are their options and this is what they want to do for the rest of their life. Like, yeah, it's on the same level.

As a, like a CPAP for a child. Like, okay, what's, what is your long term plan now that you put this five year old on a cpap? Like, there's no weaning from a cpap. It's just, this is the plan for the rest of your life. I don't, I don't buy that.

Yeah, yeah. And that's the same thing. I think that what I just. I think my goal was to kind of get people thinking a little bit more critically, like, if we need this. And after a certain amount of time, we have not trained our mouths to exist this way. Why?

Right.

It's like you're putting your lips in a closed position for, let's say, seven, eight hours a night, day after day, night after night after night. Eventually they should presumably do it. It should do it on its own.

We were born to breathe through our nose with closed lips. Yes. Yeah. And I.

We've got. We've also received adults who do mouth tape. And they're like, I feel great when I wake up. But then we realize they're not actually elevating their tongue to the roof of their mouth. Their mouth is down. And so we've addressed that. And so I'm like, that's where I'm like, I'm all for it, but also, like, with a lot of disclaimers.

Oh, yeah, there should be disclaimers inside that package for sure. And I don't know how it would ever work on a child. I think my kids would rip it off right away, to be honest. You know, it's not the most comfortable thing. But yeah, as a dentist treating myself, which I diagnose myself often, it's a contemporary thing. But yeah, you're right. There is always a reason. And this has taken. You know, it's epigenetics. We're doing something wrong as the human race and we just need to get back to the basics. You know, our diet, our sleep, nasal breathing. It's just. It's so simple and so complicated at the same time. Yeah.

I mean, a bunch of.

It can't be done without a team, you know? Yeah. So I don't know. I could. I could literally talk about this for, like, we could. We could go away, you know, on a month. A month long European vacation, and we would still not be done.

I love it. Yeah. And that's the biggest question I just constantly come back to. It's like, how do we get the United States of America out of fight or flight? Which is a big. That is a big question. Because it's not just sleep.

That sounds like an excellent blog post.

Title.

Or a book. I would read that book.

Right.

It should be on the nightstand of every American get out of flight or flight Americans. I mean, the last couple years. Okay. It's coming up on like three years. I mean, the people that I see out and about that are still, you know, living in fear and you know that they're in fight or flight, and they've been in fight or flight. And it really does make me deeply sad. So it's hard. It's kind of hard to speak what I feel, but I know that I see the truth. I'm not right about everything, but I see a lot of truths when it comes to this stuff. And I really think, yeah, we gotta get out of fight or flight. We gotta relax, slow down, stop living out of fear. Makes me sad when I see, you know, kids walking around in these masks, like, all day, whether it's, you know, school or the store, and just like their. Their mouth breathing behind that all the time. I promise you, I. If I'm gonna. Yeah, yeah. And I do it. I wear a mask. You know, I've been wearing masks before, before 2020 in dentistry.

They were.

Before they were cool. And I find myself sometimes I'll start mouth breathing if it's been too long, and I have to change my mask and remind myself, you know, so, yeah, we don't have to go down that rabbit hole, but I just. I agree with you. Let's. Let's get. Let's get our kids out of fight or flights. Got so much life ahead of them, and I just.

I think there's also so many opportunities and ways to go about it now that I'm hoping that this becomes a little bit easier for, you know, professionals who want to get into it or.

Parents who are trying to digest me too.

Like, it's. There's. It's so overwhelming and there are so many routes now and there's so many opinions and, you know, I'm like, the best thing you can do is just get started. And if you don't like what you're on, you can always change that path.

Yes.

So that's. I think one of the biggest things is, like, you mentioned a team, and I think that's the perspective that the team needs to come from. Because sometimes you get other members who may not be on the airway team, but who are on a medical team who basically telling you don't do anything, it's fine, just wait, It'll, you know, and like, no, we are here to tell you absolutely, you don't cry to snoring. You know, unless the child, they don't normally snore. Maybe they might stop and then, you know, have a closed mouth again. But if that's not their. Normally they're not growing out of it.

Yes, it's hard to find those providers. But I do think I agree with you. I think it's getting easier. You do have to search. It takes a little bit of research. But you know, here in Omaha, city of, you know, a million people where we're lucky to have, I feel like we have enough providers. We have a lot of wonderful myofunctional therapists, multiple release providers using the laser. We've got a couple ents that I refer to. We're really lucky and I know that not everybody's that lucky. But you do have to, you have to keep advocating, you have to keep researching and yeah, the team approach is the only way to do it. I do have parents who come and they think like all the problems are going to be solved in that first visit with me. And sometimes a child can stay with me. You know, we get them in the healthy stuff start and we work together. But more often than not, I'm referring to a myologist. Yeah.

Well, I love this. I love the work that you're doing. I love your message. I know they can go to Dr. Molly Hayes.com if they want to find you. We'll put that in the show notes too.

Wonderful.

Anything else? Like as we wrap up, anything else that you want to share that we haven't covered?

Gosh, we covered so much ground. I, I, the one thing I always close with is just, you know, early intervention is invaluable. Like really take your 6 month old to the dentist if you don't have an airway focused or functional dentist, you know, in a decent drive. I do my best to update my social media and my blog weekly with just little tidbits. So just, you know, have an open mind. You have to kind of unlearn some things. So just, just have an open mind. You might find out, as I did, that you were wrong about a few things, but I just have to keep advocating for your children.

I love that. Thank you so much. It's been so fun.

Thank you. Holly. Thank you so much for this chat.

Absolutely. I'll see you on Instagram. See you on the gram. Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you want to hear more of these Myo tots, airway and feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple podcasts or pledge a small amount on patreon.com the Untethered podcast. If you found value, others, you know, in this space will too. So be sure to share this episode on your social media platforms and join us over on Facebook. On my Facebook page @HALLIEBLCAN BIZ on Instagram at alliebulcan, and you can head over to theuntetheredpodcast.com to grab a copy of the show Notes Notes, where you can also subscribe to be kept up to date on the latest podcast episodes.