Episode 209: Project Airway with Greg McLean

Hi and welcome to episode 209 of the Untethered podcast. Today we have Greg McLean joining us. Greg has battled with chronic fatigue for the past 15 years. After chasing doctors for answers, he continued to educate himself, trying to figure out everything he could related to health and the body. He's been in the health field for 22 years, owns a gym, and although he's physically present as an image of health at the age of 45, his energy and mental health continued to slip through his fingers. As time went on the last five years, it got to the point that he thought about quitting his job. He lost all hope after exhausting every test, treatment and protocol that traditional medicine and functional medicine has to offer. Offer One day in early 2019, you heard a podcast with Dr. Steven Lin talking about jaw development and the airway crisis that's plaguing society's health. He did some digging and he went all in and today he is sharing his experience with you. Not only has he had five sleep tests, he's also used the DNA biomimetic expander. He's had sarp, which is surgically assisted rapid PAL expansion. He just had his posterior tongue tie fixed and in the past he's also had his tonsils, adenoids and uvulum removed. He's tried CPAP four times. He's had his deviated septum fixed. You're going to hear all about that, along with lots of information that he's learned and what he is doing to push this message forward and share it with others. 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, Holly Balkan. I'm a certified myofunctional therapist, feeding specialist, podcast business owner 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, Airway tether, Dural tissue and Pediatric Feeding therapy space. If you're new here, I challenge you to keep an open mind and join my mission to spread this message far and wide. If you've been around since June 2019. Thanks for being a loyal listener as we jump into today's episode. Remember to listen with correct oral rest Posture, tongue up, lips closed, teeth apart, breathe through your nose. Let's get started.

Foreign.

Welcome to the podcast.

Thank you for Having me.

I am excited to jump in because I know when I started following you on Instagram and I was reading through your, you know, the information you were sharing and learning a little bit about your journey, which I know I don't even know the half of it yet. It was just. It was really both inspiring, I think, to see somebody really take it on, you know, take it into their own control, if you will. Right. Versus listening to all the medical professionals out there. And I know you have a meta. You know, you've got a background in health, but you're not necessarily, like, a dentist or an ortho or an ent. Like, I'm not either. And so it's always. It's always fun to connect with others who really fell into this space, whether you wanted to or not. But here you are, and now you're sharing your. Your passion and everything you've learned with the world. So, you know, first of all, thank you for that because I think we need a lot more of that. Yeah, yeah. And. And really, I think it would be great. You know, we're going to talk about a lot today, but if you can just share with us. At what point did you kind of like, when did this all come to a head? And you were like, okay, enough is enough. Like, I just. I realize there's something greater going on than what my medical professionals have been advising me of. How did that come to be? And what were your. Like, what did you do first?

Yeah, like, I think it literally started back in 2007. I literally started to feel like there's something weird going on with my brain and mental clarity. And I literally. It all started. I went and got an MRI on my brain, and it was like, of course, you're like, oh, you're 30, healthy, fit, you're good. And it was like, no, there's something wrong. And then fast forward, like, two years later, and I actually was diagnosed with celiac disease, but it was one of those things where kind of came out of nowhere. The good thing is I had a client that had it, and so it was kind of one of those back when the H1N1. And I got really sick one week, and then I was fine for three months, and then I got really sick again. She's like, dude, this kind of sounds like celiacs. And I literally was kind of tested, had that. And then I think for a number of years I was unaware, like, kind of what was celiacs, what was celiac related? And then it was kind of like, when I kind of, I guess because back then, it wasn't common like it is today. Like, I felt like I was like, no, I kind of have this pretty figured out at this point, and I still feel like crap. And then I would probably say, like, for the last eight or nine years, I would literally call it more chronic Fatigue syndrome. And it's one of those things where I kind of sought out some of the best functional medicine doctors, kind of chase doctors, Every kind of treatment, every kind of test, microbiome, you name it. Like, I was looked at for all this stuff, all kinds of weird supplement regimens. And then actually, in 2019, I'd waited for a long time. Dr. Datis Karazian out of Carlsbad. So he's like, one. He's got two New York Times bestsellers for functional med, but he's like a. A doctor to teach other functional med docs. And I remember, like, I became one of his patients because he had just left. Like, he had done a stint at Harvard and had some time freed up for. For kind of working with new patients, which for five years, you couldn't get in to see him. He wasn't accepting you. And then I remember he actually put me in. I was one of his two case studies. There was a thousand doctors in his seminar. And then he gave me access to all of them for a year. And I had people throwing stuff at me left and right. And it's pretty funny to still think back, not one single person talked about my airway, breathing, sleep.

A thousand doctors, all functional medicine doctors, not one.

Yeah. You know, and it's. And it's. And it's interesting now because, like, when I think back, like, he talked about, like, in his seminar as it relates to, like, brain, gut, all that stuff, kind of like a sickness, behavior syndrome. And it's kind of a lot like, if you look at, like, functional somatic syndromes and kind of the evolution of, like, how basically all these autoimmune diseases kind of pop up on the radar.

Yeah.

And so when I was done, actually, with that seminar, I think he had said, because I had a concussion back when I was in my early 30s, that he's like, oh, yeah, you know, I think it's something related to brain health, this and that. I think it's like, basically, as a result, like, this is kind of what you've got to manage for the rest of your life. And it was one of those things where I was like, okay, finally, at least someone told me what. I have, like, a sense of peace. But then I was like, really? Like, I don't want this to be the rest of my life. And right around that time, I had heard a. Actually a podcast, Dr. Stephen Lynn, kind of just talking about, like, the dis. Evolution of our jaws, just basically how our airways have gotten smaller, all this stuff. And it was like, wow, that really made a lot of sense to me. And I had a new client in here, and I had randomly talked to her one day in the gym, and she's like, oh, my husband's a functional dentist. He's been in the industry for like 35 years. You should come down and talk with them someday. And kind of that's when I kind of really started going down the airway wormhole. And that's when I started with like, the vivos palate expander.

Did you get diagnosed with like, some type of sleep disorder? Breathing first? Like, did you have sleep studies first or is that following?

So he did a diagnosis. They actually tested me back then for, you know, sleep apnea with a machine prior to any type of intervention with them. And then I would say, like, in the last few years, I had been tested four times, and people would either be like, oh, you don't have anything, or it's like, mild.

Yeah.

And I think this is where, like, for me, two years ago, I kind of really started to understand that, like, most people test people with sleep issues related to OSA standards. So they're looking at apnea, hypopnea, desaturation. And I think there's this whole group of people, skinny, young, fitness, thin, healthy people that, like, people wouldn't assume that they have sleep problems. Maybe they don't snore, maybe it's inaudible, or maybe they just have a six pack. They're the spitting image of health. And people be like, why? Why would this person have issues? And I think there's this whole, I think, evolving science when it comes to uars and, you know, kind of understanding that, like, I think your traditional OSA kind of goes more at, like, looking at hormones and blood pressure and those types of things from an effect standpoint. And I think your UARS is very much like, related more so to the nervous system. I think we all see all this ADHD and all these autoimmune, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, all these things, anxiety, depression. And I think, you know, very much. I think in the next 10, 20 years, they'll figure out something related to the mechanism of sleep and how it affects these individuals relative to maybe someone that has osa. And I guess what I figured out from podcast that I heard from Dr. Stephen park was like the distinction in the testing as it comes to sleep medicine. You know, even this week I was messaging with our girl that kind of she does sleep testing and she'll use like two different, two different devices when she's doing at home testing. And you know, someone from one of the major kind of ring companies kind of chimed in and I kind of asked like, well, what do you guys do to test for inspiratory flow limitations if someone's doing an at home and you're looking for uars? And it was like crickets, their device doesn't do that. But this woman was saying that basically she pairs it with a second device. And I think that's really important. Whether someone that possibly has UARS is like, I just feel like many doctors claim to kind of have knowledge about diagnosis and what it is. And I think the way someone tests for it kind of provides a lens to kind of almost what they are aware of and what they're not aware of relative to, to kind of everything that relates to it. And I think that's what I've seen is that I remember I got sleep tested in the lab here. My sleep doctor literally put my pressure on my CPAP from 8 to 14. And then I literally went and got sleep tested by Dr. Gold in New York. And here he is saying, well, yeah, you've got severe REM related apnea. And then it's like I came back home and my pressure settings were, you know, 5 to 9 centimeters of water. And literally it worked. And here was the guy out here. And then after getting tested in New York and having it work, it was like I had a follow up call with my sleep doctor here in Arizona. It was like, I was like, are you aware how to test for urs? And he's like, yeah. And it's like, no, no, you're not.

No, you're not. Yeah, well, and we talked about that. Remember that when we were initially chatting, because I had a home sleep test with Ken Hooks who looks for flow limitation. And that's where I got my URS UARS diagnosis. Because I've also been sleep tested and you know, I'm fine. You're fine. You're. You know, at the time that I had had it done, because it was years prior, I think I was in my maybe late 20s or early 30s. But yeah, I mean, he came back, everything was fine. And of course at that time it was like, okay, I guess everything's fine. Until I also fell into this Learned. And I know that, you know, the one that Ken uses does look at that, the flow limitations. And he being a respiratory therapist, actually sends it out to a doctor to, you know, I guess read and sign off on everything. But he goes through the raw data and it's interesting because he's taught a couple times in my membership and he's pulled it up and he's shown us like, this is what typical labs look like. Look at, like you were saying, you know, the apnea, hypopnea index and the certain markers that they really look for to diagnose or tell you whether you have mild versus more severe osa. And he said, but what we really need to be looking at, I Write those like spo2, the flow limitation. Like we need to look at everything together and really take a deeper dive because that's where we start to see the issue. And what he flagged for me was my rat, my REM sleep. Every single time my body tried to go into rem, boom. Like I didn't go. I wasn't fully awake, so I wasn't aware, but it was like I woke up feeling completely exhausted, like I was never sleeping. Like chronic fatigue, you know. Meanwhile, I also have a deviated septum that was fixed almost, it's almost a year ago now. But that's completely changed my life from him identifying that and actually finding an ENT who looked at me and said, okay, your septum is pretty straight in the front, but has anybody ever looked at the back? Like it's completely blocking the entire left side of your nasal pass? Like you. How do you breathe through the left side of your nose in addition to enlarged turbinates and enlarged nasal small bodies? And I was like, what's going on? What are nasal swell bodies? And she's showing me. I'm like, why is nobody talking about I'm a myotherapist? And I'm like, this is the first time I've heard of this term. And someone has shown me a diagram of nasal swell bodies. I was like, so I've got the inflammation coming from the outside of the nose inward, I've got it coming off the septum outward, and I've got deviation. So I can only breathe through half of my nose. But also that's highly restricted. So it all makes sense, right? But yeah, it's, it's a very interesting conversation and one that it's, it's mind boggling to me, shouldn't be anymore, but it's still mind boggling to me that we're still here in this day and age, as far as medicine has come. And that UAS is not more widely recognized or known because mostly doctors have never heard of it.

I literally, when I got home from New York, I sent an email to the 10best Yelp related sleep doctors in Arizona. And then I basically sent the context in which my doctor thinks the distinctions are made and how it's tested and asked all 10 if any of them know how to test like this. Not one single doctor responded. So to this day, if someone possibly has uars here, I don't even know where to send them to test in Arizona. And it's like, really? And it just makes me realize, like, I think I would start like a, I want to start actually like a medical device company. I think I'm looking into that this week. But just like, even for me, starting to use the excite OSA in the last 10 days thing is awesome. And I'm thinking, like, you need a script to buy one. I guess you can buy one outside of the United States, like Canada, you don't need one. But it's literally like, I think the study on it that I read said that it like, it literally cuts apnea and snoring in adults by 50% and children by like 62%. And I'm just thinking like, I have a gym with a ton of pro athletes, but like, if it's something where someone could literally pop it in their mouth and use it at nighttime and just allow themselves to have better seal on their palate, breathe better, sleep better, it's like a. That's a no brainer.

Yeah, well, tell us about that because I know everyone's listening. I've heard of it, I'm not as familiar with it, but what's your experience been with it?

So I basically have done two palate expansions, the vivos, and then I did a sarpy a year ago. I done my tonsils, adenoids, deviated septum uvula. Got all that cleaned up two years ago, but like the chronic fatigue never went away. And then after the sarpy, I started doing myofunctional therapy. So for the last six months I've done it, but at about four months out, it was like the fatigue still hadn't gone. And I remember my sleep doctor in New York was like, when I, when I had my tonsils and adenoids removed two years ago, they did an experimental procedure on my tongue where they thinned it out. And so he was unsure as to why my seal on my palate when I was getting Titrated in the lab was so bad, but he's like, it might be a result of that surgery. So then I was thinking, all right, maybe this is like, just something I'm going to live with for the rest of my life. And he had recommended, like, a chin strap, but it didn't kind of seem to work. And then for me, once I started doing the myofunctional therapy, I became aware, like, the. The lingual palatal suction or the caves movement. Like, even after four months of doing exercises every day, I still couldn't make the movement. And I've been working with a therapist, and she was like, well, you know, maybe you have a tongue tie, maybe you don't. I was like, all right, like, once again, I'm gonna figure this out. And then went on YouTube. And Zagi had a really good YouTube. It was like five dimensions of tongue tie. And I remember watching it one night. I was like, it was almost like you could self assess based on like, the. The testing he had right then and there. And it was basically like I couldn't dissociate my tongue from the basically floor of my mouth. And as a result, everywhere my tongue goes, my jaw goes. So I set up a zoom with him, and then I worked with one of their therapists for three more weeks. And then literally, I had my tongue tie removed on the 15th of Febr. So two weeks ago. And as crazy it is, like, I can feel the fatigue lifting off my body. Like, I literally. I've dreamed every single night, and I remember my dreams every day, which is not normal ever since. And it's like, I literally feel like my metabolism has doubled. And I honestly think it's from just years and years of being crushed by like, chronic fatigue to my body, like, trying to recover.

Yeah.

But I've been sticking with the myofunctional exercises, which is awesome. But I just feel like the Excite OSA is kind of like a. It's like another mobile modality that just like, enhances what's already being worked on. But it's literally like, basically the protocol is for like 40 days, that you're basically wearing it six days a week for 20 minutes, and you basically just set the device kind of whatever level, and then little by little, you can kind of bring up the intensity. But literally, it's just. Or it's basically runs off an app. I literally like 5:30 this morning, was wearing it on my way to work. But it's kind of one of those 20 minutes. Get it in. It's done. But I can feel how it's already really helped me in relation to like the caves movement relative to even where I was a few weeks ago. And I literally think like I've been a mouth breather my entire life. I think partially because my jaw was so small and then also like from actually having a tongue tie that I just feel like it's, you know, for me working in the gym space for over 20 years of my life realizing like, if that muscle has never been worked, it's got a long way to go to get it up to speed.

Yeah.

So it's kind of just like, you know, just why not use technology to fast track kind of things? And it's like, I think it's one of those things where I literally think myofunctional therapy is very important. So I'm not saying it is myofunk, but like in conjunction with it, it's kind of like, it's just, it's a great tool.

Yeah, yeah. No, I, I love that. I think, you know. Right. Myofunctional therapy in and of itself can be wonderful. But I do think sometimes there are other tools that can support our journey. And one, you know, like something like this and I have to read more about it. I know they have a, you know, clinical evidence and everything. So I have looked it up in the past and I was just pulling it up on my phone while you were talking. But it's one of those things too where I feel like, you know, if it's bringing some sort of like stimulation. Right. And it's kind of waking up the nerves. It's kind of waking up the musc. Waking up, you know, whatever's going on in the mouth and basically saying, hey, like this is where you need to be. It's, it's part of that like re education or that new education maybe the tongue has not had previously. If your tongue's lived on the floor of your mouth. So it's I think part of that whole neuromuscular re education process. If there's different things that we can introduce that support a patient's journey and helps it to become a healthy habit. You know, I love things like that. So again, I haven't used it and I would need to like read more about it to fully understand it. But I think things like that can be really great, great in combination with, you know, your journey and sounds like it's been, it's been really beneficial for you. Now did you start using it like right after your tongue tie release? Is that.

Yeah, like literally today was 10 days and I've used it every day that I've had it. So it was one of those things where it's like I literally flew to la, got back on a plane a few hours later and it was one of those things I didn't know if I was, wasn't going to be able to talk and how bad it was going to be from the tongue tie. And it was literally like I came home that night, ate normal food, literally went to work at 6am the next day. It was almost outside of feeling the stitches in your tongue, it really wasn't much but to see how much of a difference it made because he basically, Sagi basically said that literally it was like my tongue was a centimeter longer, but I had a posterior tie. But to immediately see what I could do with my tongue as far as creating palate suction, it was like. Then I literally think that was like the missing link to all this with myself.

Yeah, well, and I think it's so fascinating too because that's, that's one of the reasons why we're such big proponents of like pre op therapy because we need to know what we're working towards. And that way we have that baseline of okay, what can we work through? Is it, is it, you know, or do we have tension that's mimicking a tie? Obviously you worked in therapy for a number of months and realized, okay, no, this is not just tension. Like there truly is restricted tissue that's caught, you know, preventing me from elevating my tongue to my palate, separate from the floor of the mouth, my jaws following, you know, as a result. And that's where, you know, I teach both myo, but I also teach pediatric feeding and in my PED feeding course we talk about this because children should have dissociation by 18 months of age. Their tongue should be dissociated from their lips, from their jaw, from their cheeks, fully by a year and a half. And we have a lot of these kids at age 3 and older who are still walking around using everything as one unit. The lips, the tongue, the cheeks, the jaw, they're all munching, moving together. Now obviously it's a bigger discussion beyond tongue tie OMDs. We've got, you know, our food industry to think part of that too. But you know, thanks guys. Right, Yeah, I mean it's just, but it's very fascinating because again, not something people really talk about that we should be able to do these things. And here we have patients of all ages across the lifespan coming in and their tongue goes left, their dog goes with it, their tongue goes right, their jaw goes with it, their tongue goes up and down the jaw and you know, it moves with it. Not. It's not supporting. Right. And so that jaw, for us, at least in myo and in feeding, is like the baseline that is our base of support and that needs to be able to support everything else. And if everything else is failing, the jaw is just going to follow suit. So it's always fascinating and I love to hear from patients who have had that pre op and then they come back and they go like, oh my gosh, like you said, like I could elevate my tongue, I could do the lingual pal suction now and I can see the huge difference. And basically that was a precursor to probably further progress for you. So, you know, that I think is it just really speaks to having that education, trying to train the muscles, you know, trying to get everything on par before a procedure, followed by having a procedure and then immediately feeling like, oh, wow, now I can do all those things I couldn't do before. This really was, this really was part of the root cause issue here.

Hey, yeah, I think that's the hardest thing, right. People that don't understand enough of this world because they haven't been in it long enough to read all the different stuff, it's like what it does for me, it's probably not going to do for most people, but I think like we're all looking for these things that we don't know what they are to relieve our symptoms. And it might be something very simple for anyone that wouldn't really help anyone else. And I think that's the thing, like we shouldn't look at other people's cases and think, well, that's going to do that for me. It's more of a. It's so case specific. And that's why it's so important to have like a really good doctor that kind of basically tethers the line for all these different fields to kind of understand, like, hey, this is probably where you best start, you know, to, to have a shot at figuring this out rather than like, I don't know.

Yeah, I mean that, that individualized treatment plan. Right. And kind of knowing from initial assessment. Okay, here's what we see going on here are probably the list of providers that you may need to do a consult with at some point. Let's start here. And then even if you' proceeding with myotherapy, where do we start? In myo. Right. And so a Lot of it's so funny because. Not funny, but people come to me, even taking my, either in my membership or they've taken someone else's course, they have maybe taken my course yet. And they go, well, what do I do first in myotherapy? And I'm like, what do you mean, what do you do first? Did you do an assessment on the patient? Like let's, you know, yes, the jaw is important to address and we should probably address that first. However, the way we address it is going to look very different based on the patient sitting in front of us. There's no hierarchy that works for Everybody. There's no 12 week myo program. And there's so much of that being sold out there that it kills me because I'm like, okay, we finally have a lot of people, at least in my world, voicing and promoting and elevating this whole concept of airway and breathing and tongue tie and MYO and all the things. But now we have a lot of programs that sell these 12 week treatment programs. And we've had a lot of patients go through them and then call us. And they haven't made any progress since their initial eval, but they were, they were graduated from their 12 week program. And we're over here going like, what is going on? So even within the MYO world, it's like, not all MYO treatment approaches are created equal. And I like to encourage everybody because you really brought this point up, which I think is such a great point. Everybody's journey is different and everybody's MYO program will be different. Everyone's tongue tie release may look different. And that's where again, like you said, you really need to have that individual doctor or somebody on the team who's kind of helping you navigate all of this. Because, you know, sometimes we may need to release or not. We, I don't do it. But my release providers, they release a little bit more than they on one tongue than they may need to on another. They suture one versus they don't suture another. Some go under general anesthesia, some are local and you know, or they have sedation. There's like so many different approaches to the actual procedure and so many different providers who do it differently that I think that just the whole thing becomes overwhelming. But people just, I get these questions all the time, well, what's better? Scissors or laser? And I'm like, what's better is you find a provider who is highly skilled in what they're doing and you know, have a conversation with them. To understand their process and what you need to do beforehand and after and, you know, and yes, ask those questions. But I like to kind of like, like you said, it's so individualized and. And it's going to be different depending on your location too. Unfortunately, there's no streamlined process here.

Yeah. I think my favorite is like, well, asymmetries after my msc. And it's like, I hate to tell you this, but we're all asymmetrical. You, you, you were asymmetrical before and after. Like, that's just kind of how it is.

Yeah, yeah. So did you at any point ever have any, like, teeth pulled in your life?

So when I was 13, 14, I think I had braces. So they pulled four adult teeth. And then this is where basically I think it was my freshman year in college, they pulled my wisdom teeth. And I think like full circle. It's like knowing what I know today, I think my at. So I think like a few years ago, before any of the palate expansions, I was 31. I was 28 millimeters. Was my intermolar width or my upper jaw, which is like, what, a four year old?

Yeah, yeah. Actually, we expanded my four year old to 35. So she was 28. We expanded her to 35. Yeah.

Yeah, I was. Who is it? Dr. Courtney Donko out of Chicago.

Yeah.

I don't know if you saw, like, I was messaging with her a few weeks ago, but she was literally like, I think her four year old was something like 31, 32. And then at four and a half, two months later, she was like 38 millimeters. And I'm thinking like, that's bigger jaw than any of my employees that were college athletes.

Yeah. Isn't it amazing?

Oh, my.

Courtney's awesome. She's been on the podcast. She's actually going to teach you my membership. She's phenomenal. I love seeing if anybody doesn't know her, they should follow her. I love seeing her videos she's been posting of her daughter because very, you know, she's adorable, her daughter, but it's very airway focused. And I think that's the kind of, you know, healthy education we need to be like, she sharing online.

Yeah. I think she has a younger daughter. Literally that's like two. And she'll be like, my daughter literally has a stuffy nose. She's like, mom, I need to irrigate my kids.

Do it one or two times a day. Yeah, yeah.

But like, I mean, it's kind of like in my world, like, you Know, I have a gym, but it's like one of my employees, you know, super fit, college athlete, and it's like his daughter will come in, she's a year and a half old, and she sees all these active people, and it's like, if you just are giving that message to children when they're young, it's like, yeah, it's my kids.

Yeah, my kids do it after I had my surgery. So I was having to do it because of this, you know, septoplasty and everything. They were like, like a month after, like, into it. They were like, can we try that? I was like, you sure can. Hold on. Let me go buy you. Now we have them on autoship every three months getting replaced because they, you know, every. We do it at least once a. And our airway dentist was like, if they're stuffy, do it twice a day. If you need to do it three times a day, do it three times if it's not irritating them. But if they're, you know, if they're having a hard time clearing their airway, by all means, like, that is your best friend. So, yeah, they. They do it themselves. And it's funny because my youngest one will, like. My oldest one will do it and she'll squeeze it and, like, need to stop and blow her nose in between. But my youngest one, like, she'll do what she calls beast mode, and she'll, like, just do the whole thing through one nostril. The whole thing. I did beast mode.

I'm like, whoa, whoa. All right.

It's like, if you make it fun and you make it a game and you normalize it.

Yeah.

You don't think differently.

Yeah.

Yeah. I love it. So, okay, so back to your teeth, because I know. I see you have braces on, and I know you've been through a lot of DNA and sarp. So you had those teeth removed, and obviously we know that collapses the jaws further. And so did you notice, like, after that, you know, after you had your wisdom teeth removed, do you recall at all? And maybe you don't, but do you recall, like, any changes in your health at that point?

No. Like, like after the wisdom teeth?

Yeah.

Yeah. No, Like, I literally. I literally feel like. I guess my doctor New York kind of talks about, like, all the UARs and somatic syndromes, and he kind of talks about, like, these two paradigms. Like, basically one is like a sensitization paradigm that, like, we have a stressful event, a sickness that basically, like, our olfactory nerve in our nose gets sensitized. To the stressful or sickness event in our life. And that basically like we. Let's just say we snored prior to said eventually our brain's relationship to the snoring is fine with it. But then like moving forward, if I have a sickness or stressful event like our basically what ends up happening is the stressful event gets paired with the snoring. And then moving forward we have this response relative to snoring seen differently by the brain. And this is where like he has this chronic stress paradigm where we basically now react to snoring in a way differently than we used to, but in a, in a way that now we create like this chronic stress in our body. And when I think back, I had this weird thing when I was like 22 years old. I was like best shape my life. I graduated and I actually was started testing for the fire department. And I remember I was in a ride along with some firefighters. And it's kind of weird that like this woman was having like a heart attack in the middle of the floor on our, on a call. And I just remember I was like, oh my God, like I have to go to the bathroom. Like just a random, like why do I have to go right now? I should definitely be able to hold it. And I remember like for me it was like after that like I had this like interstitial cystitis. But it was like, like bladder remember going to urologist and it's like a bunch of 80 year old dudes. And I'm like I'm in the wrong place because well like I literally like thinking back to like my health like where I think like maybe something happened. It was like that, it was a random, like I literally had issues after that, had never experienced it before. And it was like a random stressor, A stressful situation. Yeah, but it was like, yeah, the.

Human body is so fascinating. And I feel like that's also not talked about enough with this whole. We always say, well a lot of us are living in fight or flight. We really want to be living in rest or digest to put it in layman's terms. And it's just any event that can send us into this stress response and how healthy we are I think will determine how we then react to that stress response. And like you were saying, if we've had certain symptoms, whether it's snoring or OSA or something else present earlier, the body's memory of some of these things seem to maybe come back. And then like you were saying, the body may treat it Differently that my understanding of the theory kind of.

Yeah, basically, like, the trauma pairs in the HP adrenal axis, and then it's like our relationship to something that used to be okay is now seen as stress. And this is where, like, the Dr. Avram Gold in New York at Stony Brook, he basically. He did a lot of stuff with, like, PTSD and, like, vets, and he basically found that, like, the two ways to untether the stressful event moving forward is either through nasal CPAP or from palate expansion. But, I mean, he has crazy studies from, like, the last 20, 25 years of just countless people that have either resolved all their symptoms or had a dramatic improvement as a result of kind of going after that mechanism to help people get better. But literally, like, based on what he did, is why I chose to deal with my stuff the way I did. And not to say I'm cured yet, but if in a month or two, like, I literally am back to myself, I'll be like, dude, like, this science is what I followed to cure my chronic fatigue. And it worked.

Yeah, yeah. No, and I think it's incredible because, you know, I kind of had my own journey as well, where I, you know, I had our rapid palatal expansion of braces as a kid, and then I had permanent retainers put in that, you know, like, they said, oh, they'll fall out by the time you're, like, 20. Okay. I got them put in at, like, 12, right? So, like, okay. And then at 30, I was like, hey, this is. It's like every time I go to the dentist, they're like, we need to see you in three months because of the buildup behind that lingual bar, like, on the lower part of your teeth, because the salivary glands sit there, and it's just, you know, we want to make sure the area stays clean. And I'm over here, like, flossing and doing everything I can, and it's just. They're like, it's not going to matter because it's just, you know, you've got this lingual bar in place. And I was like, take it out, take it out. So I had them take it out when I was 30, and immediately, within like, a week and a half, my lower teeth start to shift. And I go back to my dentist, and I'm like, hey, my teeth are moving. Like, what's up? He's like, no, no, they're fine. They're fine. Fast forward to the next appointment. I'm like, hey, my teeth have shifted more. And he's like, no, they're fine. Do you want to do Invisalign? I'm like, no, I don't. I just want to know why my teeth are moving after I've had this bar in place for the past. I don't know. Like, what was that, 10, 18 years? I mean, come on. Like, that should be enough memory by now. So that was my first clue that like something was up. But at that point I wasn't in the space. I had no idea. And then it's like, then the practice was sold, bought, whatever. I anywho, I end up learning, get into the space, learn about airway, learn about my. Learn about tongue time. Like, check, check, check all the boxes, got all the things. I actually learned that a very good childhood friend of mine who was local was in this space and was like, basically one of the owners of this, this practice. And so I went to her and that's when my kids went into alf. My first daughter went into an ALF appliance at that time I went into the vivos DNA appliance. This was back, I want to say in I don't know, 2018 maybe, that I started with my appliance work and I did a tongue tie release somewhere around that too. So documented somewhere. But anyhow, I feel like, you know, I didn't address my, in a way because I didn't, you know, my nose, I didn't address that component. Didn't trust anybody in the area. And as like a new mom and then pregnancy and running a business, it was like, I. I can't just up and like go to adjustment appointments in another state frequently to go, you know, see somebody, whatever, right? So fast forward, I did get a lot of relief and felt like I could get my tongue to my palate to a certain extent after tongue tie release. And also, you know, the DNA Vivos appliance, which I used for two years, but then I went into, I did then I had crooked, you know, spaces and I wanted to, you know, close them up because I didn't like the big gaps. And so I basically ended up retracting myself without really fully understanding what I was doing at the time. Like, so here we are. So now I've got. And I've got like a max lid turned in on the left side and a whole bunch of things. So my plan is now that I'll be like one year post op from the ENT surgery because I found an amazing ENT when I moved to South Florida. I'll be one year post op April 5th. So my goal is like to see what next appliance we may be heading into because my, you know, my jaw is off and I think I don't have TMJ issues now. But at my last dental cleaning, I was having trouble holding my jaw open. I was like, oh no, like we're headed there. I need to get ahead of this asap. So it's like when you know too much, right, Then you kind of go like, okay, what's next? But yeah, it is truly a journey. And I always tell people like airway first. For me, if I could have changed something differently for myself, I would have done the nasal surgery as step one to open the airway. I probably would have wanted to go into some extra expansion for a little while first before the tongue tower release and then I would have gone for the release once I felt like I had enough room in my palate, but also had a clear enough airway because what ended up happening for me because I have ehlers Danlos syndrome, right, all kinds of fun connectivity issues. Very, very flexible here. My tongue wanted to heal on itself. And so that beautiful diamond, so it was not sutured, was trying to turn into a triangle and it succeeded no matter how hard we tried to keep it, you know, reopen it back to that, that diamond shape. And so I would also go for the sutures next time as well. So it's, you know, it's an open ended case and I tell everyone, I'm like, I'm the guinea pig. I am the patient, I'm the mother of the patients. Two kids have gone through different journeys. My husband's done a little bit. You know, it's, you know, we try it all out over here on ourselves and it really does help with patient care. But you know, I'm like, we walk the walk here because airway first.

I literally can tell people I pretty much tried everything I could tell you what not to do, where to start. It's like, yeah, you learn a lot by like, oh, if I only live got to live life a second time. I would dominate, right?

Exactly. If I only knew then what I know.

All star team. You're on the team.

Oh yeah. 100. And it's so interesting too because now I will look at like pictures sent home of like kids and my kids kids classrooms like second grade and pre K. And I'm looking at the kids faces and I'm like, oh, that kid has a beautifully shaped jaw. The mouth is closed, the lower chin is far enough forward. They don't have mid face deficiency like look how gorgeously shaped that jaw is. And like, I mean, other people are probably like, oh, wow, what were they doing in that photo? Like, what was the activity? And I'm over here going like, looking at their face.

The fact that you just said like little, little Charlie over there with his mid face deficiency, you're like.

It'S the kind of stuff that I. But then I see the kids who are sitting there with their mouth open. They already have that long face developing. They have that midface deficiency. And I'm like, and they're always safe, right? They're always. And that's the thing too, that, that really kind of brought it home for me as a speech pathologist. When I took my first MYO course, I came back and I was like, oh, it now makes sense that like, most of the kids who I see for speech sound disorders that are really hard to like remediate are also the kids who are always getting sick. They're the kids who have their mouth open. They're the kids who are draining. They're the kids sneezing in my face and me going like, oh my gosh, like, we don't typically wear masks outside of like Covid stuff, like first, despite doing speech and feeding, you know, being really close to their face. And yeah, it's. When I got back to my mile course, I went, okay, I'm gonna go assess every single child on my caseload for free right now. Like that's going to be their next session with their parents permission. And I just want to see like, if I can add anything to their treatment plan, change up what's going on. And I will tell you, at least half of the kids on my caseload had orofacial myofunctional disorders. A portion of them had ties, you know, and it was it absolutely life changing for me and for them to take this different approach and like add it into what we were doing. Because I'll be the first one to say, yeah, you can't address expanding foods in a diet on a child who has a choked airway. They're not going to be interested in trying new things because they're in fight or flight and they're already, their systems already heightened like you were talking about. You know, it's our nervous system. And again, nobody's not nobody. A lot of people fail to realize that we have a nervous system and that we need to address it.

Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, or, you know.

The best is the kids who are in speech for, I don't know, 12 years, 15 years. It's like something's got to give.

Maybe there's something to this whole airway with gut adhd. I mean, just going out on a limb here.

Yeah, yeah. I mean I have, that's me all the symptoms and you know, it's, if I eat gluten, I'm asleep on the couch in like 20 minutes. If I don't eat it, I'm great, you know, and there's certain things like that that really started to open my eyes. I haven't been officially tested for celiac, but I did try like, like about a month or two ago to reintroduce some gluten into my diet. And that was very quickly. I was like, nope, that is not happening. Better off just to leave it out. But I see it in my own kids. And we just did these bioresonance scans in December and came back with a whole list of host of things going on in their systems that we need to address and you know, beyond just food sensitivities. But it really is amazing to see that even though I have a full, just turned 5 year old who eats a very healthy, you know, well rounded diet, she's not my picky eater, organic, grass fed, you know, all the things, she's inflamed and she's constantly sick and her body is not happy and she's gassy and she's, you know, one day she just looks very bloated and then I'm like, she's five, like five year old and my older one doesn't look like that at all. And it's, it's very fascinating to see what's happening to our kids and nobody seems to think that it's an issue. And I'm like, why are we not asking more questions like that? That's not normal for, that's normal for anybody. But especially not a girl who's eating a well rounded diet. She's had her expansion, she's had her tongue tie release. You know, she's done her, her, she's nasal breathing, she's doing her, you know, nasal rinses every single day. And that's what really pointed me towards the whole bioresonance stuff because I was like, beyond, you know, food sensitivities, like something else has got to be going on with the gut. The gut, you know, that energy, the ADHD stuff you talked about. I'm like, it's all me. So I'm like, I'm the first example in this family of everything gone sideways. Oh, I know. All right. Anyhow, I'm like, we could talk all day about these things, but what, like, what are you thinking in terms of, you know, this is kind of a loaded question. But the kids out there, right? And we're talking about the kids a bit. Do you have parents reach out to you? Like, do parent people ask you for, like, advice on this? Like, what are you telling them when it comes to helping them find right people, whether it's for themselves or their kids?

I literally had a mom, I talked to you for an hour the other night. She's single mom, four kids, Canada. So here she is. She can get palate expansion for her kids because they're young, but she can't get it herself because no one even does it yet. But like, it is my belief in the next five to 10 years, like, I think it will become the norm that kids by 2, 3, 4 years old, they're literally expanded just to give their airway a shot. And it's like, I might sound like the crazy person right now, but, like, I'd be willing to go on a limb and like, I don't have any children, but if I did, like, literally, yeah, look at like Dr. Kevin Boyd or I even listened to a podcast this weekend with Dr. Sandra Khan out Mexico, and she was talking about one of her friends that literally expands all these kids at 2 years old now. And I think, like, I have conversations with clients of mine all the time now. And like, people know, like, okay, like, I know a little bit more than just a few things about airway. And it doesn't matter because it's so foreign to what is considered normal today in society that I think unless you're somehow tethered to this world as a profession or you've suffered in some kind of way health wise, you would be completely unaware of where you sit on the spectrum, how much better your airway could be in, like, what it's going to cost you health wise for the rest of your life because you're rolling with an engine that's 40% too small and good freaking luck when you get into your 60s when it comes to your health.

Yeah, yeah, no, 100%, that's. And I love that perspective because you're absolutely right. It's usually these parents who have maybe gone through something themselves and so now they're understanding the need to do the early intervention with their children or their may be a medical provider somehow tied to the space and they've had their eyes opened or, you know, like, you gave some really good examples of really how a lot of our Clients come to be, you know, some of them are being referred now by other providers in our area that we've educated, but they don't always know enough to even educate them enough to help the patient understand why they're making the referral. So they come to us and they're like, why am I here? And what is this about? We're like, oh, boy, this is going to be so fun. But it's slowly evolving. And I would. That would be a dream for every child in the preschool age group, like 2 to 4, 2 to 5, to be expanded, you know, before they ever enter kindergarten. And that was my whole thing. I, you know, and I learned about this with my oldest. She was 4. When she went into her first expander, she went to an ALS appliance, and we chose to do that one because of her sensory system. And I wanted something slow and gentle. We weren't concerned about a, like, OSA type of case, but we knew that she had some form of sleep disordered breathing. We did her cbct and within a matter of months, everything was clearing up. And she was breathing through her nose and her mouth was closed and she was doing myo. And so she wore that for about a year. And then we. I was presenting on a case and a colleague was like, you need to bring her lower jaw forward a little bit more. She could use a little bit more, you know, expansion on a few dimensions. I was like, okay, okay, tell me, like, what do I need to do? So we had moved down here, so I would have gone back to the same provider to do, like, next phase expansion. But we were down here in South Florida, and the doctor down here, she was like, hirax RPE with forward growth components. Like, let's just get it done, get it in, get it out. We're gonna put her in some, you know, fixed retainers afterwards for several months to make sure it holds. We're going to train that to make sure the tongue is actually where it needs to be. See if she needs another tie release or not. At that point, be like, once we have the space. And then she wants them wearing MYO brace, so she wants them eventually sleeping in myobrace to help continue to shape the, you know, palette as they grow. Because I think that's one of the conversations too, that I'm now becoming more aware of is even though we might take a child to the point of where they should be at this age, are they. Are they able to then continue to grow accordingly, you know, developmentally, as we would expect if they had to have intervention earlier. It doesn't mean they don't need it later. But for some kids like we are seeing getting in there earlier, they don't need it. For other kids. Sometimes we're getting in there with phase one and it's like, okay, we may need phase two later. And that's kind of what we did with Lily. But the dentist said, you know, she just turned seven. She's seven and she shouldn't need braces. If we, if we use the myobrace and we kind of follow along in this trajectory, the whole goal is that her palate should basically continue to maintain itself, grow with the rest of her face and we should maintain a healthy airway. The tongue is up in the palate. My younger one had had big history of crew. She had it nine times last year alone at age four. Yes. So and she was like a group RSV kiddo from early on. But she went into, we put her straight into that hyrax RPE forward growth component because she was a kid who we did not put her through a sleep study. But I'm pretty confident she would have had some form of apnea if we did. We did the CBCT and everything. So she beautiful growth from like 28 to 35 millimeters in a matter of like months and is now in fixed retainers as well. Same deal with the myobrace. And so you know, I'm kind of guinea pigging the myo brace. We'll see what happens. Because I don't know enough about it and I, my kids don't love it. So that, that's another, another contender there. And it's. They, they're really compliant kids with all else. But it's a bulky thing. They don't love it. So we're working through that. I'll keep everybody posted. But yeah, it's. I, I think I'm just excited that there are more options out there and there's more discussions now about like once we've got this two year molars, like we. Something to attach whether a, you know, fix or removal appliance to now we can start talking about expanding, you know, the younger ones. So it's, it's an exciting time for sure.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I think you can't be afraid to play like do science experiments if you want things to get better.

Yeah. I always joke, I'm like, I'm happy for me and my kids to be the guinea pig if that means that like another benefit too. Like let's go. Game on. Game on. Well, this is so much fun. Is there anything else, Greg, that you want to share that like we haven't covered? I know we talked about, about a lot.

Trying to think. Yeah, I guess I think the one thing, I guess I get a lot of questions and I think this world is so complex and I think so many people, especially people live out of this country, they don't even have access to some of this stuff. I think Dr. Zaghi at the Breathe Institute is a really good resource to people that live in a small town that like you're able to do a zoom consult with. And that's not to say you're going to get anything done work wise. But here's a guy that has Ivy League education, he has a background in both sleep and ENT as well as access to myofunctional therapists and dentists. And I think here's a guy that literally deals with a lot of these avenues. I think when it comes to the airway, I think many doctors are very good, but they only kind of stick with their avenue versus those practitioners that kind of basically tether multiple lanes when it comes to this. And those that really understand, like if I make your airway bigger, what it does for your sleep and how they all play in. And I think for many people, they don't have access in their town to get help by having a consult. I think he is a great resource. Not to say there's not many other great doctors, but for someone that like, you know, I think it's 350 bucks, here's a guy that you can send in your case and at least you have someone in that world that maybe knows people in your state, your town, but like to give you like a top down approach and maybe tell you like, hey, like if I was you, based on your complex case, I would start here. But I think like many people just are afraid. They know something's wrong and they're afraid to start taking action because they've read some stuff, they're like, I, I don't know where to start.

Yeah.

And I think here's a guy that's like a Tom Brady relative to like understanding these things. And it's like just, you don't even have to do what he says, like just hear what he has to say. But here's the guy that's got perspective on a lot of these things to maybe even start to take action. But I think oftentimes people know that there's a problem. They don't take action because they're, they don't have access to good help.

Yeah. And it's overwhelming and not knowing like, who to trust or where to go. And I mean, and then on the flip side, we've had some patients, you know, middle aged adults come to us who have been to 12 specialists and the last one gave them a PTSD diagnosis because, and you know, and another one said they were clinically insane. And it's like, and we, they sit down with us, we do a myo eval and we're like, you have an obstructed, you probably have an obstructed airway from what I'm seeing. I mean, I can't diagnose that, but we need to get you over here like asap. And you definitely have an omd. You've got this, you've got that, and this is what's going on and we're going to start doing this. And they kind of just sit there like, wait, like I thought I was just coming to you to be like, turned away again. Like, I didn't actually think that some, like, you're telling me there's actually like hope, like there's actually something you can do to help?

We don't use that word. We don't use that word. It's a dangerous word.

You don't like the word hope?

Oh, I'm kidding.

But yeah, no, it's, you know, it's so funny because. Not funny, but it's, it's the continued story and it's one of those situations where like, it really opened my eyes to see a 30 year old man sit in my office and cry when I was like, okay, this, this is a big problem and this is something that we need to make more, more accessible to people, even especially outside of the medical space. It shouldn't just be us treating our kids or adults who have found an issue with themselves, bring their child to us. Like you were saying before, it should really be information that is available to anybody when they do a quick, you know, Dr. Google search, even though I don't recommend that. But when you do, because we all know you do, it should be coming up more readily as one of the primary options out there. So, yeah, so I think it's always great when we can connect with, with providers that can at least maybe consult on our case and help connect us with others further. So thank you, thank you for sharing that. This has been awesome. Where can they find you on Instagram if they want to follow you?

Yeah, Project Airway.

And then you mentioned also that you have a gym. So share with us where you're located.

Yeah. So my gyms, let's see. Premier fitness systems, we're up in North Scottsdale, but 5,000 square foot training, but something where, yeah, everything from athletes to gen pop plans online just made me think. When you're joking about the whole 12 week bio plan, it's like, yeah, but it's the same thing in my world. You're like, all right, yeah, you're like.

You know, you might, you might do one of those fitness videos and have a little bit of results or something, but then all of a sudden you start eating poorly and stop working out and guess what happens? It all goes away.

It all goes away.

Short term. It's not a lifestyle change.

Right.

I'm sure you can preach about that all day long. Awesome. Well, thank you so much Greg for sharing your story with us and your journey. It is. I know it's always so helpful for others to hear about others journeys and what you've learned and kind of where you are now. Because like we've been talking about this whole time, this information is just not always easy to access.

No, it is not.

Thanks for listening to this podcast. If you found value in this episode and want to hear more of these myotots. Are we on and feeding related episodes, be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and share this episode on your social media platforms. You can access free resources and all I offer@hallybalkin.com or pop over to Hollybulcan on Instagram to get all the latest updates.