Episode 90: Licensed To Thrive With Dr. Felix Liao

Hi and welcome to episode 90 of the Untethered podcast.

Today we have Dr. Felix Liao joining us. Dr. Liao is a thought leader and healthcare innovator who has restored the mouth back on the body as a vital organ for many patients natural health and wellness. His whole health philosophy integrates mind, body mouth to produce breakthrough outcome among dentists. Dr. Liao is a leading airway centered mouth doctor with recognized expertise in impaired mouth syndrome and holistic mouth solutions, two groundbreaking terms he coined in his best selling books in 2017. Six Foot Tiger, Three Foot Cage establishes deficient jaws with crowded teeth as a structural cause of choked airway, poor sleep, chronic pain and fatigue and shows a structurally sound mouth as a natural solution to correct them painlessly while you sleep early Sirens Identifies teeth grinding, TMJ and problematic tongue for proactive treatment to avoid the costly complications described in 6 foot tiger 3 foot cage. In 2020, Dr. Liao has expanded holistic mouth solutions to include both sleep friendly mouth structure and sensible eating mouth style to to build vibrant health and innate immunity in his new book License to Thrive. This is the first book ever to show how to eat and sleep to start thriving your natural health proactively in one volume. Dr. Liao is the inventor of Start Thriving Appliance for test driving and adopting holistic mouth solutions as the answer to impaired mouth syndrome. 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 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. Thank you Dr. Liao for joining me today. I'm really excited to have you here. You know, one of the first introductions into this space actually was the reading of your book six Foot Tiger, Three Foot Cage and that was just very eye opening to me. So thank you for joining us.

You're very welcome. It's nice to see you again Hallie. I remember that first time we met at that book club.

That's right. That was a great surprise when Manny, you know, said we Have a surprise guest for you. And here you are sitting at Dr. Tiffograf's kitchen table. That was awesome. That was really a cool, that was a cool evening. You expanded my mind even further. So I was very grateful for that experience. So let's just jump right on in. I'm curious and I'm sure our listeners are curious to know, how did you come up with that title, six foot tiger, three foot cage? Because I mean, just visually it's a great visual to have. I use it all the time and explaining to my patients like, you've got this tongue that's too big and this mouth is too small. But when you say six foot tiger, three foot cage, it's just, they kind of go like, oh, yeah, that doesn't work.

Yeah, Well, I am one of those people who studies commercials on TV and billboards for fun. So I'm interested in the communication process because, you know, the Latin roots of a doctor is a teacher, right? So our job is to communicate, to educate, to train. And so you need to make people understand. So when I first learned about how whitening the jaw could fix sleep apnea, I thought, wow, how do I communicate this to patients? And you know how doctor speak doesn't work with how Joe and James antennas, right? They can't receive doctor speak, okay. So the challenge is for clinicians to be able to meet Joe and Jane wherever they are. So I tried different things and they will look at me like, oh yeah, okay, you're a doctor or whatever. And I know that they just kind of, okay, accept my saying without understanding. So how do I get understanding? So I want to get a visual image to them. And so obviously, you know, the tiger's one life threatening, two, it's big, it's menacing, right? So how does the tongue become a tiger? Right? So as soon as I say it's like you have a six foot tiger and a three foot cage. And I saw the eyebrows went up and the eyes go, ah, I got it. Okay. So I said, okay, this one has potential.

Memorable. You know, it's not something you forget. And that's. So you mentioned that the tiger is menacing, like it can cause problems. Right? And so that.

Point, no one ever think of the tongue as menacing, right? I mean, no one think of the tongue as threatening. I mean, the tongue in the dentist's office is a nuisance, okay? Dentists don't see tongue as a, a asset to health. It's a vital necessity. If you cut off somebody's tongue, I mean, the face will shrink, you know they tried this in Japan. I heard that they tried to reduce the tongue size and the mid face shrinks.

Wow.

Yeah. No American is going to go for that.

Yeah.

Huh.

Okay, very interesting. So I know you also talk about like innate immunity, so let's go there. Let's talk about what does that mean to you.

Okay. So we now know that when you have a six foot tiger three foot cage, you end up with many symptoms which I call impaired mouth syndrome. Okay. Three foot cage cannot accommodate the tongue. So one definition of a functional mouth is one that's got enough room between the upper and the lower jaw to serve as the tongue's home office. Right. The other one is there's enough bone around each tooth for each tooth to have its own place in the body. So it's like you buy a plane ticket or a bus ticket, you need to get on and have a comfortable seat with enough space around your shoulders and your butt. Right. So how do we get that to happen? And if that doesn't happen, what are the consequences? So this is what I've been observing the last 10, 12 years and I've noticed that there's a whole predictable set of symptoms. So one of them is that you would have the tongue forced into the throat. Let's say that you have a normal sized tongue. And a lot of people have hypothyroid tongue, which we'll get to later. But one of the features of hypothyroid tongue is a hypothyroid people, they look like doughboys, they're puffed up. So now you have an eight foot tiger in a three foot cage and obviously it doesn't fit. So the tongue is not going to shrink itself. Particularly when you're stressed, you keep eating during the lockdown, so the tongue ends up in the throat. And that's how people have sleep problems. They wake up, they can't go back to sleep because their heart's racing, or they wake up tired, or they grind their teeth and clench their jaw and they wake up with a headache and they ran a marathon overnight and yet in the morning they don't feel refreshed and during the day they're sleepy. So what happens during sleep is that the immune system recharges its batteries. So I liken the natural killer cells to be like the immune police force, the SWAT team.

I love all these analogies.

Yeah. So we're empowering the SWAT team. Your immune. When you're in deep sleep, when you're, when you have a six foot tiger and a three foot Cage blocking your airway during sleep, you're literally fighting for your life. All right, why do people grind their teeth? This is one of, this is my favorite subject actually in sleep medicine is why would the body destroy the hardest tissue it has? Right. And to me, it never made any sense. I was an engineer in college, and when I got to college, I thought.

This doesn't add up, something's off here.

And none of the answers that I was given, you know, taking all the courses also made sense either. So it was career long search. So the innate immunity is a result of your body being able to fully recharge a battery overnight when you're sleeping. And you know, we don't think much about sleep because our brain shut down and you wake up, you just say, okay, I'll just repeat what I did yesterday all over again. Right. Well, if you're lucky, you got your batteries recharged and you have the energy. If you're not, well, you had to compensate somehow to make it through the day. All right, so enters coffee, sugar, stimulants, viral energy, alcohol, affairs, alcohol, workaholism, you name it. Right. Anything to escape. Right? Gym. All right, yeah. Okay, so innate immunity really means that your body's own immune system is one prepared, agile and ready to face any invader to ensure your survival. Okay, so if you have a good immune system, you can pretty much deal with anything, including the black plague in.

The middle ages and COVID 19 right now.

Right, right. So one of the interesting things that I've noticed is that the US actually leads the world in not only death cases, but also infection rates. Right. So we're the richest country on earth. Why do we have the highest rate of infections? I mean, leadership aside, that's a completely different story. But even if we have the dictators putting on the authority totalitarian foot on every American, we would still have higher death rate just because we as a nation raised on standard American diet would have much more inflammation. So immunity, sleep, airway and inflammation and obesity, they're all connected.

Yeah. Oh yeah. Now, and that's, you know, it's so interesting, the whole COVID 19 discussion. And we've had some chats on the podcast a few months back with some other airway, you know, specialists or dentists about these topics. And it's interesting because I'm very holistic myself and my family has turned very holistic. And you know, I fully believe that we are responsible for protecting our immune system. And that has proven to work for us thus far. So, you know, we, I had A six foot tiger, three foot cage. Despite all the dental and ortho work I had when I was younger. And I've dealt with that as an adult now. And it's, you know, thankfully I was out of my appliance months ago, so partly through the pandemic, but still, you know, I just feel like I now have the ability to nasal breathe and protect myself in addition to the diet that I choose to eat, in addition to anything else that I'm doing for my immune system. So it's definitely an interesting, I know, controversial but interesting topic. Yeah, so what, so for those who are listening, do you like, other than, you know, the masking up and washing your hands and not touching your face, are there things that you recommend to be proactive from an immune standpoint?

Great question. So those of us in the dental health professions are the only ones who will be smart enough to ask this question, right? Because what's being proactive in medicine? I mean, the way they deal with the pandemic is with a vaccine. All right, that's the end of the domino fall. What do they give you in icu? Ventilator for oxygen, IV for nutrition? Well, you can do that at home proactively. Exactly like what you say, right. So my next book is called License to Thrive and it's exactly about that. Whether it's this Covid or next flu or SARS or whatever, it doesn't matter. What do you need to do as the owner of your mouth so that you could peak your health and wellness and immunity? So it's very interesting. So I want you to think of a totem pole. There's a chiropractor named Paul Check, I think in 1993, came out with an article and I got his permission to include his totem pole image in my book. So the survival reflexes. Think about what it takes for a human to survive. You have to survive first before you can thrive. Right? Okay, we established that. So what do you need for survival? One, you need to breathe. Two, you got to have food. Right? What are they for? Energy. You have no energy, you could be dead. Right. That's the difference between a cold body and a warm body. Right. So your ability to make energy is very important for your survival, your well being and if you get sick, come back ability. So one of the points I talk about is that you have to combine both the mouth structure, which is your three foot cage, as equipment for dealing with airway, and your mouth as a start of your digestive organ of your digestion. So this is like the port of entry. And once it gets past here and you swallow that bolus of food or drink, your body is in reaction mode. It's like your boss hands you this project. You got to deal with it.

You're stuck.

Okay? So you're either in digestion and absorption, which is a healthy mode, or you're in incomplete digestion and therefore inflammation and congestion mode. That means you get fat, you get swollen, you get pain, you get tired. All right? So all the control is building right here in the mouth as a portal entry into the body. And I want to tell you a story about this new blended family. So my son was the one who took in this family and he's now a new dad. I'm a grandpa. Granddaughter. Yeah. And my son was telling me how his newly new, new, newly nine year old daughter woke up one morning and walked down from the bedroom to the kitchen, looking upward at the kitchen cabinets. And so he is an early riser. So he looked at her and said, what are you looking at? What are you looking for? Breakfast. Breakfast is not up there. The American culture is what breakfast has come out of a box in the cabinet. All right? This is the start of three foot cage. This is the start of tongue tie, mouth breathing, obesity and the wrong taste that keeps making the bad choices. That leads to basically America, half of Americans population being obese and therefore a tinderbox for inflammation and therefore leads the world in obesity. I mean, in COVID infection and deaths.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So it has to do with cultural phenomena and habit that we are brainwashed into thinking that breakfast comes out of a box in a kitchen cabinet.

Yeah, it's, you know, I say it's what's been indoctrinated into you. It's what you know from what you've been.

Yeah, yeah. But nobody, nobody's trying to be like you say, proactive. And look at this downhill slide at the beginning. All right, so ICU and vaccination is the end of the downhill slide. Now, public health officials have a different set of challenges that I'm certainly not saying that they're wrong, but I'm saying that somebody needs to look at the starting gate of this downhill slide. Like, you know you're gonna ski slope, right?

Yeah.

When you start going down that hill, I mean, it's one glide down to the bottom. And the bottom of this downhill slide. What we're talking about is death or ICU or one foot in a coffin. Right. Not where you want to be. So you want to control everything on the upper part of downhill slide as best you can and reverse it if you can. So my number one advice is airway. Remember back to this totem pole thing. So breathing is number one, eating and digesting is number two. So protect yourself from the virus by eating right and sleeping deep. So how do you sleep deep? It doesn't mean you take a pill. You sleep deep by making sure you own this mouth intelligently. Okay, so here's what I mean. So going through life, it's like a road trip, okay? I look at every person's journey through life like a road trip. There are some bumps on the road and there is, you know, changes in the external events like the weather you can't control. But what you can control is one, the car that you're in, that's equipment, and two, how you drive the car. Okay, so this is usage or what I call mouth style, right? You have a lifestyle is how do you use your mind, body and your time, right? So your mouth style is how you use your mouth for health, for happiness, for illness, for wellness. It's all here.

Yeah, no, it's great.

This is a fun part. This is a really fun field to be in. So this road trip, okay, for everybody, ends up in death. So destination is not something that you know is within anybody's control, but the quality of life, the quality of this road trip is entirely in your control. So in my new book, I talk about how this is really the main driver for your life. Quality is this life well lived, regrets all the joys that you want to have experience before you leave this earth. Right? Bucket listings. Okay, so. You need to make sure that the totem pole, top two pieces are related to your mouth, this airway and sleep that you can sleep well, that means you can renew your batteries and recharge your immune police so that they can deal with whatever comes. And two, your body is in a stable, renewable state whereby your downhill trajectory is not a steep. One, the people party hard who stay up all night, okay? People who are under relentless pressure to be performing in peak form. Those people are going to break down, they're going to die early. So if you choose that kind of lifestyle, don't expect a long and enjoyable life. You're going to burn the candle from both ends and finish early. Now, if you want a long, enjoyable life and a good quality journey, then you also need to know how to steer your way so that you don't incur the unnecessary encounters with the landmines that are all around us now. So that means processed food, that means Toxins in the environment, that means plastics, that means pharmaceuticals in the tap water, that means all the thyroid blockers that are built into every one of us that I see, for example, talking about thyroid blockers, I see swollen tongues every day of the week. And I make referrals for thyroid adrenal functional medicine support every day of the week because people really need help. And they've been to their dentists and doctors all these years, decades, and never had anyone look at them proactively and say, you know, you may have a six foot tiger leaping out of the corner of the next corner, leaping at you out of the next corner.

Yeah.

And they say, yeah, you're right, I haven't felt so well lately.

Yeah, yeah, that's a great point too. I mean, I feel like I've been having more and more of these conversations with parents of younger and younger children. And you know, I just had a conversation this week with a patient, patient actually, about their other child who is a preschool age child. And this whole discussion about why we need to look at expanding the cage right now and not wait for traditional orthodontia at six plus, where they're only going to expand laterally and we need to grow that face laterally and forward and make sure the jaws come together and that we are maximizing the airway and that the tongue has room to fit in the palate. Because I don't want to take your money and work with you right now. And you know, that's a waste of time and money for us to do a MYO program from start to finish without making sure that the tongue actually has space to fit up in the palate. And so, you know, I think it's, it's sticker shock sometimes from some of our patients when they learn what the appliances can cost even for a young child. But they weren't expecting that kind of investment. And you know, I really have focused on flipping it into saying, look, this is an investment in whole health for your child and this is an investment in not having to deal with issues retroactively down the road if we can be proactive about it. Now, we already see that your child has a high narrow palate. We already see that his mouth is open when he's sleeping and the tongue is laying on the floor of his mouth. We already see that he's at risk for X, Y and Z. And so that's, you know, do you have any tips? Because I know our listeners are often asking me, how do we talk to these parents of young children and really what are the sales items that you focus on? I do very natural in conversation, but I don't tend to stop and think about, like, what I'm actually saying until someone asks me.

Right, right. But I think if you're a parent, you naturally are concerned with your children's future, and you're necessarily concerned with, okay, what's that disease, condition gonna cost me as a parent? Right. So what I would say is this. The money that you spend, the care that you take for this part of yourself and your family, your children, is the best money you ever spend in health care. Here's why. Every one of us, when we were newborns, we could not hold up, hold up our head. All right, Those of you who are mothers, you can hold a baby and say you need to hold up the heads in order to feed them, but boy, can we suck for dear life because our mouth is precociously developed to deal with life outside mommy's tummy. So between feeding and sleeping is how every baby grows to the point where they can hold their heads up, sit up straight, grasp things, and then put it in their mouth. This is how you learn the world, okay? And then gradually, you're able to crawl, waddle, stand up, and walk and become human. So we grow from the top down. So if we can liken the humans to a tree, the mouth is to humans what roots are to trees.

That's good.

All right. The outcome of this human comes from here. Just like the outcome of the tree, the fruits, the leaves, the flowers come from the roots in the soil. Okay? So if you have lousy equipment or if you have poor conditioning from tv, oh, whatever food they push at me on the TV screen must be good, you got another thing coming.

I know you believe everything that you know. Read on Dr. Google, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so you need professional guidance. So let me just put it to you another way. Let's just take $10,000 as a number, okay? Between an appliance and myofunctional therapy and maybe a tongue tie release, okay? Let's just say for a round number, it's around 10,000. What's your life worth? What's your life quality worth? And what does $10,000 get you in terms of a used car? You get a slightly below average used car, okay? So the money that you spend here may result in a Julia Roberts like face or like Katharine Hepburn face that is going to be worth every penny. And never mind the life quality part, okay? Never mind the mood, the disposition, the ability to learn and Perform in school, scholastically, athletically, musically, dramatically, you name it. There is no downside to optimal dental facial development. So feel lucky that you're connected to the knowledge base that someone like Callie or all the myofunctional therapists out there have and use that as a springboard to optimally develop this root that your child is going to blossom from and grow into. And so you also can see that when this part forms well, the child will be healthy, will be smart, will be well liked, will succeed in life hands down, easy. Otherwise it's a struggle. And by the way, if I can say one more thing about the tongue tie, this is my own theory. I have no proof yet, but my theory is that why is tongue tie so prevalent now? Is it suddenly because people are, you know, inoculated with tongue tie as a term that makes them aware? No, I think it has to do with hypothyroidism in the mother. This is my theory. Okay? So we know that pregnancy in the second trimester is the most formative time for the fetus. And they've done studies where maternal hypothyroidism has been linked to, to some kind of learning disabilities in newborn and susceptibility to autism and vaccine related issues. Okay? And I think that when mother's under stress during pregnancy, the child's adrenals is also compromised. So here's the issue. The maternal health further upstream, okay? Not just a pregnancy, but pre pregnancy is really important. So I tell patients who are already my practice, if you're planning to, you know, conceive and start a family, make sure that your thyroid is functionally, optimally. I would look to increase iodine from food sources. I don't dispense iodine supplements. I think that's functional medicine. Doctor's job. I'm like a traffic cop, right? Pay attention to this issue. Go see so and so and so. I think. So look at the thing here. Why do we have five fingers instead of one thumb and this paw, okay? With just four of those fused together? It's because there used to be a webbing in here between all the fingers and they resorb. This resorption is an enzyme mediated process, just like digestion. Tongue tie is a failure to resorb. And if you have lower body temperature, everything goes down, including your resorption of the webbings between the fingers and the tongue tie under, okay? And by the way, thyroid is so important. I spent a couple chapters in my book about this, which is that for every degree of body temperature, drop your enzyme activity goes down 50% and your immune system goes down 30%. Wow.

Okay.

So low thyroid function, people, you have lower body temperature, you have lower energy. Not only is your life quality bad, but your ability to fight to mount a powerful comeback is diminished. Yeah, yeah.

You talk about your two original sins that lead to impaired mouth syndrome, right? Being tongue tie and habitual mouth breathing.

Yes, yes, yes, good point. So tongue tie. Tongue tie is something that obviously should be addressed right at birth. If the kid falls off the breast and they're crying again in 20 minutes, there may be an issue. So get that address early on. And don't use this Himalayan pink salt. There's no iodine content in there. If you're low thyroid. Don't go with the fad, go with the fundamentals. The World Health Organization says that mental retardation is the world's most preventable problem and rarely solved with iodine supplementation.

Interesting.

Yeah, yeah. You want smart kids. Iodine. And iodine is great for breast cancer prevention. It's great for prostate cancer prevention. That's being borne out in Japan, where they have high iodine intake, their diet. The nations that's got higher iodines have lower of those reproductive cancers. Okay, so iodine, iodine, iodine, and the so called hashimoto things has to do with wheat and food sensitivity or all immune reactions to glyphosate sprayed wheat. So Stephanie Seneff in MIT was brilliant PhD biochemist, devoted her career to this issue on glyphosate and autoimmune thyroiditis and thyroid cancer and celiac disease. All right, so that's the first thing. The second thing is it's just like that little girl looking for breakfast up on the kitchen cabinet. So the stuffy nose is what forces the mouth breathing. And when you have mouth breathing, the face is gonna go narrow and long. So I call it a horsey face. Okay. Horsey face always have narrow arches and high palate. Okay. And I don't know, in ancient China, and I think even in Victorian England, the way you depict someone who is an idiot is what?

Mouth open, mouth is part.

Yeah, okay. This dumb glazed look. Okay. So the way you're gonna make the child thrive is when they can breathe through their nose. Because the nose will not only humidify the air, but kill the bacteria and viruses before they go into the back of the throat. Okay. Or filter and humidify the air and your life quality is better. Okay. So this part has everything to do with how the jaws are formed, whether or not there's room enough for the tongue to stay in the mouth, whether or not the teeth are going to look attractive when it's time to smile. But the underlying physical structure needs to be there for the all this functions, all these capabilities to happen. Because the mouth just does not support smile. Right. It supports eating, drinking, breathing and alignment. I mean, we haven't even talked about neck, shoulder and back pain. Right. And the tension here. I had one grown man who after released his tongue tie, he just started crying.

Yeah.

I can never tell. I couldn't believe I can breathe like this now.

Yeah, I say that a lot of time. A lot of the adults that I've treated have no clue about how poorly the quality of their life is until after they've gone through treatment. And even that tongue tie release with a combination of expansion with release with growing that face and you know, to the extent we can with adults and then also Mayo and you know, they go, I had no idea what I was missing out on. Because you really don't. Right. And I think that's part of what can be so hard for us to explain to parents of children who are. We see them going down this road and we want to intervene early because a lot of these parents are currently living this route themselves and also need to be treated very, very commonly. And so it becomes a much larger discussion, at least in my practice.

Well, then that's the right way to go about it because your practice is an entry into the whole health world. Just like the mouth is the gateway inside the body. Right. So through you, they can access a whole new way of living and being. Enjoying life instead of suffering life.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, you got to have the right equipment.

This is true. Yeah. So on that note, and then when it comes. I'm curious to hear your opinion on this. I think I know, but for our listeners, let's talk about the timeline for when you would do myofunctional therapy versus an appliance versus a tongue tie release and all those fun things. Do you have your preferred timeline that you recommend?

Well, I have some principles. Everybody's different. But my principle is that free the tongue tie as early as possible, as soon as you see it, release it in the children on adults who stuck with a three foot cage for a long time, or maybe even two foot cage. I mean, I really feel for those patients who have bicuspid extractions and the space is closed with what I call subtraction orthodontics. Right. So you have extraction and then the spaces are subtracted, closed. Right. But the tongue was not Made smaller during that time. These patients always suffer the most. Okay, so those patients plus the patients who are stuck with the more severe form of the three foot cage, I recommend expanding the jaws such that the tongue is comfortable before we ask the tongue to do gymnastics in a very confined, overcrowded space. So in terms of that timeline, I would recommend oral appliance therapy plus a bone building diet. All right. Because how are you going to grow a three foot cage? It's never by just an appliance. But dentists are so mechanically oriented. You know, dentists don't think like a system engineer would, looking at all parts of the body as systems being integrated together. So when I teach my dentists who want to become airway mouth doctors, I really try to try that phone at home. Is that inside your brain, inside your body, there are no departmental lines. A cell doesn't say, oh, that's dental. You know, your kidney doesn't say, oh, that's tmj. No. Right. The body just react to everything generically. We made those divisions. Okay? So I would say widen this and then do the myofunctional therapy. When it's time to release the tongue and let it go free, I recommend going to see the myofunctional therapist for middle. For evaluation when you reach 50% mark appliance therapy. Okay, and now that's kind of a little iffy thing, but there's generally a way to tell. So most of my patients, when they start, I look at their facial effect. So, you know, when somebody had a bad night's sleep, you take one look at their face, you can tell, right? That's called facial effect. That's because your vagus nerve is showing up on your face. It's like a mirror. Okay? So people who come in and they. I notice that their face is now mostly sunny. They don't have this pained martyrs look anymore. Like, when they come in, it's, oh, my God, you know, I want to make it. Can you make me whole again? You know, all of that worry is gone because they're sleeping better. So at some point I will be able to tell that, okay, their face is showing up mostly sunny. Now we can go ahead and address this next piece. And so release. Go see the myofunctional therapist. Learn how. What exercise you need to do before the tongue tie. Release. Release the tongue tie. And then you already know what exercises you have to do so that you don't scar back to exactly the same place you guys started.

Music to my ears. I love it.

We're on the same page. Yeah.

This is what I recommend to our patients. And I've been having some conversations lately, and I think it's interesting because patients will push back and go, well, can we just come to you for an evaluation first? And I'm going, you're telling me that two dentists have said that your child has a high neuro palate. You can come for an evaluation, but I'm just going to send you right back on to that. You know, it's one of those airway dentists that's going to help you start expanding because we need you at a certain point before that tongue can comfortably fit up in the top of your mouth. And that's going to be key in one, preparing you for frenectomy and two, in actually holding the myo skills that we teach you. You're not going to develop a new habit if you don't have the anatomy to do it in. So, you know, that's been a frequent conversation lately. And you know, I said, and now with COVID and people wanting to reduce appointments, they said, go there first, then call us when you're about halfway through your treatment. The dentist will tell you when you know. So it's one of those things where I think the parents hear the sticker shock and that really, they really want to use that to drive them. And we go, nope, like, this is the plan. Please do this. But we're happy to assess you first and then reevaluate you six months from now, if that's really what you want for your child. So on that topic, your appliance, the Start Thriving Appliance. Right? That's the name.

Yes.

Can you tell us a little bit about your appliance that you've created?

Thank you. So Start Thriving appliances. Really the result of my observation that a lot of patients get well after suffering decades of impaired mild syndrome from being stuck with the three foot cage, they do really well very quickly, sometimes within the first month, sometimes within the first week, sometimes within the same day.

Wow.

So I looked at why. Okay, why so fast? And I basically design that element into my appliance. And I also use something called cephalometric analysis to guide my appliance design so that I can know exactly what's off where and how much. Okay. So we don't just have the same shoe for everybody with a variation in size. Okay. Now we design our appliance according to the individual's jaw configurations. So is it the floor to ceiling height of the three foot cage that's Deficient, Is it the width or the depth or whatever combination? Is there stuffy nose, is there tongue tie, Is there jaw clenching tendencies? Is there any history of trauma, Is there hypothyroidism, Is there adrenal depletion? You know, when you go to bed and you had to fight death every night, your adrenal is going to get fried. And people don't think about that. So that's an adult. The kids, you know, nature is still on their side. But. So what I do is I pair this custom designed appliance based on each patient's individual jaw configurations and target whatsoever, and then we pair it with a bone building diet. So this bone building diet promotes lip seal by reducing nasal obstruction. I have not had to in 10 years take off any tonsils or do any sort of nasal tunneling procedures. Between the diet change and the. Because my patient come to me, they don't want drugs, they don't want medication, they don't want the side effect. So that's why they come to me, right? How they find holistic mouth solutions, that's my website. How they find holistic mouth solutions. They say, well, I type in holistic dentist. And this thing came up, I took a look and here I am, right? So the lip seal is vital for the dental facial development because we're not designed to be. We're designed to grow with the lip seal and breathe through our nose and with good nutrition. So the appliance never by itself fix anything. If you're going to stretch the ligaments to activate the stem cells, well, give the body something to grow the jawbone with. And so that's why I pair with the bone building diet and I reduce it all very simple, down to two very simple things, bone broth and green smoothies. Bone broth is all the minerals. Green smoothies has all the bioflavonoids and the vitamin C. Okay. And they together make collagen precursors and that's precursor to making bone. So once you can sleep better, you have good nutrition and you have nasal breathing, you're on the right track. Now this part can grow into Julia Roberts or the best version of yourself.

I love it. So I have one last question for you that came up when you were talking. So, you know, I sometimes hear people say, well, you should really refer to an allergist first to get everything under control because there's allergies or, you know, I know it's not going to help food sensitivities, which was part of my issue. But, you know, I don't know. I find that I hit a wall with that because, one, they either want to put you on medication, give you shots, or, you know, do something that. Again, a lot of our holistic patients, like you said, they don't want that stuff. They don't. They want to figure out how they can support their own body. So any thoughts on that, or as having, you know, the allergist as a part of the team? Because I know some people refer to them first. That's like their first line of defense. No, no. Go to the dentist. Go straight to the dentist. Don't pass. Go.

Right. So, you know, if you think holistic dentists are few and far between, you should try a holistic entire.

I know, I know.

Okay. I do have one. But here's a generic approach. I refer for something called food inflammation test fit. That's a food sensitivity item. And you can get 90% of your sensitivity issues out of the way and then pay attention to glyphosate and environmental toxins and food additives. So we discussed all of that in my new book, License to Thrive. But the more important thing is that you wisen the nasal tunnel. So here's a very simple thing to do now. So keep your lips together and just do this with me. Keep your lips together and take a breath in. Take a breath in first. So just take an inventory how much air goes through right now. Now put your fingers right next to your nasal valve here and just spread it out a little bit. Now inhale. Can you sense a whole lot more air going through? Just a little bit. 20% more width get you twice the nasal airway volume.

Yeah.

Going through. Okay. So the nasal breathing part is paramount to dental facial development. And so we do this two ways. Appliance widening. Also widen this tunnel. And then we shrink this inflammation with healthier diet that avoids, you know, items that induces food sensitivity reactions, avoids processed foods, packaged foods. You know, this thing called food deliver fresh to your door in a box that's not fresh. They may try to brainwash you, but it's not fresh. Sorry.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay.

One of the things we actually did at the beginning of COVID because we were home more and I had more time, was I got one of the tower gardens outside, and we started, you know, growing our own food. And I put it into the ground because I figured the ground's been treated and we're on a downslope from our neighbors. So I really want to control everything about the food.

Smart. That's very smart. I learned something. Thank you.

Ali, you know, it's also. I'm homeschooling now with school being closed. I've got a kindergartner here. And so this is part of our science activity for the year. Moving it indoors and we're setting it up with grow lights. So it's an experience for sure. But yeah, I'm glad to hear you say it because, you know, it's hard enough to find a holistic dentist. There's becoming more and more and more holistic dentists. But that like you said, the holistic ents are an anomaly. I mean they're, they're far and few between.

Anyone, Anyone who's an ent. Holistic. Ent, please contact us. Okay.

We need you in the same area.

We would really referral for you.

I know I keep emailing you. I think it's like every six months. Have found somebody yet who can we refer to.

So.

No, it's. But this has been absolutely amazing. I know that you guys sent over a PDF that had some chapters from your new book. Are we able to share that with our listeners? We'll include that in the show notes. We will also include your website. Is there anything else you want to share with us or.

No. I would simply say to your listeners that this is a fantastic wellness resource. I would milk every bit of knowledge that Hallie and her guests have and go with it because what a treasure. You know, if everybody knew what Hallie knows, this world would need health insurance a lot less because your body will be able to run itself.

That's true. You know, some people think we're woo woo and wonky and crazy and I'm over here just, you know, smiling because I have a very healthy, happy family and we feel great.

Yeah. I always say to patients, here's my parting pearl. Okay. In the history of the universe, there's only one of you. You're the sum of your choices.

Yeah.

Okay. Determines your life quality and your health and your journey through this life. So, you know, if you're tired of being sick and sick of being tired, do something different.

Yeah.

That doesn't mean taking more drugs.

Right.

It means you take care of your equipment, you take care of how you eat, how you sleep and how you play and how you live your life, how you relate to people.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I'll plug your book for you. I know we've talked about it, but it sounds like you cover all of these things in license to thrive and you know, you definitely cover it in six foot tiger, three foot cage for some of the beginning things we talked about. But as far as being proactive and healing yourself, it's not, you know, license to Thrive sounds like an amazing book. So we'll definitely share the free PDF that you gave us and was a chapter or two from from your new book. And I hope you get lots of buyers and lots of new business out of this podcast. But thank you again so much for joining us today. This has been such a pleasure.

Great, great honor to have you and treasure you as a wellness resource.

Thank you. You too, Dr. Liao. Thanks for listening to this podcast.

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