New Dental Procedures To Help With Sleep Apnea

My husband has had sleep apnea his whole life. If he lays on his back, he just stops breathing. We have been to a series of doctors and he has had a series of painful and mostly ineffective surgeries.

The first surgery was to “clean out” his sinuses so he could breath. The second was to cut out some of the things in the back of his throat that might be in the way of his airway. At 55 years old, they removed his tonsils, adenoids and cut the uvula (that little hanging down thing in the back of the throat). These surgeries were both terrible to recover from and he still stops breathing when he lays on his back.

We recently moved to a new town, and went looking for a new dentist. Because we are very focused on health and nutrition, we looked for a naturopathic dentist. We found one that is an hour away and made the trip.

We expected to have our teeth cleaned and the rest of the amalgam fillings removed from our mouths. What we actually received was life changing!

This dentist, Dr Clair Stagg, not only took x-rays of our teeth, she took measurements, recorded the level of sounds that the jaw makes when it opens and closes, took photos of the jaw and the teeth, and lots more.

It turns out that the dental community is just starting to discover that the way that your jaw hinges affects everything in your body. If your jaw is not hinging correctly, then your teeth will wear wrong which will cause you to bite incorrectly, which will impact the nerves at the top of your spine, the way that you swallow, the way you breath, the pain in your neck and the pain in your lower back! I was astounded! Who knew?

So, to fix my husband’s jaw, they will make him a splint to hold his jaw in the correct place when he is awake (it is like a retainer and fits inside your bottom or top teeth), and a special brace to keep his jaw from falling back in his sleep and cutting off his airway! After several months of wearing these splints, they can actually put in caps or onlays to correct his jaw permanently.

I think he will have to wear the night time brace forever, but what if this allows his to sleep, corrects his breathing, his tendency to choke, and his back pain? We have just started the treatment series, so I will write back when we are done and let you know if it worked.

I have come to know about this dental convention (conference) where there is going to be a sequence of seminars where there will be numerous experts who will give lectures on dental issues and other problems and so I am going to attend with my husband in the hopes of getting him a cure or remedy for his problem.