Dear All,
I'm an orthodontist that is doing orthotropics treatment and I made a post 2 further up. Reading through my last mail I realize that it was not very helpful, and hope to do better now, although I don't want to lecture, rant or bore you.
It seems that glue ear, speech problems, crooked teeth and a few other problems go together. We have been trying to put the pieces together and come up with an answer. As orthodontists we were not happy with the fact that orthodontics only focuses on the teeth, not on any of the rest of these issues and have been trying to find some answers.
In modern society most children have poor posture and eat soft food- they sit with their mouths open and have weak chewing muscles (few is anyone has chewing muscles like our ancestors). Some element of the old wives talk is true; the wind changes and their faces set like that or rather growth a little longer, or more vertical. It's a hard concept to put across as it suggests that your little darlings faces are not perfect. And it really is not so obvious to an untrained eye, until they are older . But if the face is longer and there is only so much of it then it is going to be narrow and shorter. That leaves less space for the teeth (crooked teeth), for the tongue (speech problems), leaves the tissues at the back of the throat as slack (so the Eustachian tube does not open fully on a swallow- leading to a lack of aeration to the inner ear, so an alternative tube is inserted- grommet- not very natural), the airway is narrower (as is the face and upper jaw-the roof of the mouth is the floor of the nose) and the tongue is pushed into the airway due to a lack of space that leads to a change in head and neck posture and is strongly related to snoring and sleep apnoea. Any face that is not the right shape does not work as well. Look at someone with a classical adenoid face, findmeacure.com/2011/02/02/adenoids/ it wreaks lives. These children clearly have all the elements that I have describe and it is not a genetic condition! You don't need a medical qualification to start putting this together, however the questions on this thread are trying to separate each section individual. This is exactly why modern medicine has missed this.
Widening the upper jaw can help some issues (breathing and tongue space) and at times will give space for the tongue to move up. If the child then learns to keep their mouth close due to this, it does help but it is not in vogue for orthodontist to do this for young children at the moment (or at all for many of them). Conventional orthodontists generally do not agree with this view point and correctly point that we do not have the evidence to prove this, however there is inadequate evidence to prove much in orthodontics and it should be noted that the profession admits that they do not know what causes the problem or how to cure it (after orthodontic treatment the teeth nearly always become crooked again). Since there are no long term studies showing that orthodontics has a long term benefit it is up to you to make your decision, at the end of the day it is your child and their future.
However faces are an emotive issue and many Mums do not want to hear want we are saying, as I mentioned it is critical of their children's faces. You can point out that a child's teeth are very crooked but mention that their face has not fulfilled it's genetic potential and you some Mums will walk out. That is your choice, but if you do want to know google "orthotropics". We are saying that most faces are a little too long, and it is hard to see the wood for the trees in any modern society.
I hope that this help. If you wish to do something then you need to do it before the age of 7 for the best effect. After 9 is really too late.
Some feedback would be very helpful to me, thanks
Mike