Mouth breather- adenoids?? Advice please.

[astronuts]

Hello!

My ds11 is a chronic mouth breather. Always has been.

He just can't seem to breath out his nose. This is either due to congestion or he simply 'can't'.

He has always snored from as young as I can remember. Always suffered with bad nose bleeds since he was a toddler (cauterised a lot throughout the years).

When he eats, he has to breath through his mouth and the noise winds me up 😂 so so noisy!! (Not his fault I know but I have adhd and autism so I'm noise sensitive!)

He has to have a brace the dentist said. He has a cross bite and front teeth are 'vulnerable' (stick out slightly.) I spoke to him about the mouth breathing and he said it could be that his adenoids never shrunk and could be enlarged.

I feel his teeth are slightly yellow too (really takes a lot of care with his teeth and I do too.) and dentist said it could be from mouth breathing and that we should get it checked as could disfigure his face 😮

We have a private appointment booked on the 21st of this month with an ENT consultant.

But does this sound like he has enlarged adenoids or could it be something else? Dentist said tonsils were fine.

He also has always had a difficulty in sleeping, behavioural issues as a young child (better now.) also has dry lips a lot.

Any ideas? Would love it if it was adenoids so they could be whipped out but unsure if that will be the diagnosis.

If his front teeth stick out he probably has "incompetent lips" that is it is difficult to close his lips completely over his teeth and get a seal.

If his front teeth stick out he probably also has a very narrow palate (upper jaw) and this can produce problems with breathing through his nose as well.

Braces to correct his front teeth may also widen the palate and make it easy for his lips to close over his front teeth so may well sort the problem out.

The other usual culprits are constant blocked nose from allergies/hay fever and nasal polyps but ent will rule those out.

But this was also before his adult teeth came through; so all the symptoms have been there since he was a baby/toddler. It's only his adult teeth that have grown this way.

His adult teeth have grown this way because of the shape of his jaw. Typically a cross bite and front teeth that stick out are caused by a narrow upper jaw. In order to guide the growth of the upper jaw braces are best placed when children are going through pubertal growth spurt , hence the dentist is keen to get this sorted sooner rather than later.
Typically children will have a high narrow palate which you may well not notice when they have baby teeth but as they grow you notice they have quite a narrow looking face.
It may not be the whole story but it may very well be a large contributing factor alongside investigating any allergies , polyps etc . This article explains well https://www.lotusdental.com.au/post/problems-caused-by-mouth-breathing#:~:text=The%20tongue%20sits%20over%20the,all%20the%20teeth%2C%20causing%20crowding.

My son has the same problem. He is 10 and had been seen by an ENT a few times when he was 7. The ENT said it could be his adenoids and suggested a small operation. He had them removed but unfortunately it didnt improve anthing. Then we were refered to an allergy doctor who did an allergy test on him and said he is allergic to dust mites and gave us a nasal spray with steroid, it worked in the beginning but eventually stopped working. I have also tried plenty of other nasal sprays none of them worked. Im not sure what more I can do, all the consultations, tests and operation were done privately. We are going to see his grandparents abroad this summer, im thinking o
to get him checked again over there in a bigger hospital.