Improper breathing can affect oral health, leading to tooth decay and gum disease.
Tooth decay is caused when acids in the mouth eat away at your enamel, but your body has a natural defense mechanism: saliva. Saliva washes away plaque and also neutralizes the acids in your mouth, both of which prevent cavities. Unfortunately, your mouth becomes very dry when you breathe through your mouth at night, so you lose this protection.
In fact, researchers found evidence to support this idea in a recent study. They learned that acid levels were much higher in participants who slept with their mouths open, putting them at a significantly higher risk for cavities.
Mouth breathing is a well-known form of sleep-disordered breathing that can occur in children and can also be associated with sleep apnea. When it occurs, it should be addressed – over time, it can lead to alterations in facial skeletal growth and may also increase behavioral problems due to disrupted sleep.
The science community has known for decades that inadequate sleep can create symptoms similar to ADHD.
Because ADHD creates behavioral interference with sleep, a vicious cycle can develop for kids with ADHD. In those instances, where there is a true sleep disorder (whether sleep-disordered breathing or another disorder), it can lead to a misdiagnosis of ADHD. In those cases, treatment of the primary sleep problem – including sleep-disordered breathing – may improve the ADHD symptoms as well as prevent other physical health problems.
Bedwetting can have a relationship to how we are breathing and the quality of our sleep. Since breathing can be difficult with sleep-related breathing disorders, the brain works harder to take in oxygen than it does to control other bodily functions, like bladder control. The brain is sensitive to reductions in oxygen levels, which may trigger flight-or-flight response and refocus oxygen from something less necessary (like the bladder) and deliver it somewhere more critical preparing for the rare case the oxygen were to stop.
Multiple types of research studies have found a higher-than-expected percentage of people have both obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and sleep-related bruxism (grinding, gnashing or clenching of teeth). Epidemiological studies, which examine patient records and datasets, identified that many people with OSA were also prone to grind their teeth. Though not all of these studies have found the same rates of co-occurrence, a general pattern emerged showing a correlation between teeth grinding and sleep apnea.
‘Tongue tie’ is a term used when the lingual frenum (cord that stretches from under the tongue to the floor of the mouth) is short and restricts the mobility of the tongue.
For infants, this restriction can make it difficult to correctly latch when breastfeeding, and can also cause pain for the mother. For older children, tongue tie can cause speech impediments and difficulty chewing, swallowing, and other aspects of oral function. Tongue tie can also contribute to habitual mouth breathing and underdeveloped jaws which can lead to smaller or obstructed airways that are common for sleep-related breathing disorders including obstructive sleep apnea.
A frenectomy is a minor surgical procedure to loosen this restriction, and is performed with myofunctional therapy before and after. Our goal is to improve a child’s tongue function, improve their breathing, and reduce sleep issues including potential sleep apnea.
Here at Dentistry for Children, we use a LightScalpel CO2 laser which is known to be one of the best lasers for frenectomy procedures, making it extremely fast, with little to no bleeding, and minimal discomfort.