Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Airway First, the podcast from the Children's
Airway First Foundation. I'm your host Rebecca St. James. My guest today is nurse and author
Linda Harris. In the past, Linda suffered from both fibromyalgia and migraines and was able to
find relief when she discovered that the main source of her pain was her TMJ and malocclusion.
Through her own research and interviewing others with similar struggles, Linda found
common issue and wrote the book Fibromyalgia and the TMJ Connection. Linda is now on a mission to
help others. You can find out more about Linda on her website at fibromyalgesecret.blogspot.com
and her book The Fibromyalgia and TMJ Connection is available on amazon.com.
And now let's jump into my interview with Linda Harris.
All right, thank you so much for joining us today, Linda. I appreciate it.
You're welcome. Thank you for inviting me.
Absolutely. So I'm going to start with something that we hear about time and time again.
Everything starts with the mouth. So I'd like to start our conversation there because it may,
to me, that's kind of a logical place. Have you explained how this phrase applies to
your medical journey with fibromyalgia and how it relates to airway?
Okay. Originally, I'm a nurse and I was a head nurse at a hospital. I started fainting. I fained
10 times between Labor Day and the middle of October. And there's some noise there in the
background. I'm not sure if that's picking it up or not. But anyway, so then I had a bridge put on.
And then the temporary bridge popped off and I had no fainting for the next two weeks. And then
the permanent bridge went on and I started fainting again. And so then I went to the dentist. I said,
I think the problem is this new bridge. And he says, oh, no, no, it's fine. So then I had the
worst toothache I ever had in my whole life. And I'm at the dentist's office the next Sunday too.
And he x-rays and I had napses underneath the bridge that he put on two weeks ago.
So they drove through the bridge and I had to have a root canal. And then about three months later,
so the fainting stopped after I had the root canal. But then three months later, I was diagnosed
with fibromyalgia. I couldn't sleep. And actually when the bridge went on, I started biting my cheek,
having difficulty swallowing pills. I didn't feel well. And eight months later, I started
fainting again. And instead of going to the doctors because they ruled, they had a halter
monitor and everything was fine there. But so I went to the dentist when I started fainting again.
And what I had was another abscess underneath my bridge, underneath the root canal that I had done.
So they did another root canal. And it was not even possible. Well, you know what, it happened.
And so, you know, I was just lucky, you know, normally you never,
once you have a root canal, you don't have any pain from that tooth.
It's my fainting that really guided me to go back to the dentist. So I went because I had 29
symptoms and you can't go to a medical doctor for 29 symptoms. I took my 29 symptoms on a piece of
paper and I went to a naturopath. And when I went to the naturopath, I said, all this started with
my teeth. And he says, well, it is your teeth. He says your bridge is right here. Didn't open my
mouth, knew exactly where it was. And that's because I had symptoms down the meridian from that tooth.
So acupuncture, everybody is familiar with acupuncture, but those acupuncture lines
actually run through the teeth. So he knew that 213, I couldn't turn my head to the left.
I had pain in my shoulder, I had pain in my elbow, I had tendonitis, carpal tunnel. I had pressure,
pressure in my chest, and had panic attacks, which I'd never had before. I mean,
you know, I had managed 3-cardiac arrests at one time at the hospital. So I knew that I
shouldn't be having panic attacks. And then I had sciatica, my balance was off, I come out with
a wrong word when I spoke. And so I took that chart that the naturopath gave me and I took it to
the dentist and I said, you know, I'm pretty sure that there's something wrong with my bridge.
And you know, they looked at me in the chair with my mouth open. So they said, no, there's nothing
wrong with your bridge. So I went to another dentist and I took the chart the naturopath gave
me and he said, no naturopath is going to tell me that there's something wrong with your cheek. So
I left. And what I realized is if they had looked at my bite instead of just looking at me with my
mouth open, they would have realized that I was in a cross bite and that was causing an airway
problem for me. And that I also had TMJ, I clicking in my jaw. So I couldn't get help. So I
had actually signed up to go on a medical mission to Ecuador. I switched planes in Miami. And a
couple got on late in the plane and I said I'd switch places with the man's wife that was next
to me. So it was divine intervention that I sat next to this lady from Michigan. Okay.
We're talking about our daughters playing soccer. And she says, well, we just about lost our star
soccer player. She had pain in her arm and her leg, but there was a dentist daughter on the team.
And he says, oh, I know what your problem is. Your bite's off. And I says, you know a dentist
that knows this. And she says, yes. So she wrote me a letter and I got it when I got home from my
medical mission to Ecuador. And I called them and I went to see them. And the first thing he did was
give me a mirror and asked me if he thought my bite looked right. I was in a cross bite. The top
really the space in your front teat top teeth should line up with the space in your bottom teeth.
And it didn't. My job was it was off. And he said to me, he put me in the chair and he looked at it.
He says your bridge isn't on right. It's sitting too close to your cheek. So when he took it off,
all of a sudden I could turn my head again. My pain in my arm, my elbow, my sciatica.
You're kidding me. Everything went away. Everything from that meridian went away.
Wow. And so I thought.
Did you talk to him about this, what the naturopath had told you?
Yes. Yes, I did. And he knew about meridians. This is this is more of a naturopathic dentist.
And he kind of he's not he's a head, neck and facial pain dentist. So he knew this, this.
And so he knew right away what the problem was. And so then he told me that so I had the symptoms
down the meridian, they went away when they took the bridge off. But I had migraine headaches for
30 years, had difficulty sleeping. He says, you know what, we can get rid of your migraines.
We'll put a splint to bring your jaw forward. And then your nerves and your blood vessels
aren't caught behind your condyle. And then you'll be better. So I the road's really bad at that
time going to Michigan. And so I found one head, neck and facial pain dentist in London,
Ontario, Dr. Brock Rondo. And I went to him and I wore a double splint on my bottom and top teeth.
I couldn't take it off, except to brush my teeth for six months. My bottom jaw came forward seven
millimeters. Oh my gosh, my migraines were gone. I started sleeping better because when your jaw,
bottom jaw comes forward, so does your tongue and it opens up your airway, your airway, right?
Right. So it's an airway issue. So what I realized is fibromyalgia is a TMJ issue, an airway issue
and a meridian issue. And if you put them all together, you can explain every symptom that
the person has. Wow. So I was blessed, God got me better. And then I started interviewing people
so that I could help other people that had fibromyalgia. So the first lady that I helped
was a lady that lived down the road for me. And this is, this is a letter that she wrote to the
London Free Press, that's in London, Ontario. And she wrote it 10 years after she got better.
Because originally I was sick in 95. I got better in 97. Started interviewing people.
This is the letter she wrote in 2008. She was helped in 1998. It says, patient remembers
dentist's effort 10 years later. It said, words are never expressed enough for the people who do
good in this world. 10 years ago this month, I went to Dr. Brock Rondo at Deniston, London. I was
in terrible pain. I'd been in pain since 1967, was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and
fibromyalgia. I was bedridden for six months and couldn't walk or sit. Every day I used to pray to
die. Dr. Rondo and his staff listened to my cry for help. They carefully x-rayed and measured my
jaw. And I wore a day and a nighttime splint. After persevering for four and a half years, I was
all out of pain. I'm pain-free today and I can't thank him and his staff enough for listening to
me. And she is the very first lady that I interviewed with fibromyalgia and she got better.
That is amazing. And just so everybody knows, we'll talk about this a little more later, that's an
excerpt from your book, The Fibromyalgia and TMJ Connection, which we'll put a link to in our
show notes. And also Dr. Rondo is going to be on our show in a few weeks. So I'll make sure that we
put a link for that as well once we do that interview. Oh, good. Good. Yeah. Yeah. He's an
amazing man. And you know what? I send all of the people I interview to him and the people are
getting better. And you know, he's, he's, initially he really didn't know much about Meridians, but
I've been teaching him about Meridians. He knew people's bite was off. He knew people had TMJ,
but he wasn't familiar with the Meridians. So I provided, I bought him a chart and I started
teaching him about the Meridians. So I'd like to jump into that a little bit because you mentioned
that and I've heard you mentioned this in other interviews. What is this dental Meridian? Well,
what the dental Meridian is, if you think of acupuncture and people get acupuncture all the time
for there's 12 Meridians down the body, that's a energy channel through the body. And that's
basis for acupuncture. It's a basis for reflexology, how reflexology can help. But what people weren't
familiar with, except that naturopath I went to is those energy channels actually go through
the teeth. So my tooth number 13 was on the lung Meridian. So, and it was on the Meridian that went
to my shoulder, my elbow, my wrist, it went to my back, it went to my lung, and it went to the big
toe and to the breast. So if you look up on online, it's called meridiantoothchart.com. You can find
an interactive form of if you hit a certain tooth, it'll tell you which Meridian it is on.
And as a nurse, I knew nothing about Meridians until I went to see that naturopath. I'd never
heard of them, really never really had any idea about it before, until that happened to me.
So the Meridians, so people that have have fibro, they have problems with the TMJ, then they have
airway issues, that's why they can't sleep. And then they have Meridian issues, but the Meridian,
depending which tooth hits first, when they bite down, depending which tooth hits first are the
symptoms that they have. So if you're hitting your back teeth first, you have more, you have more
small bowel issues, you have more heart issues. If you're hitting your front teeth first, it's
more chokrin syndrome, it's more dry eyes, dry mouth, more bladder and urinary symptoms. And men
that hit their front teeth first have more, they have more prostate issues. If you're hitting your
eye teeth first, and that's when you're tapped down, that that's the tooth you notice first,
then they have blurred vision or problems with their eye, they have gallbladder, liver and hip
issues. And I've interviewed like well over 100 people. So when I interview them and they tap,
I can tell them what their symptoms are. And they're just absolutely amazed to think that it's
all related.
Well, and I can't be there, they may pick it up on the mic, I can't be the only one doing this
while you're talking, I'm sitting here tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping, tapping,
trying to figure out what hits first. That is amazing. And I will put the link to the Meridian
Tooth Chart in our show notes as well, because that to me is just fascinating. So that explains
though then why so many fibro-barialgia patients also have airway issues, because it's that Meridian,
right? That's all.
No, it's not just because of the Meridian. Some of them, if it's 13, the lungs can be affected,
that's the lung Meridian. But most fibromyalgia people, they either have an overbite, their
bottom jaw is too far back. And I thought I had an overbite, but so many people had an
overbite, I didn't know it was abnormal. And some of the people have a high palate,
a high upper palate. And so both ways is blocking your airway. So it's the tongue blocking the
airway that gives them the airway symptoms.
Okay, got it. Okay. And I will also list this. Oh, go ahead.
So what Dr. Rondo does is either gives them a splint to bring the bottom jaw forward,
or he expands the upper palate to make more room for the tongue. Either way, their airway is going
to be treated. Okay. And is that one of the, and then does it, if you happen to have fibromyalgia,
then is it one of those things that, once the airway is treated in this case, or most cases,
does that then impact the fibromyalgia symptoms? Yes, definitely. So then first of all, you have to
have your jaw treated, the TMJ, so there's no more clicking anymore. And they can do that by
sometimes bringing the jaw forward. But if you have a high palate or actually your bottom jaw
is back, either way, your jaw, your bottom jaw is too far back, and it's causing the airway and
the TMJ problems. Okay, got it. Got it. And I've referenced it twice, a specific podcast that
I'm thinking of that you did. So I'll make sure to put it in the notes because it was really amazing.
But during this particular episode, you listed some symptoms that we don't typically hear about
when you're assessing patients for fibromyalgia or TMJ or airway. Would you mind just running
through some of what you look for when you're assessing a patient? Okay. When I'm assessing
a patient, I actually do a TMJ questionnaire. And I actually got that questionnaire from Dr. Rondo.
That's the questionnaire that he would do in his office. And so people can have either headaches,
they can have ringing in the air, they can have tension in their jaw, they can have
twitching in their eye. All of those things can be related to TMJ. Okay. There's a long list.
You can find it on the internet, TMJ questionnaire, and actually people can do it themselves.
And so there's the TMJ symptoms. And then I do an airway questionnaire. And I got that from a Dr.
James Gary. He was an airway dentist that did a lot of research on the airway. So if you have airway
issues, okay, you can have dry eyes, dry mouth in the morning, you can be snoring, you can be biting
the side of your cheek, you can have difficulty swallowing, you can have being tired and exhausted.
So there's actually a chapter in my book, and it gives you all of the airway questionnaire.
Okay. So actually through my book, people can do the TMJ questionnaire, they can do the airway
questionnaire, then they can tap their teeth together and do the meridian. And then it tells them
the type of dentist that they would have to go to be assessed. I just guide people to somebody,
a doc dentist that can assess them. So my goal is to get people to the right, because regular
drill field dentists don't know anything about this. Nothing. No, no, we're finding more and more
about that. So. And the other really interesting thing is, I interviewed, I saw this little girl
at my son's house. And this is Maya. Okay. And if you look at Maya, you can only see her
forefront teeth when she smiles. She don't see all the way back to her back teak. And that tells me
that she has a high palate. Right. So I looked at her, I talked to her aunt and I said, I bet you
she doesn't sleep well, I bet you she's all over the bed at night. I said, I bet you she snores.
And I says, and I bet you she doesn't do well at school. And her aunt says, how do you know that?
And I said, and I bet you she has a high palate.
And she did. This is Maya's palate. There it is. Wow.
Extremely narrow. So Maya's grandmother took her to Dr. Rondo. He's expanding. She's got it expanded
now and she's sleeping better. And now she's going to be having braces. But here's a picture of a girl
that already got helped. And look at the difference. If you look at this girl, look at the difference.
She actually sick in the one picture. And she looks alive again, once her palate's expanded. Why?
Because she can now sleep better. And this is one of one of the patients that was helped by Dr. Rondo.
So ADHD, if you look at it's called Dr. Ben Marigales. ADHD. He is the one that he's got a YouTube video
that says ADHD is really sleep deprivation. So you know what, if you can expand these kids' palate
and then they're sleeping better, it's amazing how things improve. And it's not, you know,
it's not just Dr. Rondo that knows this. Dr. Dangle from Michigan knows that. Dr. Al Fonder,
who wrote the Dental Physician, he's got it in his book. Unfortunately, dentists cannot,
they cannot advertise that they can help medical problems. And the reason being is they're worried
for their license. That if they said they can help a medical problem, their licensing board can come
back and say to them, well, you're not a doctor. How do you know that? And so consequently, it's
the system that is preventing people from getting the help that they need in these dentist advertising
that they can help. Even kids that wet the bed when they're eight or nine years old,
the most of those people are sleep deprived and they have narrow palates. And once they expand it,
you know, these dentists explain why that happened in their books. And, you know, there's lack of
oxygen going to the kidneys and the bladder and the, both just during continent at night. But
a lot of these kids are small stature and it's all because they don't sleep well at night. So
the growth hormone is not released and they're smaller in stature, the ones that wet the bed.
At least that's what I'm finding. But it's amazing stuff. And we just have to get the information
out so parents realize that there's another option than pills. There's another option
and giving them medication that's going to, you know, ruin their life because, you know,
those kids, when they're sleep deprived, they can't function properly.
Right. Right. And we've talked to Dr. Morali and some of the others about, you know, the
fight or flight that happens is just why you see that late stage bed wetting and we don't want to
have to put them on meds if we can avoid it. And don't just pull teeth. Let's get to the root of it.
If they want to pull teeth, say no, go find someone else. So let's get a second opinion.
Yeah. Cause you don't want to make it smaller. Right. So what I will tell you is
in my day, when people had braces, they pulled teeth when they were crowded.
And I'll tell you, in my nursing class, we looked at the people with the narrow smile.
They were the rich girls in our class, two of them. And when I asked them if they had teeth pulled,
they had four teeth pulled each when they had their braces, it made their palate narrow.
They both have autoimmune disorders. They both have sleep and airway problems. So yes,
the dentist, some dentists have actually created this problem. I mean, not because not intentionally.
Yeah, they did know. But long term, I know from interviewing people that that is the case.
Right. Right. And that's another thing that we've talked to dentist about too is
you know, kind of to your point, they kind of, they're the front lines. They're able to see
these issues. And as more of them are starting to find out, you know, this is what we learned in
dental school wasn't exactly accurate when it came to airways. Here's how we need to transition.
When we spot the issue, we can't fix it, but we need to know who to send them to.
Because kind of to your point, they, they quote, aren't allowed to. So
that kind of moves into something else that we rally a lot for, which is this holistic,
comprehensive care of children and adults. You know, they're all a team. Your pediatrician should
be working with your dentist and your myofunctional therapist. Everybody should be together to support
this child. That's right. And what I'll tell you is what I found is people that are tongue-tied,
you need your tongue to go to the roof of your mouth to keep it flat. And if they're tongue-tied,
they can't do that. And those are kids too that then are going to be labeled as ADHD only because
they're not sleeping well. So, and I will tell you, I talked to Dr. Rondo, they don't, they didn't
learn anything about airway in dental school. They only learned about drill-filled teeth. And in fact,
one dentist told me he had half a day on TMJ. And all they learned was, okay, these are the
symptoms that you refer to a TMJ dentist. So they, they don't know. And there's a lot of orthodontists,
I have to tell you, I talked to, I talked to Dr. Rondo Brock about this. I said, I saw a young
lady that had her braces off a year ago. She had beautiful teeth. They were lined up beautiful.
But the orthodontist left her with TMJ. They didn't treat the TMJ. They didn't bring the bottom
jaw forward. So now this girl is in nursing school with migraine headaches three days a week.
I said, I called Brock. I said, why would they put the braces on and not address her jaw? And he
says, because they don't know it. They don't know about it. Right. And so I think I say this every
episode, we really should just rename this podcast. You don't know what you don't know.
That's right. Because the pediatricians and ENTs that have been on here, they weren't taught at
the dentist. They weren't taught at the parents. We didn't know. So here we are collectively as a
group going, oh, wow. Right. The trains left the station. How do we get it put back in and
keep it from happening and then help the kids that are already out here?
You're listening to Airway First with today's guest, Linda Harris. You can find out more about
the Children's Airway First Foundation and our mission to fix before six on our website
at children'sairwayfirst.org. The CAF website offers tons of great resources for both parents and
medical professionals. In our parents portal and clinicians corner, you can find educational and
informational content, including videos, blogs, our recommended reading lists, comprehensive medical
research, podcast events, parent support, and educational opportunities. Parents are also
encouraged to join the Airway Huddle, our Facebook support group, which was created for parents of
children with airway and sleep related issues. You can access the Airway Huddle support group at
facebook.com backslash groups backslash airway huddle. Are you a medical professional or parent
that's interested in being a guest on the show? Then shoot us a note via the contacts page on
our website or send us an email directly at info at children'sairwayfirst.org. As a reminder,
this podcast and the opinions expressed here are not a medical diagnosis. If you suspect your child
might have an airway issue, contact your pediatric dentist or pediatrician. And now let's jump back
into my interview with today's guest, Linda Harris.
Right. Well, I've been very fortunate. I worked with an airway. He's an airway dentist from
West Virginia. It's Dr. Felix Liao. Oh, we love Dr. Liao.
Okay. Well, I have worked with Dr. Liao. And in fact, Dr. Liao told them there's a fibromyalgia
summit that's going on October the 5th in Houston. And Dr. Liao told them about me and they called
and asked if I would attend. So then I will be talking to dentists and doctors and chiropractors
about what I'm doing and what I'm finding. Because I believe the reason that they have such a
difficult time finding out all about fibro is the only person that would know is somebody that's gone
through it like me. Because it's three different things. So how would they find that out?
You know, like they don't. So Dr. Liao had me go to his dental conference and I talked to the
dentists there. And I also, it was really interesting. I want to tell you that, you know,
a lot of adults have airway problems. And I asked them why they have people take their dentures out
at night. And they said, Oh, because, you know, that's what we're taught at school. It's for gum health.
And I said, I want to tell you, there's a lady down the road for me. She lost her license. They said
she's early dementia because she couldn't, she wasn't coming out with the wrong word when she talked.
Okay. I said to her, do you sleep well? And her husband says, Oh, no, she's up half the night.
She doesn't sleep well at all. And I said, Well, you know what, when I interview people in their
20s, 30s, 50s, whatever, they all have problems finding their words because they're not sleeping
well. I said, this is not from dementia or anything. Right. So I said to her, will you
leave your dentures in at night for one week? And then I want to talk to you and find out
what's happening. Well, one week later, she was sleeping through till eight o'clock in the morning.
She had no problems finding her words because she was sleeping better. And so I wrote a letter to
the dentist, to the doctor. And I said, you know, would you be willing to do a sleep study with
their dentures in and their dentures out? I believe the reason that she can't find her words
is because she sleep deprived. And he refused. Oh, she continued to lose her license. And there
was nothing that we could do. But when I told this to the dentist said, Dr. Leows, they were going,
oh my God, it was like a light bulb. Come on. This lady dentist from, she was from California.
And she says, oh my God, how come we never thought of that? I said, you're trading their gum health
for their airway. And she's going, oh my God, that makes so much sense. So she was going back to
California to call her patients at a dentures to see if they'd leave them in and see what the
effect was for them. And that's just, you know, that's case in point of, if you've heard, I'm sure
you have Matthew Walker talk about sleep and how important it is and how the cognitive impacts that
it's having. And if you think about all these kids that we're not catching, it's bad enough for us,
but they're having it for decades before adulthood. I think you can impact your IQ up to 10 points.
Not to mention, as you mentioned ADHD, they're going to get misdiagnosed with that. They're not
going to do well in school. And they could, if we just can help their airway and help them sleep
so that their body can restore. That's right. Now, Dr. Leo probably, I don't know, please mention
this on his podcast, but what they told me is our jaws used to be larger. So centuries ago,
people did not, they didn't have to have wisdom teeth out. They're beautiful teeth. They're lined
up. They weren't proud. Why? Because they had larger jaws. And the reason they had larger jaws
is because the hunter gathers, they use their jaws more. And so they had breastfeeding for two or
three years, then they would chew on bones. They didn't have soothers. They'd let the kids chew
on bones. And so the kids developed the muscles in their jaw and their jaws developed more and so
that they were larger. And so what they said, the reason it's smaller is because we're not
breastfeeding and even the ones that are breastfeeding, then we feed them soft food for a couple
of years and they never developed their jaw muscles. And therefore their jaws are actual
facial structure and our whole jaw is smaller now than what it was a hundred years ago.
And so our teeth are crowded. We're having to have wisdom teeth out and all of these things are
affecting our health. And this is usually the point in the podcast when a bomb like this is
dropped. I like to tell parents, everybody, let's take a collective breath. We didn't know, for all
of us that thought we were doing great by making our own soft baby food because it was healthier.
It's okay. Just deep breath. This is where we are now. Let's focus on correcting because we didn't
know. No, and that's true. I mean, my kids have problems, although it's really interesting.
And obviously I learned this because my daughter is missing her lateral teeth and she's also got
six baby teeth with no adult teeth behind. It's congenital from a grandmother. And so she's got
a narrow palate. So then I could get her palate expanded and she went to Dr. Rondo. And so this
is being a gift from God for me and for my whole family, really. But people, this is our opportunity
to educate parents, educate dentists, doctors, everybody to say, what? This isn't something,
the doctors look after the head, the doctors look after anything below the neck, the regular
dentist do your teeth. But if you don't have anybody that can look at the size of your mouth
and whether or not you've got a high palate or your jaws back, what happens is there's nobody to
help them. And that's where the problem lies. I mean, you just can't have one wonderful dentist
like Brock Rondo. Right. Right. And I will tell you, dentist after dentist that has been on here,
Dr. Moralia, Dr. Boyd, Dr. Leo, just they all mentioned they're taught, let's look at the teeth.
That's our focus. No, it's not. Let's start with the jaw. Let's look at the airway. I mean,
that's, it's the whole area. It's the whole cavity and you have to focus on it. And if you see something,
send them do an ENT, alert the pediatrician. That's right. Now, Dr. Leo, he does a CAT scan.
They go to his office. I've sent people to him and one lady had severe, severe indigestion, had
all these issues. And I sent her to Dr. Leo and they did the CAT scan and her airway was severely
compromised. No one else had ever told her that. Because they weren't looking at it.
And it had a going to Virginia. Wow. Just to see him. And yeah, I'll make sure I'll put the link to
Dr. Leo's on here also. But Dr. Harold does the same thing. He does the CVCT scan because again,
and he, Dr. Leo, which I'll link both of those in the show notes, both show these amazing visuals
where you can actually see how the airway comes in versus once they've expanded,
they do the exact same person and wide open. That's right. And the interesting thing is,
I've worked with four dentists and it's in my book in the last chapter, I've got like
nine case studies from the dentist I worked with. But Dr. Leo and Dr. Garcia both help kids with Tourette.
Okay. So I thought, now how are they doing that? So I went on a Tourette's documentary
so that I could see what these kids look like. Do you know that they all are narrow,
just like Maya, the little girl that I saw, every single one of them? No, I had no idea.
I'm telling you, there was 10 kids on this documentary and every single one of them was
narrow, which means they've got a high palate. And I will send you the video from Dr. Garcia.
He's a young boy. He had a cross bite and he got rid of his Tourette's by making him a sprint.
Right. So you know what? What a wonderful thing to give people with Tourette's
maybe an opportunity to at least go to somebody to see if they can have their palate expanded
and if it will get rid of their symptoms because trigeminal nerve, all the nerves come through,
you know, the jaw. And it's amazing. Dr. Garcia and Dr. Leo help kids with Tourette's.
I mean, it is mind blowing, but you know what? If we don't get the information out there,
how are people going to get help? Exactly. Exactly. So to that point, as a nurse,
when you have a parent that's seen some of these symptoms and they're hitting these roadblocks,
where do they go? How do you guide your patients or the people that you interview,
especially if it's, you know, children? Well, I actually do presentations at libraries.
I do presentations at ladies groups. And what I do, you don't need a referral to get into Dr.
Rondo. So I just send them to Dr. Rondo. I said, he's got all the equipment to assess to see if
he can help you. And so, but the response I've had is absolutely amazing. These people,
these people are getting better and people are calling me and thanking me for everything I've
done. And I said, don't thank me. You thank God. I didn't find you. He sent you to see me.
Yeah. So, so it's, it's not me. I was blessed to get better. And I was only sick for two years.
And I will tell you, when I got better, when they took that bridge off, I come home and my,
I said, honey, I'm so much better. And he's looked at me and he says, honey, your eyes
look different. And I said, what do you mean? And he says, I can see the blue in your eyes now.
So what that meant is I was in fight and flight. I knew that they were dying. I thought it was
from the pain I had. But what Dr. Dan Gold said, he said, he said that, you know, everybody looks at
the sympathetic nervous system and being stressed. Doctors look at it as psychological. And Dr.
Dr. Gold said, I just took away your structure and your dental stressors, and your pupils went to
normal. Yours was not psychological. Yours was dental. So I know it sounds unbelievable, but that
information is in my book. And anybody, even parents with ADHD, they can do the airway questionnaire
in my book. And then look at Maya and look at if their kids look similar to Maya. And I've got a list
of some dentists that are across the country that can look at airway. They're not drill filled
dentists through dentists that have gone and taken extra courses and have an understanding of what
we're talking about. Yep. And I'll also include, we have a list. It's an airway dentist locator.
And it also includes some myofunctional therapists from Airway Health Solutions, which is Dr. Moralia.
So I'll make sure we put that in the show notes as well for parents because Moralia is amazing.
I listen to a lot of his, he's the one that did the one, the YouTube video on ADHD.
Which will include in the show notes as well. Right. And he's done a lot of YouTube videos with
Lauren. And it's amazing what you can learn by listening to their podcast. And I thank them
for everything that they're doing because that's just another part of the puzzle that kids get.
People, the education to know what is possible. Absolutely. And for those that don't know,
we recently just launched the parents portal and the clinicians corner on our website. And the
clinicians corner is co-branded and the curriculum, everything comes from Airway Health Solutions,
who we are now partners with. Because that's part of the puzzle piece. We can educate and help parents,
but we need help educating the medical community. And they are our partners to make sure that we
are doing that together. And it's a phenomenal partnership. Yeah, we're very, very blessed to
be coming alongside them to do that. So I'll include links to that as well in our show notes for everyone.
Oh, that's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. Because all of it is education. All of it is
information out. And you know what? I am so passionate. My goal is to help a million people.
And I need help from everybody to be able to do that. And I'd love to be on the
Good Morning America or Today Show Anything to get the information out. Because this is
countrywide. This is a problem. Actually, it's more than country. It's global. There's 400 million
children that we're trying to help. And at CAF, we're focused on children. Well,
those children become adults. So just the statistics of how many adults are walking
around with these issues is mind blowing. Right. And if you know what a difference we could make.
Gerald Simons. Yes, Dr. Simons is on our board. Yes. Well, the wonderful thing is at my presentation,
I show his video, the misfit mouth. Oh, yeah. He talks about Johnny that had ADHD and then he had
teeth pulled and then it became bipolar. And what I'll tell you, I measure people's upper palate. What
I do in assessment. And what I will tell you is I've only had four. But the bipolar people,
I could only get half a cotton roll in. They were the narrowest of anybody I measured that I measured.
So now wouldn't it be wonderful if they didn't, you know, research on this and found that really
what it was is their sleep deprived too. Wouldn't that be amazing? At least we just get them some
kind of relief. Right. And not a complete cure. You know, if they had their palate expanded, how
many, you know, even if they did five people and expanded their palate and then looked at it and
looked at what is the response, you know, some of these people, some of these people don't have
the money to get fixed because they're not able to work or they've got airway problems,
they can't sleep and therefore they can't work. And if they could do a research study, that would
be so amazing to think that, you know, there's so many disease processes that are related to this.
Yes. It's almost mind boggling. It really is. I mean, think of the impact we could have on the
entire health community just globally. We could and we could do this just being laypeople,
just laypeople and getting it out. I mean, people come to me every day that I interview.
I interview them for free. I've been blessed and I feel that I can bless other people,
but I have to tell you consistently, I can tell people what their symptoms are, whether they have
TMJ, whether they have airway issues and people people leave are almost crying with joy.
Understandably. It's absolutely understandable. That's right. It is. And this seems like a good
time to mention too, by the way, that for parents, we have a our first ever parent town hall that
we're co-hosting with Dr. Moralia and Lauren with Airway Health Solutions. I will put the link in
our show notes. It is on November 8th. It is virtual, so all parents are welcome and we're
asking people to submit their questions ahead of time. And then also, I know you're going to be a
part of the Airway Palooza event in New Orleans, which is in March 2024. And I'll make sure to put a
link in there and dentist, myofunctional therapist, pediatricians, anyone that's working with children
in an area. We invite you to come to that event as well. Yeah. And if you stop by our booth,
we will have your book along with a few others. We have people that they can talk to. So it's
a huge event. It's a great learning opportunity for the entire medical world.
And that's where it starts. It all starts with education. It all starts with getting the information
out. And I would really like to approach the Minister of Health in Canada because with our
healthcare system being paid for by the government, they would save so much money if that's what they
did. So that's really, that's where my goal is. And I'm going through my member of parliament. And
there's enough people that I've helped that are going to Dr. Rondo. I mean, I send him hundreds
of people. And once they start to get better, we can get a group and we can go there and we can
make a difference for everybody else in this world. And get some research done and come up with
solutions that no one else has really thought of. Well, except for Dr. Rondo, of course. Well, yeah.
And Dr. Leo and there. Yeah. Yeah. Now, Dr. Leo, he got me invited to the FiberMail summit in
Houston on October 5th. I'm going. So they wanted me to go to collaborate. And that's, you know,
what an opportunity. And then people, you know, I will read you what Dr. Leo put in my book as a
testimony. Dr. Leo wrote, as a nurse, Linda Harris has more training on TMJ, airway and head
John neck alignment than nearly all doctors and dentists. Her extensive knowledge plus her TLC
heart makes Linda Harris an angel among humans. And that's written by Dr. Leo. And I've got,
I've got other ones from other dentists. Dr. Rondo did the forward for my book. I've had an
opportunity, you know, I come from a little village. And I've had an opportunity to meet for the most
amazing dentists ever. And I am so blessed. And, you know, they're all willing to listen to what I
have to say, which really, you know, not a lot of other professionals, they, they would not be
listening to a nurse. I'll tell you that. But I've had other other dentists and podcasts mentioned
that there are others in the medical community that won't even listen to a dentist. So this is
not a message that everybody is totally open to because again, it's not what they were taught.
So it's time to just change the conversation and let's reset and, you know, play from the same
playbook, everyone, everyone in the entire medical community.
Well, the interesting thing is I used to put doctors at the healthcare pyramid at the top.
I now put a dentist and a chiropractor at the top. And what I realized is being a nurse that we really
treated symptoms. We really never, ever looked for the cause of what the problem was. Yep.
But again, let's go back to that. Do it as a group, right? Let's do this holistically.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's what's going to be so wonderful when I go to
Houston is because they're all professionals. There's surgeons, there's chiropractors, there's
dentists. And now there's going to be a nurse. As it should be. I love that. That's right.
So at the end of every episode, I always like to hand it back to the guest because you are the
experts and that's what people are here to hear. What would you like? What's the last word or
message that you would like to leave with parents? That there is help out there. It's
researching and finding out for yourself that there is treatment for your kids other than
from a doctor. And the more you research, the more you're going to find out, you're going to see
videos from Dr. Morale. Is it Morale? Morale, yeah. And you're going to be able to educate
yourself to realize who it is that you should be going to get help for your children. The sad part
of it is I went to the board of education. I went to the schools. I went to the teachers. Anything
to try to find out. How could I find out about helping parents? And they said they can't get
involved that that's the way it is. And you know what? So now I advertise and I have all sorts of
people out there telling other people about what I'm doing. And you know what? The more we get
kids helped, the more they're going to tell other parents and we're going to get a whole lot of
people help. And then it's going to become a normal thing to look at kids' palates, to look at their
tongue ties, to look at what does the roof of their mouth, what's it like? So we can get them help.
You know, who wants to be ADHD for the whole life when there's a solution? Or even worse,
maybe you're ADHD now and as you progress, as Dr. Harrell and some of the others have pointed out,
it'll turn into a cardiac issue or early dementia or something that could have been avoided.
You know what? You were absolutely right about that. Absolutely. And you know, is this the answer
to some of our dementia and Alzheimer's and stuff like that? Like who knows? But we can
help the toe unless we do the research to find out. Right. Right. So Michael, get that million
million people helped and make a difference in this world, which is basically what we all should be
doing is helping one another. Very well said. I agree. Thank you so much for being on today, Linda.
100% appreciate everything you're doing and the information that you shared today. Thank you.
Oh, you're very welcome. Very, very welcome. We will help people together. Yes, we will. Okay.
Thank you. Thanks again to today's guest, Linda Harris, for sharing our personal journey and medical
insight and each of you for listening to today's episode. If you're new to our podcasts, please
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