1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:21,400
Hi everyone, and welcome back to another edition of Airway First, the podcast from the Children's

2
00:00:21,400 --> 00:00:28,280
Airway First Foundation. I'm your host, Rebecca Downing. My guest today is Kelly Richardson.

3
00:00:28,280 --> 00:00:33,960
Today is a mom, wife, author, and clinical education specialist working to equip anyone

4
00:00:33,960 --> 00:00:39,000
wanting to know how to improve their breathing and sleep quality. She has spent the majority

5
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:44,960
of the past 25 years in the dental industry, training dentists on expansion orthodontics

6
00:00:44,960 --> 00:00:51,400
at Align Technology and Strahmann, TMD Solutions, and Dental Airway Education at the Dawson

7
00:00:51,400 --> 00:00:57,680
Academy. She is trained in myofunctional therapy at the AOMT in breathing coaching

8
00:00:57,680 --> 00:01:03,560
at the Boutako Clinic, International with Patrick McEwen. Her focus at SuperBreathers

9
00:01:03,560 --> 00:01:09,160
is to provide airway awareness to parents, caregivers, teachers, and medical professionals

10
00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:14,080
who can help identify and screen children who present with signs and symptoms of disorder

11
00:01:14,080 --> 00:01:21,520
breathing and restless sleep. Her book, The Very Stuffing Nose, is available on Amazon.

12
00:01:21,520 --> 00:01:27,920
You can find out more about Kelly on her website at SuperBreathers.com. And now, here's my

13
00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:29,800
interview with Kelly Richardson.

14
00:01:29,800 --> 00:01:34,360
All right. Thank you so much for being on the program today, Kelly. I really appreciate

15
00:01:34,360 --> 00:01:35,360
it.

16
00:01:35,360 --> 00:01:40,320
Well, it's a pleasure to be here. I appreciate you helping me get my message out so that

17
00:01:40,320 --> 00:01:44,660
I can help other parents learn what I didn't know at the time, and I can hopefully be a

18
00:01:44,660 --> 00:01:49,400
voice for them when their children are younger and they'll get some treatment.

19
00:01:49,400 --> 00:01:54,240
Yeah, absolutely. And I will tell you that's part of what's so great about having you on

20
00:01:54,240 --> 00:01:59,440
here is you're going to have both sides as we get into this and share with parents. But

21
00:01:59,440 --> 00:02:04,040
you've been on the medical side of it, so you've got that background, but you have this

22
00:02:04,040 --> 00:02:09,440
journey that I want to make sure that parents hear straight from you. So let's go ahead

23
00:02:09,440 --> 00:02:12,440
and start at the very beginning. Let's talk a little bit about your background before

24
00:02:12,440 --> 00:02:14,760
we get into your journey with Finn.

25
00:02:14,760 --> 00:02:21,200
Okay, yeah, sure. So I've been in the dental industry for over 25 years, and this is an

26
00:02:21,200 --> 00:02:27,280
industry I had interest in from high school. But before college, I worked for a dentist.

27
00:02:27,280 --> 00:02:32,320
I was an assistant, and I just really love the field. But going through college, for

28
00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:35,880
me, the business school was a much better fit than going through the science school.

29
00:02:35,880 --> 00:02:41,600
So I ended up on the business side of thing, which is absolutely a fun side of the industry,

30
00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:46,680
I have to say, because for 10 years, I was able to learn and talk to dentists about materials

31
00:02:46,680 --> 00:02:53,000
and learn how the restorative process and all of that. But after 10 years, I was starting

32
00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:58,800
with Invisalign, and they were still in there somewhat of a startup phase. And so what was

33
00:02:58,800 --> 00:03:05,640
happening is the general dentist were starting to notice or starting to implement orthodontics

34
00:03:05,640 --> 00:03:13,760
in their own practice. And I found that a lot of the GPs that were trying to implement it

35
00:03:13,760 --> 00:03:19,040
were looking at it from the perspective of straight T. And I had this one dentist that

36
00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:26,160
stood out, and I approached him and I said, Would you mind pulling some cases together?

37
00:03:26,160 --> 00:03:33,360
I'll do all the work. I'll bring some doctors in and we'll do a study club. But bring your

38
00:03:33,360 --> 00:03:37,680
cases. I'll write the presentations and we will present what you're seeing because the

39
00:03:37,680 --> 00:03:45,520
message that he presented was more of a multidisciplinary how to implement orthodontics into a general

40
00:03:45,520 --> 00:03:50,320
dentist practice so that the general dentist is able to upright the teeth or put the teeth

41
00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:55,400
in the right spot before restoring them. And that was such a great message because instead

42
00:03:55,400 --> 00:03:59,920
of if you have a tooth breaking down, you want to be able to figure out why what's the

43
00:03:59,920 --> 00:04:04,720
root cause of it breaking down and then put the teeth in the right spot because the breakdown

44
00:04:04,720 --> 00:04:09,760
in a lot of cases and what we found a lot of times because the teeth would be tipped

45
00:04:09,760 --> 00:04:13,760
in. We were not asking why they're tipped in. We would just see a lot of tipped in teeth

46
00:04:13,760 --> 00:04:20,000
and V shaped arches. And when you're treating with the liners or there's a lot of other

47
00:04:20,000 --> 00:04:23,840
devices, I'm not specifically saying liners are the only way. But what I'm saying is that

48
00:04:23,840 --> 00:04:29,320
when you can upgrade those teeth and put them in the right spot, then your teeth come together

49
00:04:29,320 --> 00:04:34,000
in a way that fit together properly. You have a proper bite and then you can restore the

50
00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:39,600
teeth to that bite. So we worked for seven years on this message. And as we continue

51
00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:47,160
to improve over time, what this particular dentist was doing is he was finding that the

52
00:04:47,160 --> 00:04:51,720
more he uprighted the teeth, that there was more space for the tongue. And then there

53
00:04:51,720 --> 00:04:57,600
was space to align the anterior teeth. So this is an airway message. But at the time,

54
00:04:57,600 --> 00:05:05,960
this is 2005 2012. Airway wasn't even on the radar. There was no nothing about airway.

55
00:05:05,960 --> 00:05:12,960
But what we did notice is that it was the most conservative way to implement this technique.

56
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:18,360
And what this particular general dentist did was he kept going down the path and learned

57
00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:22,840
later on how this was affecting the patient's airway. And he started to notice his patients

58
00:05:22,840 --> 00:05:28,920
were feeling much better and went that path. Whereas I took a different turn at about a

59
00:05:28,920 --> 00:05:34,720
year after my son was born, I had decided to take a territory that was not didn't include

60
00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:38,040
him in the territory. I was in Manhattan, I've been traveling outside of Manhattan,

61
00:05:38,040 --> 00:05:44,240
and I wanted to be closer to home. And so I ended up taking a different territory and

62
00:05:44,240 --> 00:05:50,640
I missed that part of the message. So that's when that's when Finn was born. Okay, unfortunately,

63
00:05:50,640 --> 00:05:58,080
right? Because I missed that. But I'm, you know, I look at my story and I'm just unbelievably

64
00:05:58,080 --> 00:06:03,320
great grateful that I have a story to tell because we caught it early enough. But what

65
00:06:03,320 --> 00:06:11,920
happened is my son Finn was born. And in our opinion, of course, he's perfect. And I, and

66
00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:18,080
I am a working mom. So my husband and I both had jobs. We lived in Manhattan. It's not

67
00:06:18,080 --> 00:06:22,080
cheap to live in Manhattan. It wasn't like I was going to take a year off. But I knew

68
00:06:22,080 --> 00:06:26,080
for those three months that I had that I thought, well, breastfeeding is important. And I'm

69
00:06:26,080 --> 00:06:32,720
going to, I'm going to make a go at it. But when he was born, he wouldn't latch well. And

70
00:06:32,720 --> 00:06:39,880
when I mean he didn't latch well, it was a real struggle. So I thought, okay, somebody's

71
00:06:39,880 --> 00:06:44,360
going to have an amnesty. This is kind of this happens probably more than not, you know,

72
00:06:44,360 --> 00:06:48,640
about this. So I asked the lactation specialist there and they said, Oh, you're just doing

73
00:06:48,640 --> 00:06:53,400
it wrong. Just adjust and keep pushing. And they kept me, they kept trying to give me

74
00:06:53,400 --> 00:07:00,640
ways of physically moving him, but it just wasn't working well. And I was conditioned

75
00:07:00,640 --> 00:07:08,920
in a way to think, okay, nobody's nobody in the hospital seems to have answers. And so

76
00:07:08,920 --> 00:07:12,840
this must, I must be an anomaly. Because if this is something that happened on a routine

77
00:07:12,840 --> 00:07:19,480
basically babies coming in and out of here, like, I see this all the time. So if this

78
00:07:19,480 --> 00:07:24,920
is not working for me, then it's, it's me. It's definitely me. Sure. Something's going

79
00:07:24,920 --> 00:07:30,760
on here. But after that, right? Right. And so but and I also thought that somebody would

80
00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:36,440
have answers. And even within that week, I had no answers. But I'll go back the next

81
00:07:36,440 --> 00:07:41,960
day after just trying to try my best. I took that bottle that was in his little bassinet

82
00:07:41,960 --> 00:07:46,800
in the hospital and I stuck it in his mouth and he's like, he is just sucking away. He

83
00:07:46,800 --> 00:07:53,640
is like trying to live here. I am trying a different path and it's not working. And I

84
00:07:53,640 --> 00:08:01,320
just felt this huge relief that I can feed my child. So we talk, we talk to the pediatrician

85
00:08:01,320 --> 00:08:09,400
about this. And again, nobody's alarmed. Nobody offers a multiple solutions or reasons why

86
00:08:09,400 --> 00:08:14,280
it's just, oh, okay, well, he's losing weight. Here's a six pack of formula. And I'm like,

87
00:08:14,280 --> 00:08:19,280
wow, this is great. Now, you know, I'm off and running. Sure. Right. But at the same

88
00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:26,160
time, I was like, I bet you if I stick with this, it's going to work. So I I'm trying

89
00:08:26,160 --> 00:08:32,640
to nurse him at home. And then pumping in between that, not much is happening there

90
00:08:32,640 --> 00:08:38,200
either. So I was like, is definitely me. But I really went when at this for like two months.

91
00:08:38,200 --> 00:08:45,080
Meanwhile, I'm also supplementing with formula. So this is kind of my two months within. And

92
00:08:45,080 --> 00:08:50,480
it he started to gain weight, he was fine, but he needed the supplement of the formula.

93
00:08:50,480 --> 00:08:54,800
And okay, so after about two months, I just said, this is, we're not getting very far.

94
00:08:54,800 --> 00:09:00,760
Let's just go straight to that. And that's where we went. Yeah. So what I will say about

95
00:09:00,760 --> 00:09:09,640
that is that when I look back, and I'm going to go back to when I was doing these presentations

96
00:09:09,640 --> 00:09:14,960
with this GP in upstate New York, where we started to see all these teeth that were tipped

97
00:09:14,960 --> 00:09:22,000
lingually. What I found out later is that the reason these teeth get tipped in lingually

98
00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:29,600
is because there's nothing to keep them from tipping in. And when people or children or

99
00:09:29,600 --> 00:09:34,080
just anyone in general, when the tongue is not in the roof of the mouth, and Finn's

100
00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:39,040
tongue was not in the roof of his mouth, because it couldn't physically stretch it up there.

101
00:09:39,040 --> 00:09:44,280
Nor did he know that it should be up there because by introducing a bottle, I'm teaching

102
00:09:44,280 --> 00:09:51,640
him this tongue goes down. And then his cheeks, which have these muscles and these muscles,

103
00:09:51,640 --> 00:09:55,560
when you push in, just like you're trying to drink us out of a medium sized straw, a

104
00:09:55,560 --> 00:09:59,120
milkshake out of a medium sized straw. And you can really feel these muscles are called

105
00:09:59,120 --> 00:10:08,000
the buxinator muscles. Well, these muscles are pushing in on the teeth and for adults

106
00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:15,120
and or you know, for children that have posterior teeth. And when they get to the age of post

107
00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:20,480
you, that's right where they are. Most of them have at some point. Yeah. But but you

108
00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:25,120
know, you're not going to notice this as a baby. But what'll happen is, and I learned

109
00:10:25,120 --> 00:10:29,520
this when I worked at the Dawson Academy, Pete Dawson, he was one of the fathers of occlusion,

110
00:10:29,520 --> 00:10:36,400
dental occlusion, and he would say when teeth and muscles war, muscles always win, which

111
00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:42,960
means that the teeth are going to go where the muscles tell them to go. So if there's

112
00:10:42,960 --> 00:10:47,760
no tongue in the roof of the mouth, and your cheeks are doing all of the work. So for Finn,

113
00:10:47,760 --> 00:10:55,440
he was sucking on a bottle. Then we went to squeeze pouches. Because when you have a tongue

114
00:10:55,440 --> 00:11:01,520
tie, well, it was so great. I mean, look, there's veggies, there's greens. I mean, look, covering

115
00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:06,720
all the baby. Right. And you can hand it to him on the go. Yeah. It's so easy. It's so

116
00:11:06,720 --> 00:11:13,840
easy. But what happened is when he was in daycare, he, he choked on a raisin, because

117
00:11:13,840 --> 00:11:19,600
he was a gagger, because he didn't learn proper tongue function, because he was tongue tied.

118
00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:25,440
And he also had been taught low tongue posture. So that being said, I was really, really big on

119
00:11:25,440 --> 00:11:30,720
these pouches. And the problem with these pouches is this is going to continue to develop these

120
00:11:30,720 --> 00:11:34,320
cheek muscles, which are going to continue to push things in. And when the tongue is not in

121
00:11:34,320 --> 00:11:40,640
the roof of the mouth, it's not going to develop out. Also, when the tongue is low, which the tongue

122
00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:48,320
is attached to the lower jaw, then it pushes back when you sleep. So if it's low in the mouth,

123
00:11:48,320 --> 00:11:54,320
and it's not suction to the roof of the mouth, it can push back. But imagine if it's suction to the

124
00:11:54,320 --> 00:12:02,480
roof of the mouth at night, then it's holding the lower jaw forward while it's suction to the upper

125
00:12:02,480 --> 00:12:09,920
jaw kind of like glue, and it keeps the lower jaw from falling back into the airway. So not only

126
00:12:09,920 --> 00:12:17,680
was the tongue tie a problem for not being able to feed or breastfeed, it was a problem because

127
00:12:17,680 --> 00:12:23,360
he had a recessed chin. And my husband asked the doctors, you know, why is this chin so far back?

128
00:12:23,360 --> 00:12:28,800
You know, like, oh, that's normal, it'll come in. Okay, great. It's coming in. Good to know. All

129
00:12:28,800 --> 00:12:36,800
right. We didn't know that one. So all of these already signs of disordered breathing or obstacles

130
00:12:36,800 --> 00:12:43,200
to proper optimal breathing were already there. And I had no idea because when I was googling,

131
00:12:43,200 --> 00:12:50,800
there was nothing there. And doctors around me didn't seem alarmed. We had so. And no one noticed

132
00:12:50,800 --> 00:12:57,120
the tongue tie at this point. Oh, no one noticed the tongue tie until six and a half. Okay. So Finn,

133
00:12:57,120 --> 00:13:05,120
our restless sleeper. And so even though I thought he was a good sleeper, we put him to bed

134
00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:13,360
and he would sweat. So we got these diapers. And I mean, I got the best ones on the market. These

135
00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:18,560
are the most absorbent diapers. That's what it says all over the package. He would wake up with

136
00:13:18,560 --> 00:13:26,320
these diapers, saturated. They were so wet that they would be disintegrating. And there were these

137
00:13:26,320 --> 00:13:33,120
little Orbeez balls, looks like Orbeez, tiny little balls that would be left in this diaper. And it

138
00:13:33,120 --> 00:13:38,800
wasn't urine. It didn't smell like pee. His bedsheet had a circle of moisture around it.

139
00:13:39,600 --> 00:13:50,160
And what I found out later is that night sweats is symptomatic of a couple of things, obstructive

140
00:13:50,160 --> 00:13:59,200
sleep apnea, and inflammation in the upper airway. So this for sure is a behavior that is indicative

141
00:13:59,200 --> 00:14:05,040
of that, which I didn't know. We just couldn't figure out why he was sweating so much. And so

142
00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:12,320
he got to a point where he didn't sleep well, laying on his stomach. I don't remember what we

143
00:14:12,320 --> 00:14:16,160
did. But when we were trying to put him to bed, he wouldn't lay down flat very easily. He didn't

144
00:14:16,160 --> 00:14:20,240
have, he wasn't arching his back. He wasn't doing anything that would make us go, wow, that's something

145
00:14:20,240 --> 00:14:26,000
we need to check out. He just wouldn't sleep. But he would sleep okay if we put him in his little

146
00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:31,760
bouncy seat. There's these little inclined sleepers that you can put on the floor. So he could sleep

147
00:14:31,760 --> 00:14:38,000
in that. So we ended up putting that in the crib. Because if he did fall out, even though we would

148
00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:42,960
buckle him in, you know, there's, this is where you sleep and we would put him in here. So he seemed

149
00:14:42,960 --> 00:14:49,600
to sleep better in that. Okay, so now we've solved this problem. And we've looked at, they always

150
00:14:49,600 --> 00:14:54,480
say if you raise the bed or you put this wedge thing under the mattress, that'll help. But

151
00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:59,040
then all of these situations, what you're trying to do is you're trying to accommodate

152
00:14:59,040 --> 00:15:04,400
an airway that keeps getting blocked off. And what we know is that children are more sensitive to

153
00:15:04,400 --> 00:15:09,120
the airway closing off versus an adult. So an adult can stop breathing for 10 seconds and

154
00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:16,640
have tolerance for that. But a child will come as they, as that airway starts to close off,

155
00:15:16,640 --> 00:15:24,720
it will move them and their body will continually stay in these, these lighter levels of sleep,

156
00:15:24,720 --> 00:15:30,160
which keeps them from getting to the deeper levels of sleep, which we now know is, I mean,

157
00:15:30,160 --> 00:15:36,960
what I know now know is where you get your emotional regulation, your ability to focus,

158
00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:45,280
your ability to develop muscle, and the hormones that come in that tell you to shut off the water

159
00:15:45,280 --> 00:15:51,280
works. So if he was a bed wetter, and that may or may not contribute to his sweating,

160
00:15:51,280 --> 00:15:55,360
but all of those, when you don't get enough of that hormone in that deeper level of sleep,

161
00:15:55,360 --> 00:16:03,600
then it's, you see all of the symptoms that we saw. So, so yeah, he was also a very,

162
00:16:04,320 --> 00:16:09,760
he was what we called all boy, lots of energy, which we thought this is great, we love having a

163
00:16:09,760 --> 00:16:17,680
boy, this is good. But he could spend an entire day in a New York City park, the entire day,

164
00:16:17,680 --> 00:16:23,920
without running out of energy. And that's, that's pretty alarming, you know, there should be these

165
00:16:23,920 --> 00:16:29,760
levels where you kind of need some downtime and all of that, but he didn't need that much. So my

166
00:16:29,760 --> 00:16:34,240
husband and I would kind of trade off, I'd, I'd have my morning coffee and he'd take him to the

167
00:16:34,240 --> 00:16:38,880
park and then he'd come back and I would bring lunch and then we would do these trade off things,

168
00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:42,960
but he had a lot of energy. So we didn't think that was that big of a deal. We just, you know,

169
00:16:42,960 --> 00:16:46,560
great, we're outside. It's nice to be outside in Manhattan because your apartments aren't usually

170
00:16:46,560 --> 00:16:53,120
that big. So it was, it was good. But again, that is another sign of disorder of breathing

171
00:16:53,120 --> 00:16:58,800
and not being able to get proper sleep. So he's got the extended levels of cortisol that have

172
00:16:58,800 --> 00:17:03,360
just been coursing through his body. He's been in fight or flight his whole night, constantly

173
00:17:03,360 --> 00:17:11,200
trying to stay alive. So, so, so we had that issue, which didn't seem to be an issue until we got

174
00:17:11,200 --> 00:17:18,320
into pre-K. So when we got into the pre-K program, in New York, they had this, you know, sometimes

175
00:17:18,320 --> 00:17:23,280
you have waiting lists to get into the pre-K program, they just introduced them in the school,

176
00:17:23,280 --> 00:17:28,320
there was a block away from us, we got into a program that was an hour away. Just put us on

177
00:17:28,320 --> 00:17:33,360
the list for the one down the street because two hours, two hour commute to get your child to school

178
00:17:33,360 --> 00:17:36,640
was just not, it was just not a start or a finish. Right, there's a lot of short, yeah.

179
00:17:37,360 --> 00:17:44,640
So, so we decided to wait and by waiting after about maybe, I don't know, mid-year they had a

180
00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:50,320
position so they had a spot that opened up, someone moved and so we, he went there. And the teacher

181
00:17:50,320 --> 00:18:00,480
started to notice that not only was this all boy excessive energy, it was being, it was a little

182
00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:06,960
problematic. And so she wanted to meet with us and she got problematic as in it was, so it wasn't

183
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:14,640
problematic to her. They were like, we can handle him. It's just that we thought it was taking him

184
00:18:14,640 --> 00:18:20,960
a little while to get adjusted. But ultimately in a school setting, you still have to be able to

185
00:18:20,960 --> 00:18:29,200
sit quiet, sit still and focus. And so his inability to focus was part of it. And then because he

186
00:18:29,200 --> 00:18:36,640
isn't able to sort of come down into this level where he can focus, then he, that it, what we,

187
00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:41,200
what sounded to us like, oh, she's talking to us about ADHD, I mean, he's got ADHD, right.

188
00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:46,320
So but she never said those words. And she was, her name was Ms. Jessica. She's one of the kindest

189
00:18:46,320 --> 00:18:50,160
people I think I've ever met, especially when you're trying to gently tell you that your child

190
00:18:50,960 --> 00:19:01,120
has some issues. So there's so many people along the way that have been just incredible blessings

191
00:19:01,120 --> 00:19:06,080
that have spoken to us at the time. They may not have given us the right direction, but she never

192
00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:10,080
said, well, we would need to put him on medication if he's going to come here. It was never that. It

193
00:19:10,080 --> 00:19:14,960
was just your child qualifies for a program that a lot of parents want for their kid.

194
00:19:15,840 --> 00:19:20,480
It's kind of like having a private school education in a public school. But at the same time,

195
00:19:21,040 --> 00:19:25,760
we're thinking, gosh, why did we never really realize that he wasn't going to kind of fit into

196
00:19:25,760 --> 00:19:31,600
the school setting in the way that all the other kids fit in. We just thought he just had a lot

197
00:19:31,600 --> 00:19:39,120
of energy. You know, he's a boy. And we believe me, we are the parents that have learned a lot.

198
00:19:39,120 --> 00:19:43,200
We didn't know much going in. We kind of just figured we'd wing it. And that was,

199
00:19:46,160 --> 00:19:49,760
maybe we should have read some more books. Maybe we should have had some lactation specialists on

200
00:19:49,760 --> 00:19:55,920
hand. You know, I would say if you're going to go and have a baby for the first time, maybe I would

201
00:19:55,920 --> 00:20:01,840
take a couple of those breathing classes because I figured, oh, I can do that. But how can, however,

202
00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:09,040
can it be? Well, that would have been helpful. And actually learning about breath, breastfeeding

203
00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:14,960
before it happens so you can get ahead of it. So this kind of watershed, this, this

204
00:20:16,080 --> 00:20:19,600
aha moment happened when you realize what's going on with them.

205
00:20:20,160 --> 00:20:27,280
Okay. So this is where another sort of crazy thing happened. We decided, okay, that summer. And we

206
00:20:27,280 --> 00:20:31,280
decided the teacher had told us that he would qualify for this program and she would go to

207
00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:35,840
bat for him to be in it. So we thought, and she said there's a lot of people that

208
00:20:37,280 --> 00:20:42,240
requested, but their kids don't qualify and ours did. So we thought, okay, we went, we went away

209
00:20:42,240 --> 00:20:47,920
that summer to visit some family near a beach and we were at the beach and we're like, you know what,

210
00:20:48,800 --> 00:20:54,960
maybe I was asleep Manhattan. Maybe it's just not the right space for him. And it's, it's maybe

211
00:20:54,960 --> 00:21:00,160
it's just time to go somewhere else. So we ended up moving to Florida. And we found a nice little

212
00:21:00,160 --> 00:21:05,040
school and we thought maybe that's just going to be better for him. And meanwhile, the other

213
00:21:05,040 --> 00:21:08,400
symptoms that he had, he had constant congestion, he would clear his throat

214
00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:14,880
every couple of minutes, if not every minute. And it, we, we were asking around for that. He

215
00:21:14,880 --> 00:21:20,560
didn't have enlarged tonsils or adenoids, they scoped him. That wasn't a problem. And they had

216
00:21:20,560 --> 00:21:27,040
also had us keep a diary of his diet, but nothing came up on that or to do some food elimination.

217
00:21:27,040 --> 00:21:32,720
Now, what I will tell you is that the dairy issue, we had started to go top heavy in dairy,

218
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:38,320
because not only were we doing the squeeze pouches, because of his potential gagging issue.

219
00:21:39,120 --> 00:21:46,720
We were also, it's also easy to give him these yogurt packs. And, and, yep, and cheese sticks

220
00:21:46,720 --> 00:21:50,560
and all these easy things that we're thinking, oh, he's getting protein. This is great. Exactly.

221
00:21:50,560 --> 00:21:57,120
The doctor wants to give him dairy. So he's building bone. Meanwhile, he's not building bone and muscle

222
00:21:57,120 --> 00:22:04,240
as much or at least muscle because he's not in, he's not doing restorative at night. Exactly.

223
00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:08,720
So that's when those hormones come out. He's also not the tallest kid in the class. He's more,

224
00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:15,040
if you line them up by size, he's closer to the front. He had venous pooling. So we, that's

225
00:22:15,040 --> 00:22:19,200
another indicator because if you're maxilla, your upper bone isn't moving forward because your tongue

226
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:23,840
isn't pushing on that bone. So that's another reason the tongue needs to be on the roof of the

227
00:22:23,840 --> 00:22:28,880
mouth to develop a wide arch to keep the muscles from pushing in to push the teeth in and give you

228
00:22:28,880 --> 00:22:34,080
a narrow arch and it pushes forward. So if your tongue is not pushing your upper bone forward,

229
00:22:34,080 --> 00:22:39,680
then you know you're going to have a problem later. So that was another indicator that we

230
00:22:39,680 --> 00:22:46,160
obviously didn't pick up on at the time. So we decided we are going to move, we moved to Florida

231
00:22:46,160 --> 00:22:52,800
and to do this, we need to quit our jobs. So we quit our jobs. Right. Florida. Okay, great.

232
00:22:53,440 --> 00:23:02,160
And so I'm spending a lot of time on LinkedIn and one night, and this is a, this is still probably

233
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:08,240
maybe six or seven months in to our move. Still no answers. He, again, I don't know if I mentioned

234
00:23:08,240 --> 00:23:16,640
this, but he woke up on average three times a night. He would wake up and call for me. And I'm

235
00:23:16,640 --> 00:23:20,880
always been the type that I can, I can wake up, I can help them and go back to sleep. And so

236
00:23:20,880 --> 00:23:26,480
obviously that fragmented sleep for me was not ideal, but it wasn't, it wasn't as big of a deal as

237
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:30,240
it would be for some people that can't get to sleep because fragmented sleep is a very big deal.

238
00:23:30,800 --> 00:23:37,280
But that said, he would wake up at the hard part is, is he's frustrated. So is he frustrated

239
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:42,480
because he can't breathe because we could hear noisy breathing. We knew something was going on

240
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:47,200
with the congestion, or did he have a nightmare and he couldn't articulate it. He was just

241
00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:55,600
frustrated. And I would just sit with him, help him get back to sleep. And then it wouldn't be

242
00:23:55,600 --> 00:24:01,920
too long before he'd be awake again. But he wanted to sleep and his whole little body knew he needed

243
00:24:01,920 --> 00:24:10,000
this. And I had no answers. I mean, none. Which is apparent. I mean, that's, oh my gosh. Yeah.

244
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:16,000
And so, and even learning to ride a bike, we were at the stage where he would try to learn a bike,

245
00:24:16,000 --> 00:24:20,800
but it took a while. And what I learned later is that when you don't get to the deeper sleep,

246
00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:28,320
the, the information you learn that day, all of that is worked through in your deeper levels of

247
00:24:28,320 --> 00:24:35,840
sleep. So if you learn to ride a bike, you can you can get the motion, the pedal motion. But if

248
00:24:35,840 --> 00:24:41,200
you go to sleep and sleep specialist, you'll be able to tell you this way better than I am. Like

249
00:24:41,200 --> 00:24:47,440
describe how this works. But what I do know is that it translate the that day learning. And it

250
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:52,400
puts it what I call little files. So it's sort of like it takes all of the information you learn.

251
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:56,640
And then it goes into your little brain section where it pulls out the file and cabinet and sticks

252
00:24:56,640 --> 00:25:02,080
it all in the files. And then then you're like, okay, I'm all organized. My desk is nice and neat.

253
00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:07,120
And I can start my new day. But for Finn, not getting to those other levels, he's just piling

254
00:25:07,120 --> 00:25:13,520
it on his desk. And then new information just piles on his desk. And there's nowhere to reference it.

255
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:19,280
Because it's all there. It's all messy. And so he would a link, by the way, we've got an episode

256
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:24,800
with Dr. David Mackintosh. He does a beautiful job explaining that. So I'll put that in here.

257
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:28,960
So it makes a little more sense for people. That would be great. Because there's so many

258
00:25:28,960 --> 00:25:39,040
specialists that can explain all of this. I just experienced it. So he. So yeah, so all these little

259
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:43,520
things. And also, we were going to OT occupational therapy for low tone, because he wasn't getting

260
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:49,920
that muscle development. So okay, this is another thing we were doing. We enrolled him in gymnastics.

261
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:55,040
And he was learning how to build up his muscles. But it was all in many ways because he wasn't

262
00:25:55,040 --> 00:25:58,240
getting the muscle development that he would get in that deeper level of sleep.

263
00:25:58,240 --> 00:26:02,400
And still no one noticed the tongue tie. No one had talked about how he was sleeping.

264
00:26:02,400 --> 00:26:07,280
None of that had been brought up yet. Okay, we're now at five and a half years old,

265
00:26:07,280 --> 00:26:14,960
or actually six years old at this point. And I am online looking and it's kind of late at night.

266
00:26:14,960 --> 00:26:21,520
I'm looking through LinkedIn, still trying to find a job. So I would say maybe find a job

267
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:28,320
before you move. But anyway, but it was fine. It was a nice break that we had. And I had some

268
00:26:28,320 --> 00:26:32,160
people that were like, just wait, we're going to have an opening. But what happened was I'm looking

269
00:26:32,160 --> 00:26:38,800
on LinkedIn and this post comes up from this orthodontist, clear across the country in California,

270
00:26:39,360 --> 00:26:43,040
never heard of him, have no idea how I'm connected with him on LinkedIn. Because I had

271
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:50,960
really never spent a ton of time on LinkedIn before this. And this post has, if your child,

272
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:56,320
and I literally cannot talk through this without getting emotional, because it's sort of like when

273
00:26:56,320 --> 00:27:01,600
people say, you know, when Elvis died, you remember that moment? Yeah, Diana died, you know where you

274
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:12,560
were, right? Tell you this moment was it for me. I think if your child has these behaviors,

275
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:18,720
and these, these signs and symptoms, and I, and I, I got to reach out and find out that exact

276
00:27:19,280 --> 00:27:25,520
what it said, but it described my son to a T, the restless sleeping, the hyperactivity, the

277
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:30,960
chronic congestion, I didn't really literally can't tell you what it said, but it was him.

278
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:41,520
And I'm sitting there going, Oh my gosh. So I, I'm like, I think this has got to be it. So

279
00:27:41,520 --> 00:27:45,440
but of course, I don't know this doctor. I mean, I've never met him. And I don't know why I have

280
00:27:45,440 --> 00:27:52,960
this post. I don't know. I don't know how I'm connected. But what it turns out that he said

281
00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:59,200
in the post it says, then you should look at his sleep and breathing is could be sleep disorder

282
00:27:59,200 --> 00:28:04,800
breathing. So I thought, okay, wow, why wonder if anybody at the ADA, it's coming up in a couple

283
00:28:04,800 --> 00:28:10,320
of months in Atlanta, and I wonder if anybody's speaking on this. So I type in ADA meeting,

284
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:17,360
sleep, and there's one speaker, one presentation by the guy I had just spent seven years doing

285
00:28:17,360 --> 00:28:27,040
presentations with for aligners. That guy was speaking on this. But at the same time, I'm just

286
00:28:27,040 --> 00:28:32,880
so freaking grateful because I'm like, okay, I'm going to call him. So I call him the next day,

287
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:35,520
because the thing that was in the middle of the night when I saw this post, and I call him the

288
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:40,400
next day, and I say, Hey, this is what's going on with Finn. This, this, this, this, this,

289
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:44,240
oh, yeah, that's definitely disorder breathing. We need to take a look at him.

290
00:28:46,320 --> 00:28:51,440
You know, like the heavens opened up the light bulb, a very, very, very big light bulb was over

291
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:56,400
my brain. And I was like, Oh, hey, so I go to the ADA and I learn as much as I can about this,

292
00:28:56,400 --> 00:29:01,120
I learned that my functional therapy is going to be necessary. I get him evaluated for a tongue

293
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:10,800
tie, which obviously he had. Obviously, yeah. And so we, we get the tongue release and my husband

294
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:16,240
and I got our tongue released at the same time. Because it's in families a lot of times. Yes,

295
00:29:17,200 --> 00:29:24,240
so not shocking that we both had this issue. And then I started his myofunctional therapy. So at the

296
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:31,040
time, zoom was not popular. Skype was, you know, you could Skype with people, but there were no myofunctional

297
00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:36,640
therapists in Manhattan that I knew of. So with my background, I said, Well, I could take the course.

298
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:42,160
I mean, I know about this. So I went ahead and took the myofunctional therapy four day course and

299
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:47,120
learned how to do these exercises with them. And so we would do exercises in the car, we would do

300
00:29:47,120 --> 00:29:53,440
them on the way to school. And then before, for about a month and an and a month after his

301
00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:58,800
prenectomy, we, and it was a prenectomy at the time because people weren't doing the frenuoplasty

302
00:29:58,800 --> 00:30:04,480
that they do now. But which is the doggy train technique where it's a it's a combination of

303
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:10,960
laser and a little bit of sutures if necessary, so you don't have as much scarring. So, but at the

304
00:30:10,960 --> 00:30:15,520
same time, and in both cases, you really need to do myofunctional therapy to train the tongue. So

305
00:30:15,520 --> 00:30:20,480
the tongue needs to be able to stay up on the roof of the mouth suctioned during the procedure.

306
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:26,320
So if the tongue can't stay up there to some degree, and that doesn't mean it's always going to be,

307
00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:31,360
but in his case, his palate wasn't so high, he wasn't really a thumbsucker and he didn't have

308
00:30:31,360 --> 00:30:38,960
a really high palate then. Whereas sometimes I know in Savvy's case, she was born with a high

309
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:45,040
palate with that high arch. Right, right. And that can also, you know, as you know, can push into

310
00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:52,000
when you do have a thumbsucker or you are not able to reach the roof of the mouth with the tongue,

311
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:59,120
it pushes into the nasal cavity and can create more of an obstruction. So, but what we found with

312
00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:16,480
once he was, that tongue type was identified, and the other big indicator was the mouth breathing.

313
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:21,840
You are listening to Airway First with today's guest, Kelly Richardson. You can find out more

314
00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:26,240
about the Children's Airway First Foundation and our mission to ensure that every child has

315
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:31,600
access to screening, evaluation, and treatment of all children's airway disorders before the age

316
00:31:31,600 --> 00:31:39,120
of six on our website at childrensairwayfirst.org. The CAF website offers tons of great resources

317
00:31:39,120 --> 00:31:45,040
for parents, including videos, blogs, recommended books, comprehensive medical research, and so

318
00:31:45,040 --> 00:31:52,000
much more. You can also join us via our Facebook support group, The Airway Huddle. The Airway

319
00:31:52,000 --> 00:31:57,120
Huddle is designed for parents of children with airway and sleep-related issues. You can access

320
00:31:57,120 --> 00:32:03,200
the Airway Huddle support group at facebook.com backslash groups backslash airway huddle.

321
00:32:04,080 --> 00:32:08,080
Are you interested in becoming a guest or do you have an idea for an upcoming episode?

322
00:32:08,720 --> 00:32:14,960
Then shoot us a note via the context page on our website or send us an email directly at info

323
00:32:14,960 --> 00:32:22,400
at childrensairwayfirst.org. As a reminder, this podcast and the opinions expressed here are not

324
00:32:22,400 --> 00:32:28,240
a medical diagnosis. If you suspect your child might have an airway issue, contact your pediatric

325
00:32:28,240 --> 00:32:34,640
airway dentist or pediatrician. And now let's jump back into my interview with today's guest, Kelly

326
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:51,280
Richardson. So he was a mountain breather from birth because I had taught him by separating his,

327
00:32:51,920 --> 00:33:00,960
by keeping his tongue low in his mouth, that with the bottle feeding, that he learned sort of that

328
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:08,720
low mouth tongue posture that helped it make it easier to breathe through his mouth. And also,

329
00:33:08,720 --> 00:33:12,960
it can also just happen when a kid gets a cold and then they just default to the mouth breathing

330
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:19,040
and it becomes a habitual thing. So, but he did have constant congestion. He had a lot of inflammation,

331
00:33:19,600 --> 00:33:26,080
but also what's been found is that mouth breathing is one of the biggest

332
00:33:26,080 --> 00:33:35,120
problems in creating congestion in the nose. So when you're mouth breathing, you're creating that

333
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:42,080
localized inflammation, and that doesn't always mean it's creating, it's enlarging the tonsils or

334
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:46,480
the adenoids, but it can because the tonsils and adenoids are lymph tissue and they collect the

335
00:33:46,480 --> 00:33:55,360
gunk coming in, whereas the nose has a different pathway. So the nose will clean it. And then

336
00:33:55,360 --> 00:34:00,880
you have the nitric oxide that is actually an antibacterial and antiviral. So it's going to keep

337
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:08,320
a lot of that, the bacteria and the gunk out as well. So you've got two first lines of defense

338
00:34:08,320 --> 00:34:14,320
in the nose. You don't have anything in the mouth, all this all dirty, dirty air come on in. And

339
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:18,320
that can create a lot of the inflammation to keep them from being able to breathe,

340
00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:23,520
but through the nose again, and you have to push through that. You can't just all of a sudden say,

341
00:34:23,520 --> 00:34:26,480
oh, I'm going to close my mouth and start breathing through my nose, especially if it's

342
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:34,880
been happening for an extended period of time, you have to write with it. So if the child can

343
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:40,560
breathe through the nose, if you have them close their mouth and they can breathe through their

344
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:47,200
nose for three minutes without distress, then you can push through with this habit of retraining

345
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:55,040
to strictly 24 seven nasal breathing. If they can't, then you would definitely need to

346
00:34:56,160 --> 00:34:59,600
see what the obstructions are, which could be nasal obstructions,

347
00:35:00,480 --> 00:35:05,120
adenoids and other things. So I certainly don't want to simplify it. But for us,

348
00:35:06,800 --> 00:35:11,760
Finn started off even before he had the tongue release, he started off with a

349
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:17,360
breathing retrainer. So at night he would sleep with this and it took about a week for him to get

350
00:35:17,360 --> 00:35:22,240
into the habit of being able to breathe through his nose with this in his mouth. I mean, it's

351
00:35:22,240 --> 00:35:26,880
they're designed that several companies make them, but they're designed and your dentist,

352
00:35:26,880 --> 00:35:34,080
you your dentist would fit them. But they're designed for the child to be able to pop it out

353
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:38,720
of their mouth if they're in distress. So after about a week, they get used to wearing these

354
00:35:38,720 --> 00:35:44,400
at deep programs, the lip muscles, a lot of the stuff that you find in myofunctional therapy is

355
00:35:44,400 --> 00:35:51,840
addressed early, some of the minor, not minor, but some of the things like deprogramming the lips

356
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:56,960
because the lips can be tight and push in. And so you decode program that and you can pull the jaw

357
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:01,520
forward a little bit with these devices. So it keeps him forward even if he doesn't have the tongue

358
00:36:01,520 --> 00:36:09,360
section. And but most importantly, it blocks the mouth from mouth breathing at night because when

359
00:36:09,360 --> 00:36:15,120
he mouth breathed that would mouth breathe at night, his jaw, his his recessed chin, that jaw,

360
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:22,800
that lower jaw would fall back in closer. It's already closer to the to the airway at that point.

361
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:28,080
So we needed it up and forward. And that's what these device did. So it was interesting. So

362
00:36:28,080 --> 00:36:33,520
he was in first, no, it was in kindergarten, when we started this breathing, breathing retrain,

363
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:39,760
or we did it over the holidays, because we got got the device over Christmas time. And so he had

364
00:36:39,760 --> 00:36:48,800
had enough of maybe a week or so of wearing this device when he went back to school. And the funny

365
00:36:48,800 --> 00:36:53,360
thing is, at our school, the kindergarten teachers don't want the parents hovering, because, you

366
00:36:53,360 --> 00:36:58,640
know, that's not good. You I mean, it's kind of like you got to separate, you know, the kid goes

367
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:07,280
here now, you go home. But when you have one, you know, kind of addicted. But anyway, so they

368
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:12,080
had always kind of created a healthy boundary between the parents. So my husband called me

369
00:37:12,080 --> 00:37:16,240
because it was that that's the day he had taken him to school the first day after school, after

370
00:37:16,240 --> 00:37:21,840
Christmas vacation. And he called him, he goes, Oh, the teacher, she didn't even just talk to me,

371
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:28,960
she tracked me down. And I'm like, she's what did she say? I mean, I think she's nice, right?

372
00:37:28,960 --> 00:37:34,240
He's like, no, she wanted to know what we did with Finn. Because interestingly enough, she was

373
00:37:34,240 --> 00:37:39,440
actually the assistant teacher. Okay. And when we had had our first meeting with the teacher,

374
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:44,960
the teacher, our teacher had said, Well, you know, he does have a lot of energy. And this is a

375
00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:51,120
different teacher, different school, but she said he has a lot of energy. And the other teacher said,

376
00:37:51,120 --> 00:38:02,320
but yet he seems tired. And we're like, huh, right, right. If you look at a child that's hyperactive,

377
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:10,240
that didn't sleep well, you're going to notice the tired, if you're astute enough. And she was like,

378
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:20,080
I noticed he's tired. And I thought, huh, I don't I know he's tired, but I don't notice it in the

379
00:38:20,080 --> 00:38:26,880
activity. So you're used to it. You saw it every day. So yeah, this is who he is to us.

380
00:38:28,400 --> 00:38:35,600
And he also would use to swing his arm a lot too. He had restless leg syndrome, which we were able

381
00:38:35,600 --> 00:38:42,080
to kind of get that a little bit at bay with a little bit of some medication. But we tried everything

382
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:46,640
we could to not do medication. But he would constantly swing his arm. Actually, the restless

383
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:51,040
leg syndrome can also be in your arms. And so he would constantly move it. And it feels like

384
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:57,520
there's like something in his shoulder that he would have to if he by swinging his arm, it would

385
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:03,040
make that at least resolve it a little bit or address it, but it was always there. So we resolved

386
00:39:03,040 --> 00:39:07,600
that. And that has a lot to do with the kicking when he would he would move a lot. We would also

387
00:39:07,600 --> 00:39:12,320
hear the kicking, right, the thrashy one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he had these little this little

388
00:39:12,320 --> 00:39:18,400
thing around his bed. He had a loft bed. And so it was like, you could hear this claim,

389
00:39:18,400 --> 00:39:22,960
claim when he would move. And it was just because the way that all the slats fit in together,

390
00:39:22,960 --> 00:39:28,240
there was little spaces. And so it could it's just sounded sounded loud. So we knew he was hitting it.

391
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:35,120
So anyway, so she had absolutely she tracked us down wanting to know what have you done.

392
00:39:35,680 --> 00:39:40,960
I am seeing such a big difference. I am so curious what have you done.

393
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:44,560
And again, nobody's week, week, two weeks.

394
00:39:44,560 --> 00:39:51,040
This was just a very early for a week for Finn. It was funny because he he was so ready for answers

395
00:39:51,680 --> 00:39:57,360
that whatever we said to do, he was like, got it. So even though I wrote this book about

396
00:39:57,360 --> 00:40:02,960
nose breathing, it's not like one of those things where for my son, you had to say,

397
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:06,640
okay, we're going to do this. And he's like, oh, what? No, it was not that. It was like

398
00:40:06,640 --> 00:40:13,280
nose. That's it. I'm in exercises. That's it. Teach me will do on you want to take me out of

399
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:18,160
school? Fine. We'll do these in the middle of the day. He was so on board because he was he

400
00:40:19,120 --> 00:40:25,840
wanted to see he was there and even though he had known he wasn't like the difference because

401
00:40:25,840 --> 00:40:33,360
he had had this since birth, he was ready for a different kind of life really. So so yeah,

402
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:37,200
the other thing that I didn't mention that he had was the eczema, which is another sign. So he had

403
00:40:37,200 --> 00:40:41,440
these little face rashes. And so we go to the doctor and they're like, well, use this cream. And we're

404
00:40:41,440 --> 00:40:46,960
like, okay, he's just got needs this cream. But that's also another sign. But that was

405
00:40:48,000 --> 00:40:54,960
yeah. And ever since then, so we decided to go with treatment with, you know, Kevin Boyd.

406
00:40:54,960 --> 00:41:04,640
So I met Kevin Boyd at the Dawson Academy. And so we decided, well, he's he's our guy because

407
00:41:04,640 --> 00:41:10,240
he was going to pull the maxilla forward. So we still so it's six and a half or really by the

408
00:41:10,240 --> 00:41:16,240
time I met Kevin, Kevin, he was kind of closer to seven, Finn was closer to seven. And as you know,

409
00:41:16,240 --> 00:41:22,400
we want to catch kids six and under. Absolutely. Yep. Thanks before six before six. But what

410
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:29,120
happens is up until nine and a half, this maxilla, this bone, the upper bone that houses the upper

411
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:36,400
teeth, you can pull that forward without it hurting or needing surgery. And and that's what we did was

412
00:41:36,400 --> 00:41:44,320
Finn was getting expanders for the out to expand his dental arches out. And upright those teeth.

413
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:52,240
Right. You know, so okay, so we were doing this technique where there was the expanders were

414
00:41:52,240 --> 00:41:56,800
going out, the expanders would come forward to but we were also he was also wearing a device that

415
00:41:56,800 --> 00:42:04,160
pulls his bone forward called a reversible face mask, completely opposite of what I had as a

416
00:42:04,160 --> 00:42:13,600
child, which was the headgear. I do not recommend a headgear ever. No. So I don't don't want there

417
00:42:13,600 --> 00:42:20,960
to be any confusion about that. But we so he was sleeping in that he slept in that device for two

418
00:42:20,960 --> 00:42:25,920
and a half years. And we really got that maxilla forward. So what we were doing during that time

419
00:42:25,920 --> 00:42:34,800
period is we're pulling the upper bone forward. And and the Dr. Boyd could measure on a x ray,

420
00:42:35,360 --> 00:42:40,560
how far back or if it does need to be done. So it wasn't like he was just like, Oh, yeah, I can see

421
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:46,880
some signs of symptoms. Let's do it. So he does some he does this with measurements. But we saw

422
00:42:46,880 --> 00:42:55,200
the venous pooling. So if your facial bone is is back, it's going to push on the spaces that house

423
00:42:55,200 --> 00:42:59,200
these little veins right here. And so you'll have this little venous pooling these little dark circles

424
00:42:59,200 --> 00:43:06,160
under the eyes that will indicate that this bone is kind of pressing on that. So another indicator

425
00:43:06,160 --> 00:43:11,680
that we didn't notice but was present in Finn, and also makes kids look tired too. So I mean,

426
00:43:11,680 --> 00:43:15,920
it could just be that it could be that. But when you look back at photos, I mean, first of all,

427
00:43:15,920 --> 00:43:20,240
the photos, I did a compilation of Finn's photos, going back to when he was

428
00:43:21,680 --> 00:43:29,840
first year of life. And I had no problem finding open mouth posture. So he was developing a face

429
00:43:29,840 --> 00:43:34,320
that was long. Or it is, we caught a lot of it.

430
00:43:35,840 --> 00:43:40,960
Early enough to be able to do the expansion out. And if you look at my husband, my husband is

431
00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:46,320
as has a wider face, he doesn't have that long face. And genetically, he had things going in his

432
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:52,000
favor that didn't the mouth breathing, the constant open mouth breath breathing did not affect his

433
00:43:52,000 --> 00:44:00,160
facial craniofacial growth as much as it could another child from a different family. But we

434
00:44:00,160 --> 00:44:06,000
also caught it early enough to be able to while his face is growing, and we were able to do that

435
00:44:06,000 --> 00:44:12,400
and pull the upper bone forward. And so he has we even have on our website, or our

436
00:44:14,800 --> 00:44:21,680
YouTube site, we made a video of Finn putting his reversible face mask on. Because if you look at

437
00:44:21,680 --> 00:44:28,560
this, it looks like a medieval torture device. And if most people would say, I am not one prescribing

438
00:44:28,560 --> 00:44:34,400
that. And two, the kids will never wear it. And three, the parents would be in shock and horror

439
00:44:34,400 --> 00:44:41,200
to think they were going to put it on. Right. But for me, we're in. I think I'm like, what's it look

440
00:44:41,200 --> 00:44:50,080
like? Great, let's do it. And so he would he put it on. And but this he's joking around in this video.

441
00:44:50,080 --> 00:44:57,120
And it's so disarming. But it was because it's important for in my opinion, for littles to see

442
00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:04,400
other littles doing something that they're being asked to do. So I mean, we tell them as parents

443
00:45:04,400 --> 00:45:08,800
all day long what to do. And I mean, at this point, they just tune you out because it's like,

444
00:45:10,800 --> 00:45:17,360
but really, when you have other kids. And so Finn also learned how to do the sailing nasal

445
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:21,840
rinse up and through his nose. Not a big deal. This is going to help me sleep better. I'm in.

446
00:45:22,400 --> 00:45:25,920
So you've got to link to that. And I'll put all these, by the way, links to all of these.

447
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:29,040
Oh, thanks. And doing things. Yeah, we'll put that in the show notes.

448
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:34,880
Well, so the whole reason that we put all of these things together was because when it is so

449
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:46,160
visceral, that you can't find this content. And then it's extremely just almost shocks your soul

450
00:45:46,160 --> 00:45:52,960
when you do find the answer. Like, yeah, from Bill Hanks post. And and really, it was probably

451
00:45:52,960 --> 00:45:59,120
either Debbie Heng, who is an equal force behind what they're doing out in California at with

452
00:45:59,120 --> 00:46:06,800
face first. I can't remember what their organization is, what they call it. But it's echo. Yeah,

453
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:12,480
we'll put links up to that thing as well. All of these people like had no idea all the way across

454
00:46:12,480 --> 00:46:17,680
the country. They are changing my my kids life and changing our life in the process. Because when

455
00:46:17,680 --> 00:46:22,400
you have a child that's struggling, and you don't know how to help them, you feel so helpless.

456
00:46:22,400 --> 00:46:28,400
And you just of course supposed to be the parent that has answers. And I wasn't, I didn't have the

457
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:34,720
answers. So so we got in. So he put these videos together for his some of them, the one for the

458
00:46:34,720 --> 00:46:38,800
nasal rinse, we did that for his buddy, because we were trying to get him to get on board with it

459
00:46:38,800 --> 00:46:44,800
to because oh, okay, about this stuff. Playgrounds. And I hand out breather. It strips nonstop, then

460
00:46:44,800 --> 00:46:50,880
wears a knee and breathe right strip every night. And he's still in we're still trying to get some

461
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:56,320
more lateral expansion with him. Because in our case, with going to Chicago for our treatments,

462
00:46:57,600 --> 00:47:01,680
sometimes when the device doesn't fit as well, and you're not getting as much of the expansion

463
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:08,640
that you need, then it wasn't that he wasn't wearing it as much, it just wasn't a good fit.

464
00:47:09,200 --> 00:47:16,960
So we've now gone to just run right back in the right. Yeah. So and that's what's what's so great

465
00:47:16,960 --> 00:47:23,920
is that by all of these organizations who are teaching dentists how to do these, I've now got

466
00:47:23,920 --> 00:47:30,000
a local doctor who is doing airway sleep and breathing, soggy trained, frenuoplasty and all of

467
00:47:30,000 --> 00:47:36,480
that stuff. And she's just the most wonderful person, Dr. Dr. D. And so it's nice to have somebody

468
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:42,080
local that we can refer to instead of saying, Well, you know, we go to Chicago, you know,

469
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:47,360
right, right. I should also practice that with we've also not gone on a lot of vacations over

470
00:47:47,360 --> 00:47:51,680
the last so it's not like I'm just telling everybody, look, you should just have enough

471
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:59,280
money to fly to Chicago. It's a sacrifice that we've made. But I mean, there is, for me, I happily

472
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:05,920
sacrifice a vacation. Of course. For this. So and Dr. Boyd's office is amazing. They're usually

473
00:48:05,920 --> 00:48:11,680
accommodate Wednesdays or cheaper flight days. So we fly up, see him and then we fly back. We've

474
00:48:11,680 --> 00:48:17,600
got a little restaurant that we go to, we go process. But it's like a day of it. Yeah. Yeah.

475
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:25,120
So this, this, this is what has led to your book that you wrote. Yeah, the very stuffy nose.

476
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:32,960
Yeah. Yeah. So the very stuffy nose was one of those things because not only did we was it memorable

477
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:39,520
that mouth breathing in Finn needed to he needed to be a nose breather. So if you're not,

478
00:48:39,520 --> 00:48:46,720
if, if you have that mouth breathing posture, your whole face can grow longer and your chin can

479
00:48:46,720 --> 00:48:51,920
grow down and back. And I'll show you, I've got the book right here. So this is the book. But

480
00:48:52,640 --> 00:49:01,280
what's important about it is that my illustrator spent hours helping me hone in on the facial

481
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:06,800
posture of a child that is mouth breathing versus a child that's nose breathing. So this is a story

482
00:49:06,800 --> 00:49:12,720
of Finn, he gets a stuffy nose, he realizes he gets a cold and he gets a stuffy nose. And then he

483
00:49:12,720 --> 00:49:18,480
realizes if he opens his mouth, he can get all this air in and this is great. Right. After it's

484
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:23,040
cold, he just keeps breathing through his mouth because why not? It's big. It's wide. I can fit

485
00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:32,160
lots of air inside. And so he is now a mouth breather and he notices that he can't smell anything.

486
00:49:32,160 --> 00:49:39,040
And after a while, he notices that the stuffy nose has just not gone away. So he sits and he

487
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:48,240
thinks and this is on the page where he sits and he thinks, what you'll see here is that you have

488
00:49:48,240 --> 00:49:54,240
a chin that is down and back. And what you may not notice, but a dental trained person will notice

489
00:49:54,240 --> 00:49:59,360
that there's some venous pulling under those eyes. And when the venous pulling, when that bone is back,

490
00:49:59,360 --> 00:50:04,800
it's going to push on that bone, that maxilla and it's going to cause you to see the whites of the

491
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:11,760
eyes underneath the colored part of the eye. So my illustrator did a really good job of differentiating

492
00:50:11,760 --> 00:50:15,840
between that. And we tried to do the same thing here on this page where we're showing the difference

493
00:50:15,840 --> 00:50:24,080
between the mouth breathing and the nose breathing face. So the one up top. The one in the cloud.

494
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:30,160
Yeah. This is when he remembers, I used to be able to smell things and now I can't wonder why that is.

495
00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:34,880
And then the one down below, but his chin is not as down and back as it is in the other one. So I

496
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:40,000
kind of like to show that. And then we have in pretty much any mouth breathing pictures,

497
00:50:40,640 --> 00:50:45,520
he's got a low tongue posture. So low tongue posture, venous pulling all these little things

498
00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:50,960
that that a dental professional or a treatment coordinator could be able to show a kid and say

499
00:50:50,960 --> 00:50:58,800
or show mom, dad caregiver. This is what or teachers because my heart is really in teaching

500
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:08,480
teachers because teachers are have a huge opportunity if they can just help kids understand that too.

501
00:51:08,480 --> 00:51:14,320
And second grade and third grade that if they practice some breathing exercises in their

502
00:51:14,320 --> 00:51:20,480
class, they can actually teach kids how to nasal breathe. And they can teach them how to bring

503
00:51:20,480 --> 00:51:27,680
down the anxiety that someone when they're over breathing from maybe a conflict with another kid

504
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:33,200
or a quiz that they didn't think they don't feel like they're ready for or just anything maybe

505
00:51:33,200 --> 00:51:40,320
standing up in front of class and having to say something. So sure. To me, I think that's where

506
00:51:41,200 --> 00:51:48,640
it's just a general lack of knowledge that mouth breathing is is harmful. And so we found that in

507
00:51:48,640 --> 00:51:53,520
talking to all these airway doctors, dentists who were treating everyone of them would say, well,

508
00:51:53,520 --> 00:51:56,640
first we got to change to the mouth, the mouth breathing to the nose breathing, we got to address

509
00:51:56,640 --> 00:52:00,240
the nose breathing, we got to get to the nose breathing. And that was never it wasn't ever

510
00:52:00,240 --> 00:52:04,480
controversial. It's never there's any there's not anybody going well, no, wait a minute, I think the

511
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:10,320
mouth is a good way is the right way to breathe. Right. So it was like, okay, well, good, that's

512
00:52:10,320 --> 00:52:19,360
not controversial. I'm gonna have push back there. As a parent, you know, with your background,

513
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:25,440
looking back now knowing what you know and what you saw. Yeah. Obviously we were all parents, we

514
00:52:25,440 --> 00:52:29,440
spend, I don't know how much of our time for teaching ourselves thinking how much we messed up,

515
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:34,400
but you don't know what you didn't know. That's right. So now you're looking back, what kind of

516
00:52:34,400 --> 00:52:40,480
advice having been through this and experienced all this? What kind of advice can you offer other

517
00:52:40,480 --> 00:52:44,560
parents that might be in the same spot you're in that are having to advocate for help for their

518
00:52:44,560 --> 00:52:52,800
child? Well, probably one of the best things now is on Google, you can find what you need to find.

519
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:59,200
So your website has the resources to educate yourself before you go and see somebody.

520
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:05,840
Because even after Ben had been diagnosed with a tongue tie, I went to a local pediatric E&T

521
00:53:05,840 --> 00:53:11,200
here for something else. I can't remember what it was, but I went to see it and when I told her,

522
00:53:11,200 --> 00:53:14,960
when she came in the room, and I said, well, we already know he's got a tongue tie, but I'm here

523
00:53:14,960 --> 00:53:20,000
to show you to talk to you about this. And she goes, oh, tongue tie. And she said, oh, Ben, stick

524
00:53:20,000 --> 00:53:24,240
your tongue out. And he stuck his tongue out and lifted it up. And she goes, oh, no, he's not tied.

525
00:53:24,240 --> 00:53:29,600
With absolute authority, she told me my child is not tongue tied.

526
00:53:32,560 --> 00:53:37,600
So I know he is. And of course, I don't say that, but I'm thinking if I was anybody else,

527
00:53:38,160 --> 00:53:41,920
you would have stopped right there. I would have said, oh, yeah, well, great,

528
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:44,800
we're not going to get on the plane and go get that tongue tie done. Good thing.

529
00:53:46,880 --> 00:53:51,760
I would not have known. So my advice. Again, you're back to you don't know what you don't know,

530
00:53:51,760 --> 00:53:55,360
obviously. You don't know what you don't know. Doctors don't know. And they just don't know

531
00:53:55,360 --> 00:54:00,880
that's hot. And it's not, I don't hold a grudge against anybody that didn't know this. I just

532
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:08,720
would say as a parent, there are things out there that there are sources and sites. So your site

533
00:54:08,720 --> 00:54:13,920
being one of them, we created the SuperBreather site because for so long, I would stand in a

534
00:54:14,560 --> 00:54:20,960
playground and I would tell a parent, well, Google this, oh, and Google this and read this book. Oh,

535
00:54:20,960 --> 00:54:24,880
but you should do this other thing first. And so I put all of this stuff on Facebook. So I said,

536
00:54:24,880 --> 00:54:28,800
all right, I'm just going to put it all on Facebook. And then what happened is my Facebook page got so

537
00:54:28,800 --> 00:54:34,880
messy that I would be like, well, wait, go watch this Finding Conrad Egan video or go do this.

538
00:54:34,880 --> 00:54:41,280
And I was like, well, they're not going to find any of this information. So we, and we also decided

539
00:54:41,280 --> 00:54:48,480
that we, we now have the responsibility of being able to provide information and direct

540
00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:54,480
anyone that reads the book that isn't in a dental office that just happens to find it's in our local

541
00:54:54,480 --> 00:55:02,560
library. LinkedIn, I had a popular post about it. So people might buy it and now where, where are

542
00:55:02,560 --> 00:55:07,840
they going to find information? So now we have a site that explains a little bit about breathing

543
00:55:07,840 --> 00:55:14,560
and our story and then provides sources of where, oh, Mike, can you? Yeah, there's a lot of great

544
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:18,160
info and I will include the link to that as well because you've got some great info. You actually

545
00:55:18,160 --> 00:55:22,720
had a couple of books that I haven't read and have since read because they were on there. So

546
00:55:23,920 --> 00:55:28,560
we absolutely want to make sure we share that as well. Yep. Yeah. And I think what's so great is

547
00:55:28,560 --> 00:55:35,280
that I just knew I didn't, I couldn't find this information as a parent. And so I just couldn't

548
00:55:35,280 --> 00:55:40,720
be, I, the responsibility was on me to say, I am going to be that voice. And I don't, I mean, I'm the

549
00:55:40,720 --> 00:55:46,080
voice for the parent, but I'm the voice for that little person. And to be able to offer

550
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:52,000
a hope to those parents and be able to direct those parents to get that person as early as possible.

551
00:55:52,000 --> 00:55:57,360
So when people reach out to me, I'm, I'm just going to help you and I'm going to sort of fill

552
00:55:57,360 --> 00:56:01,360
in the gaps and then I'm going to send you to the professional. Like you can talk to Kevin Boyd and

553
00:56:01,360 --> 00:56:06,240
he can rattle off all the studies. You can listen to Patrick McEwen and he knows the studies. Well,

554
00:56:06,240 --> 00:56:13,280
I've read them, but I can't always source them. And, and so it's, there's a community. But what I

555
00:56:13,280 --> 00:56:18,160
would say is probably the most important thing is there is not necessarily going to be an airway

556
00:56:18,160 --> 00:56:24,320
minded dentist in your area that's going to be able to help you. So you're going to likely have to

557
00:56:24,320 --> 00:56:33,520
travel some distance to find them and be okay with that. Because you can't, and just like Savvy's

558
00:56:33,520 --> 00:56:39,520
story, if you find out too late, then there's certain things you can't go back and do that aren't

559
00:56:39,520 --> 00:56:46,880
surgical. So I would say take it very seriously as early as you can, and then make a couple of trips

560
00:56:46,880 --> 00:56:53,040
and know that some of these airway doctors will work with you and also let them start there.

561
00:56:53,840 --> 00:57:00,480
So let them quarterback everything because if they know that you have a tongue tie and they're not

562
00:57:00,480 --> 00:57:04,640
offering it, they're going to know who to send you to instead of you thinking, let me figure out,

563
00:57:04,640 --> 00:57:08,080
why I'm just going to go to this guy because he's down the street or I'm going to go see this gal

564
00:57:08,080 --> 00:57:18,880
because she promotes it online. Because they're not always, it is starting to be a little bit of a buzzword

565
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:26,240
where sometimes you're going to find that if you go into an office, if you've armed yourself with a

566
00:57:26,240 --> 00:57:29,920
lot of this information and done the research, you're going to be able to see through the ones that

567
00:57:29,920 --> 00:57:34,240
say, oh yeah, well we do tongue ties, oh great, okay, tongue releases. Okay, well what my functional

568
00:57:34,240 --> 00:57:38,720
therapist do you recommend? Oh, you know, we don't need that. Okay, not your person. Exactly.

569
00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:45,280
So that's, you will know that going in and I know that that was not my ENT because she said

570
00:57:45,280 --> 00:57:48,240
you didn't have a tongue tie. Okay, good to know. Thanks. Well, can we resolve this other issue?

571
00:57:48,240 --> 00:57:54,080
And then I then I will go somewhere that we need to go somewhere else. That's right for us. So I

572
00:57:54,080 --> 00:57:59,920
would just say that there's enough research out there for you to find out or if not, then

573
00:57:59,920 --> 00:58:06,000
then reach out to those of us who can help you. I mean, I'm never going to turn down a conversation

574
00:58:06,000 --> 00:58:11,680
with somebody that just says, look, you're the only person I found. I'm so grateful that you found

575
00:58:11,680 --> 00:58:17,520
me. What do you need to do and who can I help you find? And so I've even started putting a doc

576
00:58:17,520 --> 00:58:23,600
locator on our site with some of the more like, because these are the people that I would go to.

577
00:58:23,600 --> 00:58:29,840
So knowing, I mean, at least that way I can say, well, there's somebody probably within your

578
00:58:30,880 --> 00:58:37,360
geographic Southeast region. They might not be in your state, but they're close enough.

579
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:41,440
And they're, and you know, and they are getting better. I mean, you know, we've been putting

580
00:58:41,440 --> 00:58:47,440
ours together. We also link out to airway health solutions, which has Dr. Ben Moralea and Kim

581
00:58:47,440 --> 00:58:54,320
and Boyd and they're training across the country. It just takes time. It takes time to train everybody.

582
00:58:54,320 --> 00:58:59,520
It does. It does. And that's the thing. As we continue to build, the exciting thing is it's

583
00:58:59,520 --> 00:59:04,000
going to be, there's going to be more and more. And I would say there's going to, it's going to hit

584
00:59:04,000 --> 00:59:12,480
a tipping point where a lot of doctors are able to offer these procedures. But for those of us,

585
00:59:12,480 --> 00:59:18,960
for the kids that are, let's say eight and under, if you're seven or eight year old has this problem,

586
00:59:18,960 --> 00:59:23,040
you got to get in early if you're going to start doing something where you can pull that bone forward.

587
00:59:23,040 --> 00:59:27,920
Because after nine and a half, you can maybe get some. And what's cool is they find, well,

588
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:34,000
we thought it was this and now we can do more if you try a little bit more. But, but yeah, nothing

589
00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:41,200
retractive. I would just say if somebody's steering you down the path of retractive for the

590
00:59:41,200 --> 00:59:49,200
sake of lining things up, then making a nice, pretty smile. I wouldn't have anyone take any

591
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:54,800
teeth out of my son's mouth or even retract. I would just say we're going to either do some

592
00:59:54,800 --> 00:59:58,480
restorative stuff or you're just going to be healthy and have spaces.

593
00:59:58,480 --> 01:00:00,960
Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly.

594
01:00:00,960 --> 01:00:03,920
Yeah. Because they need to breathe and I need them to sleep well. So.

595
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:07,760
Right. Right. And you said something earlier that, you know, when we were talking before the

596
01:00:07,760 --> 01:00:11,600
show that is apparent, it's so overwhelming. You know, where do you go? When you find this

597
01:00:11,600 --> 01:00:15,680
information, you're trying to keep it all in your head. I love what you said. Start with

598
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:21,040
the very stuff you know, let's just start there. And then when you're ready and you're not so

599
01:00:21,040 --> 01:00:24,880
overwhelming anymore, let's move into, you know, James and ask, let's move into the heavy hitters

600
01:00:24,880 --> 01:00:30,160
at that point. So you can get your footing first. It's, there's so much to it.

601
01:00:30,960 --> 01:00:37,440
Well, there is. And I just met Shereen Lim who wrote Breathe, Sleep, Thrive.

602
01:00:37,440 --> 01:00:42,640
And that book is unbelievably packed with the nuggets that I would have, would have really

603
01:00:42,640 --> 01:00:47,120
benefited learning. Yeah. And I would just say to parents, these aren't, these are books written

604
01:00:47,120 --> 01:00:53,040
for parents. They're not written in dental speak. They're designed to be able to educate you so

605
01:00:53,040 --> 01:00:58,720
that when you do go in to see a provider that you have that information and, and I, and, and you

606
01:00:58,720 --> 01:01:03,360
could take in some of those studies. We have our resources page that has studies. You have your

607
01:01:03,360 --> 01:01:08,720
studies page. There's all these resources that, that, and I think that the more this is, this

608
01:01:09,360 --> 01:01:13,280
more parents that go into these doctors offices with these research, because doctors want to see

609
01:01:13,280 --> 01:01:18,160
research. They just don't want to hear that you read something on Google. It's, they need to see

610
01:01:18,160 --> 01:01:24,160
research. But if you can give them that direction, then, then some will start to recognize after

611
01:01:24,160 --> 01:01:28,880
they've heard it for that, whatever number of time from a parent, oh, I'm so tired of hearing

612
01:01:28,880 --> 01:01:33,680
about this. I'm going to go learn about it. Then that's what's going to make the change because

613
01:01:34,720 --> 01:01:39,200
parents should stand up for the right. You are the person that is, or the caregiver, or the

614
01:01:39,200 --> 01:01:45,040
grandparents. I spoke to many grandparents about this and you are the person that can make this

615
01:01:45,040 --> 01:01:49,520
happen. And it's not always going to be the first doctor that you're going to see. But we do have

616
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:53,200
our story in the back of the very stuffy nose that sort of explains the path we went down.

617
01:01:53,200 --> 01:02:00,720
So that the parents can have a little bit more information on that. So it doesn't just leave

618
01:02:00,720 --> 01:02:07,600
the parents with just, oh, okay, well, this is funny, a book about a nose. And that's so important.

619
01:02:07,600 --> 01:02:14,960
My illustrator, that we did fun stuff because you can't, you're writing a book about a stuffy nose.

620
01:02:14,960 --> 01:02:19,680
I mean, this is, if it's not colorful and cute, you've lost them at page one, like,

621
01:02:19,680 --> 01:02:24,240
right, right. You know, this isn't a mouse finds a cookie thing. This is a,

622
01:02:25,840 --> 01:02:29,360
I can get the stuffy nose and breathers mouth like, oh, yeah, let's pick that one.

623
01:02:29,920 --> 01:02:36,560
But my illustrator did such a great job. And it is a great book. Yeah, I highly recommend it. We

624
01:02:36,560 --> 01:02:41,680
got a copy out of your, you know, collaboration here. Totally recommend it. Absolutely. Well,

625
01:02:41,680 --> 01:02:46,560
and I did, I did create on our website, we created a little habit helper, because I do

626
01:02:46,560 --> 01:02:54,560
know that there's, I'll show it to you. It's, it's, it's like every day you, you scratch off one of

627
01:02:54,560 --> 01:03:00,000
these little gold dots, and there's a picture of a lizard. So there's a lizard on every two page

628
01:03:00,000 --> 01:03:04,240
spreads. And because kids tend to find these lizards, this lizard seems to be a lot more popular

629
01:03:04,240 --> 01:03:08,800
than the cat. And I thought the cat would be really popular. But there's a lizard, a baseball,

630
01:03:08,800 --> 01:03:14,800
and a cat on every two page spread. So there's something fun to look for. But we created these

631
01:03:14,800 --> 01:03:20,880
only that we don't want it to sound like this is a simple thing. And for some kids hearing it for

632
01:03:20,880 --> 01:03:27,840
the first time, like, whatever. So we wanted to make the habit process more fun to gamify it,

633
01:03:27,840 --> 01:03:34,160
because otherwise, even if you just write it off, we've missed the opportunity to change that habit.

634
01:03:34,800 --> 01:03:39,200
And the point of the book is to kind of really help parents understand, oh, there is a difference.

635
01:03:39,200 --> 01:03:45,840
And then also for kids to want to read it enough times so that they, they realize in his little

636
01:03:45,840 --> 01:03:50,560
mantra, I'll keep my mouth closed and read through my nose, I'll keep my mouth closed. If you just

637
01:03:50,560 --> 01:03:57,920
like get them thinking that, then they're going to change that habit on their own and have fun with it.

638
01:03:57,920 --> 01:04:02,800
It's half the battle. Right. Because we tell them to do it, they're going to be a little bit

639
01:04:02,800 --> 01:04:08,880
resistant depending on how much we've told them that week. But it's exactly. Exactly.

640
01:04:08,880 --> 01:04:14,320
But if they're ready, then it'll work. So at the end of every episode, I always

641
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:21,520
turn it back over to the guest and let you have the final word. And typically it's you can speak

642
01:04:21,520 --> 01:04:26,400
to parents, you can talk about your journey. So I just completely turn it over to you.

643
01:04:26,960 --> 01:04:36,800
Any final thoughts? I would just say parenting is hard. Yes. Yes. And I mean, we, I have probably

644
01:04:36,800 --> 01:04:44,480
made more mistakes or at least as many as most. And I would say that at whatever point you find

645
01:04:44,480 --> 01:04:49,920
yourself hearing this message, that there is something that can be done. And even for adults,

646
01:04:49,920 --> 01:04:54,720
if you're an adult, if you're an adult that had this, I mean, I, I learned about breathing retraining

647
01:04:55,440 --> 01:05:01,040
so that I would get better sleep. And now I get better sleep. And I don't think I, I don't think

648
01:05:01,040 --> 01:05:06,880
I dreamed for probably 20 years. But now I use a breathy right strip. I do the mouth taping,

649
01:05:06,880 --> 01:05:12,080
which is starting to build in its popularity. But you've got to keep that mouth closed so that

650
01:05:12,080 --> 01:05:16,800
it doesn't interfere with getting into those deeper levels of sleep. And there was an article in Vogue,

651
01:05:17,680 --> 01:05:24,080
which is very helpful because there is an article that where the writer was as a Vogue writer,

652
01:05:24,080 --> 01:05:27,600
and she was just like, Oh, I was horrified that, you know, to hear that my husband was telling

653
01:05:27,600 --> 01:05:32,880
people we were doing this. But then she was like, but you know, it isn't, it's important for parents

654
01:05:32,880 --> 01:05:37,760
to understand that if they're a mouth breather to this isn't just for kids, this message is for

655
01:05:37,760 --> 01:05:42,880
everybody. And there are procedures and they're not always max low mandibular surgery. There's,

656
01:05:42,880 --> 01:05:50,960
there are ways where the, the, an adult can be expanded out. So a lot of really cool things

657
01:05:50,960 --> 01:05:55,600
are happening that can help everybody. So this isn't just a child issue. It's just that when

658
01:05:55,600 --> 01:06:02,160
things are movable at those younger ages, and you can really develop a face that breathes well,

659
01:06:02,960 --> 01:06:07,360
then they're off and running. But if, you know, parents have had these issues to

660
01:06:08,160 --> 01:06:13,760
hearing this in your child is older, you're not out of luck. You still have something don't wait

661
01:06:13,760 --> 01:06:19,680
or don't don't never tell me and say, Oh, well, you know, he's 10. So I guess I'll just, you know,

662
01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:25,200
give up. That's never not at all the message. There are things being done for all ages. It's

663
01:06:25,200 --> 01:06:30,240
just ideal if you can catch it early and don't beat up on yourself because we all are learning.

664
01:06:30,960 --> 01:06:35,920
Yep. We're all doing the best we can. We're just doing the best we can. Absolutely. Well,

665
01:06:35,920 --> 01:06:40,960
thank you so much for coming on today and sharing your journey and, and all the best to Finn as

666
01:06:40,960 --> 01:06:46,560
well. Well, thank you for all that you're doing because it is, had I come across your site,

667
01:06:46,560 --> 01:06:53,280
boy, when my life had been different and there's plenty of people that that are their lives are

668
01:06:53,280 --> 01:06:57,920
different because what you guys are doing. So I'm super grateful for you guys. Thank you.

669
01:06:59,440 --> 01:07:04,720
Thanks again to today's guest Kelly Richardson for sharing her story and medical insight into

670
01:07:04,720 --> 01:07:09,440
each of you for listening to today's episode. If you're new to our podcast, please don't forget

671
01:07:09,440 --> 01:07:14,320
to subscribe. And if you enjoyed today's episode, leave us a review or comment telling us about

672
01:07:14,320 --> 01:07:19,040
what you enjoyed the most. You can stay connected with the Children's Airway First Foundation

673
01:07:19,040 --> 01:07:25,440
by following us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. You can also join us via our Facebook

674
01:07:25,440 --> 01:07:31,600
Parents Support Group, the airway huddle at facebook.com backslash groups backslash airway

675
01:07:31,600 --> 01:07:37,040
huddle. If you'd like to be a guest or have an idea for an upcoming episode, shoot us a note via

676
01:07:37,040 --> 01:07:43,920
the contacts page on our website or send us an email directly at info at children's airway first

677
01:07:43,920 --> 01:07:50,000
dot org. As a reminder, this podcast and the opinions expressed here are not a medical diagnosis.

678
01:07:50,000 --> 01:07:54,960
If you suspect your child might have an airway issue or related sleep disorder, contact your

679
01:07:54,960 --> 01:08:00,240
pediatric airway dentist or pediatrician. And finally, thanks to all the parents and medical

680
01:08:00,240 --> 01:08:04,240
professionals out there that are working to help make the lives of kids around the globe

681
01:08:04,240 --> 01:08:20,160
just a little bit better. Take care, stay safe and happy breathing everyone.