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You're listening to Health Lifelines, a podcast brought to you by the Lifeguard

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approach, your trusted source for insights, solutions, and training that empower you to

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become a lifeguard for your patient's health and well-being. Welcome to the Health Lifelines podcast.

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Today I am so excited because we're going to be talking about an extremely important issue

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and that's why I have Dr. Bill Hang as my guest today. I'm going to have Dr. Bill Hang

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introduce himself so you can hear the true value of what he's doing to save lives in our world

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today. Dr. Hang, welcome. Well, thank you. And when you mentioned the term saving lives,

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I decided at age 15 to become a dentist and one of the reasons I did, I was a process of

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elimination and that I thought about being a physician, but I really didn't want to be

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saving lives and I didn't want to have what I was doing or not doing determine somebody,

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whether they lived or didn't. And yet my practice evolved to that was exactly what I was doing

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for the last 20 years or so of my practice. I graduated dental school at the top of my class,

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not because I was smarter than anybody because I wasn't, but I worked harder than anybody else.

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And when I got accepted into the Orthodontic Training Program at the University of Minnesota,

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I won the lottery, I was very happy about that. And so I dove into it and I took all the old journals

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back from starting the early 70s, clear back to the early 1900s and I'd scanned through them.

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Didn't, wasn't assigned to me. I just wanted to know about the profession. And I learned everything

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I was taught and I believed it passionately. I thought the people that were training me were very,

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very kind, very knowledgeable. And so when I went out to practice, I did exactly what I was taught.

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And I was, I was asked actually asked to stay and teach, which I did for a few months and then

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decided I didn't want to be an academia. But I moved to rural area in Vermont and kind of

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to get away from the cities in 1975. And I did what I was taught until I began looking at the

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faces and other people in dentistry were saying that orthodontists were destroying faces and

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causing TMJ problems. And I took great offense at this because here I was taught to do this. And

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I was taking out teeth in more than half of my patients. But when I finally looked at the faces

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when I was done, I realized that I was not producing good-looking faces. And the whole subject of

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TMJ issue, that was very controversial then, isn't controversial now. I'm firmly convinced that I

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was producing problems that way. So I started on a long continuing education process that took me,

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well, really hasn't even ended, but it started in 1981, 82. When I realized I just couldn't

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continue to practice the way I was. And I was working in a rural area in Vermont where what

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you get, what you do gets home before you get home. And if you change your practice and it doesn't

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work out, well, you might as well pack your bags and leave town. But what really happened was I

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decided to stop taking out teeth because I just couldn't stand it anymore. And yet I didn't know

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another way. So it was a very dark time in my life. But my practice actually grew because people didn't

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like the removal of teeth. And I had people coming from all over the state of Vermont to see me

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from other towns or their other orthodontists. And fortunately, some of the new things I was doing

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seemed to work out. And patients really liked it. I got into the whole reopening of extraction space

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then starting in 1989. And that wasn't something that I just woke up one day and said, oh, I'm

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going to do this. No, I had a woman who had had teeth taken out. And she had a headache pattern.

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Her face was caved in. And she was desperate. And she was 27 years of age. And she actually

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really forced me to try to reopen the space. I didn't even know it could be done.

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And I told her everything negative that might happen. I said, you might lose teeth. You might,

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I might push the teeth off the bone support. You might be into an open bite requiring jaw surgery

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to fix. I don't know. I've never seen it done. It's now I've never seen an article that said

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this could actually do this to everything I said to her. She said, I don't care.

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She literally became a human guinea pig. And so in September of 1989, I began that process for her.

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And I was able to do it. And it actually got rid of her headaches. And they've been gone ever since.

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And it changed her facial appearance dramatically to the point when she went to visit her mother

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in Florida from others and oh my gosh, you have lips because it filled her face back out.

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And that then just started one thing at another, began to reopen spaces for more people.

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And I in my practice, I had people from when I moved to California, ultimately, I had people

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from more than 30 states and several foreign countries coming because they wanted the spaces

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reopened. And it was that that and I began to learn from all of them. And believe me,

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it's I don't want anyone to think that every case where you have teeth taken out is going to

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result in some disaster. But it happens enough so that you you I just I can't I can't, you know,

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go along with any kind of retraction because of what I've learned from all these patients over the

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years. Well, you are truly my definition of an architect of change, formerly known as a traditional

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orthodontist. Well, I'm just an Eagle Scout, I like to say this, I'm an Eagle Scout. And that

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means a lot to me, I was 15 when I became an Eagle Scout. And it's like doing the right thing,

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always no matter who's watching. And that's really what I am. And people say, Well, you're,

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you have a target on your back, people don't like you, because you're doing something others

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are still doing, and you're not have you're saying you're not a not supporting what everyone else

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is doing. I said, I'll I'm doing this is when I when I even teach a course, I say,

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these are not really my ideas. This is what I've learned from listening to my patients.

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And that's how we learn. And that's how and that's why I say, Yeah, I'm just a person that is able

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to take this together and put it together, and just come up with, for me, connect the dots with

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some common sense. And that's why I do what I do. Well, you truly have stepped out of the traditional

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line that most of the world is standing in. And you've started a new line, you step aside and

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started a new line that is truly, I believe, going to impact the health and wellness of the world.

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Oh, I hope so. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I look at as a hygienist, I look at things.

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I look at my patients medical history when they come in. And when I see that they have a dished

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in face. And in talking, we, I find out they've been through traditional orthodontics with extractions.

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And they're now suffering from they snore, they have a sleep disorder. They have AFib.

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That's developed over time. They have high blood pressure. I mean, the list goes on and on and on.

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And they have a lot of imbalance. They say, I don't know what's happening, but I just don't seem to have

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the same balance that I used to do. And headaches. And when looking at their mouths, you find very narrow

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arches, even though they've had orthodontics and their airways, their Malanpatti score is

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is usually a three to four. When I asked them about how they sleep, they say, oh, I'm a terrible

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sleeper. You know, I just can't seem to get the good rest. And when we know so much now about

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the impact of all this, that can be a result, I'm not saying that 100% of the cases, a lot of this

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can be a result of a narrowed airway from traditional orthodontics. And especially with the

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influence now we have of science on Alzheimer's and heart attacks and strokes, I just think

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I just applaud you for your effort to continue to beat the drum that we've got to make some changes

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here. And so I'd like to talk a little bit more about the things that as hygienists, we can see

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on a health history. And when we look at in the mouth that can help hygienist identify patients

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that could possibly benefit from having their spaces reopened or whatever else you might recommend.

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And, you know, we want to improve the quality of their life, you know, that's, I took an oath and all

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of us hygienists took an oath just like you guys did to advance the art and science of dentistry.

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And I think that's one of the big drawbacks of sticking and maintaining your beliefs and tradition

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is that we don't advance that for patients particularly. So can we talk a little bit about

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what hygienists can look for in they do their exam because you know, as you and I talked about before,

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as hygienists, I think we're the chosen ones because we spend more time with a patient

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in a year. Oftentimes it's four quality hours and sometimes even more than that. And, you know, I just

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wow, an opportunity to shift how we take care of patients. I started a program called the lifeguard

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approach which guards and guides patients health and wellness. And my purpose is to help patients

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become their own advocate and to learn enough to start to get to that point where they step up

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and ask for help. I love to teach patients how to ask for help. And that involves having

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them become aware of the science and what their risk factors are. So I'm hoping you will help us

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take better care of patients. Well, the first thing, I mean, it's so simple and you know this,

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the patient can walk in and you can see them the way they walk. One of the biggest things is forward

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head posture. Patients hold their heads forward just to keep them able to breathe. Also tilting

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their head back, a slope back, forehead. That's somebody they're keeping their chin forward,

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trying to keep their airway open. Most people don't even know that our foreheads are supposed to be

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vertical straight up and down. But when you see a forehead tilted back at 20 or 30 degrees,

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that's someone who's struggling to keep their head forward and the chin forward to keep their

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airway open. That's simple to do. You can even look at the face and the lips are often thin. Draw

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a line in your mind from the nose to the chin and you'll see the lips are often back. The lips are

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very thin frequently. Sometimes the cheeks are flattened. The face, the chin is recessed,

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particularly if a retraction was done early on during the growth. I have articles out of the

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referee literature showing how the forward growth of the lower jaw goes on just fine. Then

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if you close some spaces up, you don't see it anymore. I look at the referee literature and

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that's proof to me. I've also seen it happen in patients that came to see me from way, way, way

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back. You can see the narrowness of the jaws. That's obvious. An intermolar width that is in

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the 20s or low 30s. We should be over 40 ideally, but very few people have that. That's simple to

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see. Wear on the teeth is frequent because a lot of times the patients are stopping breathing

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and they're grinding their teeth as a response during an apneic episode. Wear on the teeth,

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the very first thing I always want to look at. Even if you're looking at a two or three-year-old

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child with the teeth in, sometimes they've got worn down teeth by that time. That child may well

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be broxing their teeth at night having apneic episodes. Dr. Heng, what about acid reflux and

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GERD? That's a very common thing. As a patient stops breathing, they're struggling to breathe.

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Basically, they're pumping the acid out of their stomach up through the esophagus and they can have

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this yucky taste in their mouth in the morning. That's a common one to look for. You see erosion

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on the teeth. You see where they've worn it and then it's all cupped out because that's acid erosion.

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Dissolving the enamel and even the dentin away, those are simple things to see. Most of the people

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look at more in teeth and think, oh my gosh, in dentistry, we're diagnosed with a huge shortage

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of porcelain. That's not what we should be looking at. We should look at that and say, oh my gosh,

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does this person have a real breathing and sleep problem? As soon as you start down that path and

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start asking the questions, then indeed, the patient will sometimes really open up. They

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had never thought of it, but once you bring it up, then one thing flows after another one.

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Those are simple things to see. The narrower the arches and the fact that the teeth are gone,

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you don't even have to have teeth taken out to have been retracted. Headgears are still being

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used. At 1981, there was an article in the literature saying that basically upper teeth

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really don't stick out in class II patients. As a matter of fact, it says that the upper teeth,

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the upper arches often too far back rather than too far forward, and yet we continue to use headgears.

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I was trained to use them. I haven't used one since the early 80s, but they're still being taught.

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I was at a lecture not that long ago where orthodontists were recommending their use,

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and I still have journals sitting here right with me or in front of me that talk about using

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headgear to retract. These are all things that's easy to see. When you question the patient,

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they'll often say, oh yeah, I had orthodontics. I was supposed to wear a headgear and I was really

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good at it, or what I really liked was the ones who'd say, but I never wore it. I would say,

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congratulations for not doing that. You're probably better off. I was told regarding headgear

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jokingly, but he got his point across. He said, if I didn't wear it, he was going to weld it on,

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and I was only supposed to take it off for special occasions.

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When I started orthodontic training, that was something that was just had done that. They'd

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done a study where they'd put it on for 90 days. Kids wore a headgear for 90 straight days,

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24 hours a day, and they would wear it. I saw some of those patients of mine

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that I treated in my residency program. That's easy for the hygienist, and I agree with you 100%.

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The hygienists, they need to also obviously see the signs of chronic mouth breathing,

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the lipopart, the what we call the accentuate and cupid's bow appearance, the flaccid lower lip

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that's rolled out. You can see that very, very simply. The lips should be together all of the

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time at rest. The child should never have a mouth hanging on it. They should never be

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like that for sure, but even having the lips apart just like that, that's not okay. Yet,

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that was me as a kid. I have pictures of me going back sitting in a sandbox when I was three years

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old. There's a picture of me with my lips apart just a little bit. I grew up with my mouth open

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every night, my pillow wet every morning, and it would be that way even now if I didn't tape my

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mouth. I've been doing that for 12 or 13 years. Yes, I've been doing it close to six. Would you talk

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about mouth taping? I first heard Patrick McEwen talk about it, and he's the my world expert on

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breathing. And when I heard him talk about taping, I thought, why don't I try that myself?

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And I also, being an addicted runner, I have been running all these years with my mouth hanging open,

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and that's when I decided to try to run with my lips together. And when I took me, I would run a

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few hundred yards, and I'd have to stop and blow my nose, run a few more hundred yards, stop and

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blow my nose. But then, probably no more than two weeks, I was running and not stopping to blow my

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nose. My nose was beginning to work. It's like a muscle. You either use your muscle or you lose it

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if you either use your airway or you lose it. So the more you use it, you get the air going through

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there and it'll cause the nose to clear out. But you have to train yourself to do that. And then I

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even began running marathons with my lips together. And I've run the Boston Marathon many times

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with my lips together. And the last time I ran it actually did a publicity stunt. I put tape on my

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mouth and ran the whole thing and had my wife take a picture of me. And that actually appeared in the

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Sunday Times of London. And I'm not the crazy person doing that. I mean, there's another, there are

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other people that are taping it. I mean, world-class athletes have taped and are training that way.

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So it's very legitimate. And we're totally healthier when we're nasal readers. That's where, you know,

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James Nestor's book, Brath, published in 2020, number six on the New York Times bestseller list

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and published in 37 languages. I mean, that's really brought the attention of the world to

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this whole thing. And so mothers are being incredibly well informed. And they would come to my practice,

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you know, knowing a lot, which is great. And the better informed they are, that's great. So

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like when you're a hygienist and you're examining them, you'll find so many of them today are so

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much better informed that they were in the past. Oh, absolutely. Could you talk more about the

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difference in the quality of oxygen you get when you breathe through your nose as opposed to breathing

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in through your mouth? Don't you get a higher percent of utilization? Yeah, what you're really

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doing, it's called a bore effect. I'm no physiologist here, but what you're doing is you're driving up

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making it so that the oxygen in your blood does no good. You've got to get the block oxygen out

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of the hemoglobin into the cells of your body. And so by nasal breathing, what you're doing is

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you're driving up the CO2, which causes the oxygen to get to the out of the hemoglobin and into the

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cells of the body. And so, you know, you think as if you're running, oh my gosh, you're going to be

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breathing less, and you're getting more oxygen. That's the paradoxical thing. You actually get

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more oxygen by breathing less. And that's where you read that in Patrick McEwn's book,

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Breathing Cure or The Oxygen Advantage. Those are incredibly good books that every mother

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ought to read The Oxygen Advantage and make sure that her child is a nasal breather. That's

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what CAF is all about, to try to get everyone to do that. But it's paradoxical because you think,

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oh, if I breathe more, I'll get more oxygen. No, no, no, breathe less and get more oxygen.

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And I tell people to do this all the time. And I actually motivated some of my patients. I had two

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two boys that I was treating it. They didn't even know each other and it was years apart.

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But they came up to me and said very timidly kind of, by the way, Dr. Hang, I learned to run with

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my lips together. And I took a minute off of my mile time. These are kids like 10 years of age,

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and they're running in their school and they'd be time doing the mile. And that that's a highly

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motivational thing for kids to perform better. Yeah, that's awesome. When you talk about oxygen

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and that utilization, what happens to and I know this happens a lot with kids when they eat a lot

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of sugar, what happens when the sugar molecule is attached to the hemoglobin? And that's normally

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where we want all of our oxygen attached to the hemoglobin, right? So do sugar, does sugar intake

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conflict with oxygen utilization? I'm not the physiologist to answer all of that. All I know is

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that we in dentistry, we have a great position to make the kids healthier today by cutting down

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our eliminating sugar. And there's so many books that are out there on that that mothers should

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read. Robert Lustig's book, the Metabolical, is good. And anything by Robert Lustig is good.

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If you really want your kids to be healthy, you really have to have to watch what they're going

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to be eating. And so those are the pillars of health to me is what you take in by eating and

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by your breathing. And we need to that should be part of dental practices today. We are the

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literally the key to health. We are the gateway to health by what we do. If we get our kids to

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get their lips together and breathe through their nose, I believe passionately that their

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faces are going to grow more forward. And that even goes back to the 1800s. A book by George

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Catlin was called Shut Your Mouth and Save Your Life. And it was written in the 1800s. And he was

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an artist and a Western artist. And he wrote a book about this and showed that the Native Americans

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had better balanced faces than the Caucasians in his time back in the 1830s, 40s, and 50s.

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And so this is not new. But the health aspects of it, what we really what most people don't even

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know is that dentists orthodontists were treating in the primary dentition in the early 1900s.

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And one of the things that they were doing was they were doing it to create space, expanding

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both arches. And they were doing it to try to prevent mental retardation. And here we are

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talking about mental retardation today. We have Ron Harper at UCLA, a neurobiologist who's got

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studies showing brain damage with MRI evidence with just one night of reduced oxygen saturation

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for kids. And so you've got, you know, my good friend, Bill Cooper from Savannah, Georgia has

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written a book called Why African American Kids Can't Read. It's a great, very short read, but it

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really doesn't have a thing to do with the color of their skin. It has to do with the fact that

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many of them have had sleep apnea and they've got brain damage. It doesn't, whether you're black,

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white, green, purple, or it doesn't matter the color of your skin. If you've had this brain

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damage, if you've had sleep apnea, you may well have brain damage and never, never do well.

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So we have to take this as an incredibly important health thing and be serious about it.

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Oh, absolutely. You're listening to Health Lifelines, a podcast brought to you by the

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Lifeguard approach, your trusted source for insights, solutions, and training that empower

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you to become a lifeguard for your patients, health, and well-being. This episode is just a

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And now let's jump back into today's episode.

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So you mentioned lack of ability to read what other types of effects you're seeing today.

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What's the big one? The biggest thing, it's out there. And Steve Sheldon is a retired head of the

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Lurie Children's Hospital in Chicago. They're a pediatric sleep clinic. And he would say in a

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lecture, and I've heard him say this more than once, he says, I don't believe there is such a

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thing as ADHD. And he'd say, I believe it is always, and that's a really strong term for a

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researcher, to use, I believe it is always a sleep and breathing problem. Well, you look at the

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numbers. And the last time I looked, I think it was about 15% of kids are diagnosed with sleep apnea,

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or excuse me, with ADHD, and they get drugs. And so the behavioral aspects, they're bouncing around,

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the teachers want to kill them, they want them out of the class, they want them to be drugs,

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so they don't disrupt the rest of the class. And I understand that. But drugging them and making

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them into little zombies is not helping them. And for those who want to, you can go look at a

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video on YouTube called Finding Connor Deegan. Connor Deegan was a young boy in a suburban

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Chicago school, who was just about one performance away from being kicked out of his school and

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putting an institution. He was suicidal, and not a happy kid. He made it to Lurie Children's Hospital

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and saw some people there that I know very well, including Steve Sheldon and Kevin Boyd. He had

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his tonsils and abdits taken out, I believe, and he had some expansion and became a totally

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normal kid. And the video represents that. It's a very compelling video, very emotional.

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But I've seen pictures of him. Now, I've met him. He's a nice kid. I've met him after he became a

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quote normal kid before everyone was wanting to kill him. And I met some parents who had kids in

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his class. And believe me, they didn't like him. Well, why wouldn't they? He was very disruptive.

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And a lot of kids will be bullies that are like that. And so they get a lot of negative feedback.

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And so they can easily, with that negative feedback, end up on the wrong side of the law.

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They don't do well. And there are studies out of the UK showing that they don't live as long, either.

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People with ADHD. So this is above and beyond the heart attack stroke and cancer, the big three

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that everyone understands is related. Everything's related. And it's a huge, huge, huge problem.

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Well, they're now talking about the third cause of death is medical error.

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Oh, wow. Well, we better not talk about that now, had we?

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No, we better not. But it's the elephant in the room, right?

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It is the elephant in the room. And I think the basis of that is one of the things that's causing

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that is that what I appreciate about you and your approach to creating healthy human beings is that

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you are more focused on the root cause and not just the traditional

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know of what we think causes different events in lives. And I so appreciate that and that

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approach that you have. So tell us about what you're doing to impact the dental community to

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help them. You have two different organizations. And I'd like you to talk about those.

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Okay. Under the UC, this thing ortho to health behind my head here, that's our little

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we have a trademark on that. Our little emblem there means oxygen O2, ortho to health.

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But under that umbrella, we have ECHO, early childhood health centered orthodontics,

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which really is everything we're doing is non retracted. We don't want to do anything which

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retracts in any form. But the goal is to recognize the problem as early as possible and really treat

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in the early in the primary dentition. Now, orthodontists are taught that I was taught that

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you can't expand the lower arch because there's no midline sutural. We all know that. But and if

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you were to do that, you'd push the teeth off the bone support. But the fact of the matter is I began

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doing that in the mid 1980s after a head of an orthodontic department lectured about doing it.

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And Mike Durkis is his name is headed Emory University. And I've become pretty good friends.

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And I expanded my own kids. And I've done it for many other people. So we teach lateral expansion,

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but we also teach how to develop things forward. And that's part of that program. But the focus

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but the focus really is to try to treat in the primary dentition. I began doing that because I

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originally was treating the mixed dentition. And I see I take records on somebody when they were

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four or five, but not treat them until later on. And when I took records again later, I could see,

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oh, my gosh, look at how that face fell back. And that's like water under the bridge, you're never

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going to have that time again, that's growth you're never going to get. And so you're starting out

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way behind with both jobs so far back, can you get them forward or not. So that's that's one of our

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programs treating under age 10 and under our focus really is to get pediatric dentists and mainly

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general dentists who do orthotics, because sadly, the orthodontists don't seem to be wanting to do

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that, even though that was what was being done more than 100 years ago. Now, so we teach everything

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is non retractive. And that's, you know, we talk about what works and what doesn't there. And

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there's no magic wand here. There's no magic appliance. There's things that are out on the

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internet that people think are somehow magic. Well, I'm sorry. I don't believe there's magic in any

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of these appliances. And certainly, I mean, I have some patents on things that I've come up with.

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But I don't believe that my appliances are magic. It's, it's what I do with them and how I treat

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people that may help them. And that's what's really very important. age 10 and above age 10 to 110,

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I haven't had anyone 110 want to have treatment, but I'd be happy to do so for no fee whatsoever,

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just the privilege of treating somebody. I have always said anyone over 80, I would treat, you

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know, for free just for the privilege of 80 isn't sold to me anymore. But maybe I'd say 90.

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What we teach there is, and so many people have been retracted, or their faces fallen back so much,

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just because they hung their mouth open their whole life and their face fell back.

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And we have monkey studies to prove that that really happens.

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Just like I believe it happens in humans, just as it was on the experimental monkeys.

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The other thing is, in that we have, we call our ERRS group. Now, this is a term that I came,

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that my wife and I came up with, extraction, retraction, regret syndrome, ERRS as a mistake.

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It's a term we came up with many years ago, when I realized that there really was a syndrome.

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A syndrome is a collection of things, science and symptoms that seem to come together. And there are

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lots of syndromes we have in dentistry and medicine. I define this syndrome, extraction,

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retraction, regret syndrome as a constellation of aesthetic, functional, and emotional signs and

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symptoms, which are resulted from retraction. Doesn't mean that everyone who is retracted has this,

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but there are plenty of them to do. And I get people, when I've published on this and written

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articles and stuff on the internet, I get people contacting me from around the world and they

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basically identify, I am a poster child for ERRS. And they send me their records and their pictures.

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Can you help me find someone in my town? I'm sorry, I can't even find someone on your continent,

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much less in your town. I'm trying to train people. Although I have a new member in my ERRS group

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from China. And there's a huge number of people who are in China who have contacted me. They're

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at much more risk for this because they have a shorter nose. Asians have shorter noses and their

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faces appear more full. And the diagnosis, according to traditional orthotics, is that's

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by max lip intrusion, take out four teeth. And I get people literally contacting me saying,

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they can't breathe anymore. Do you have someone? I'm desperate. I can't live like this. And I

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sent you some, I sent you some adjectives that one of my patients, they're very, very, very strong

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adjectives about describing what has been done, what they look like, how it's affected their life.

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And so in that group, in the ERRS group, you know, you have the emotional part, which is really,

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that's a very big part, but you have the aesthetic part and the functional issue and pain issues

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which come by, we can show how the mandible gets trapped many times. And if you just bring the

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front teeth forward, that'll untrap the mandible and the pain pattern seems to go away. This is

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something I've learned from other people and I've done it for many, many other folks. There's lots

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of different things. Reopening the spaces may help, may help, it may not. I like to share

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a story about one of my very good patients. It was a, I saw him for the first time probably now

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10 years ago. He was a 48 year old gentleman who had grown up in the Philippines and he'd had two

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upper bicuspids taken out and he pulled back and he had literally no chin. And so my wife

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did the initial consultation with him and said, you know, here he is, he expects you to be able to

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grow his jaw forward. And, you know, he'd seen on the internet that I was able to do certain things,

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but I'm not growing an adult's jaw forward. So I went in, I actually saw him in an instant. I knew

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that this guy would have sleep apnea just looking at his face. And he'd been on blood pressure meds

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for four years. And I asked him if the cardiologist had asked him if he'd snore. No. Did he suggest a

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sleep study? No. And I took his blood pressure. It was 163 over 128, which is stratospheric. And I

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realized I didn't know it then, but I have heard it now. I should have called 911 right then. I had

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two women working in my office who had formerly worked in a cardiologist's office and they said,

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if you take somebody's blood pressure and it's that high, you're supposed to call 911. I didn't

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know that. Well, I took that and I told him what it was and I looked him square in the eye and I

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said, you need, and his cardiologist hadn't even suggested a sleep study. I said, you need a sleep

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study and you need it now or you're going to die. I think I used those words. And two days later, he

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had a sleep study now. And he had severe sleep apnea and he desaturated to 65% oxygen saturation.

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Absolutely.

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Now, later on, later on, I learned from him that when that happened, they woke him up and they

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sent him home. Now, think about it. Why would they do that? They saw the severe problem he had.

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They didn't want him to have a heart attack or stroke in their sleep clinic. I viewed this as an

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emergency for this guy. An emergency orthodontic and surgical treatment. He had no chin, his face

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was so far back. Reopening spaces for him was not going to do a thing for him. It was a surgical

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procedure he needed to have both jaws moved forward. And that's what we teach in our ERS program,

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the diagnosis and how can we help these people? Will reopening solve the problem or not? Or is

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it a surgical case? And this is terribly important to know before you even start. What your chances

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are of being successful. And by the way, I never promised one person resolution of one symptom,

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not one, ever. You're a human being. There's too many factors here. So we started him in treatment

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and we had him do surgery and he went to another city to have it done because that's the

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where the surgeon was that I worked with. 10 days post-surgery, he emails me and he says,

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Dr. Heng, I can't believe it, but my blood pressure started falling immediately.

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Down into a normal range, 120 something over 70 something. It had been stratospheric. And literally,

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it went down like that and has remained down. And this is how I learned. I mean,

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because again, I'm not a physician. I'm not a cardiologist. And as I said, I don't ever

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promise resolution of one symptom. But when you see this kind of thing happen and you begin to

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really realize how big a deal it is, and I have many what I call, oh, by the way, Dr. Heng comments,

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when I've done things for people that have given them back their tongue space and airway,

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gee, I don't fall off the treadmill anymore. Or I used to get three or four sinus infections a year

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and I haven't had any now that you reopen my spaces for me. The numbness in my hands and feet

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that I had after I had my retractable or that that's all gone. And I mean, these are things that I

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would never have known. What am I supposed to say, you know, when when somebody comes in and says,

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and I've just, for instance, I've moved the lower teeth forward a little bit in reopening some spaces,

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just barely moving them forward. And somebody comes in and says, my wife says, I'm not snoring anymore.

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And I said, well, I was supposed to say, well, your watch nuts, that can't be. No, who knows better than the patient.

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The patient knows better than I could ever know. And that's what, as a doctor, as a hygienist, we have to

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sit down, shut our mouths and listen. And that's when we learn all these good things.

373
00:43:33,440 --> 00:43:42,080
Well, and I think the other part of that too is we have to start asking quality questions

374
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:52,960
based on science, not questions. You know, I don't ask people anymore if they snore.

375
00:43:53,920 --> 00:44:02,160
I simply say, tell me about how you sleep. Okay, exactly. And I think tell me about questions

376
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:10,320
are really, really good because they elicit. Yeah, it elicits an emotional response from them.

377
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:17,680
If they're sleeping horribly, you're going to learn about it really quickly. And what I did,

378
00:44:17,680 --> 00:44:29,280
because I so believe in the value of a sleep study, I purchased a home sleep study machine

379
00:44:29,280 --> 00:44:42,160
just to use with my family and friends as a screening tool. Because I think that sleep

380
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:49,440
is such a controller of our lives that I want to know if somebody's getting great sleep or if

381
00:44:49,440 --> 00:44:55,360
they're not just because I love and care about them as a family member or a close friend. So

382
00:44:55,360 --> 00:45:01,120
yeah, it's not unusual that my friends will call me up and say, can you do a screening for me?

383
00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:12,640
Once you've opened that door, the patient really is a very appreciative. And I have to finish this

384
00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:19,760
story about this gentleman. I mean, his mother, she was from the Philippines, originally, but

385
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:25,600
I lived in Southern California and his mother contacted me just about two years ago, after I had

386
00:45:25,600 --> 00:45:30,960
left California, sadly, she said she was coming to Los Angeles and wanted to meet me and thank me

387
00:45:30,960 --> 00:45:40,400
for saving her son's life. I'm just an orthodontist. And I don't, as I said, I became a dentist

388
00:45:40,400 --> 00:45:45,600
because I didn't want to be saving people's lives. But here's someone literally saying that to me.

389
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:54,080
And it's so nice. It's so gratifying to me to have someone feel like that. And this gentleman

390
00:45:54,080 --> 00:46:02,800
actually sent me an email last summer with him and his new wife, which he never would have had,

391
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:08,480
because he had no chin. And she admitted that once she saw him, how he was before he had his

392
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:14,160
surgery, she said, I wouldn't have been interested in him. But now when he's got a chin and an airway

393
00:46:14,160 --> 00:46:19,600
and he's healthy, they got married. So he sent me a picture of them standing in front of the Golden

394
00:46:19,600 --> 00:46:24,720
Gate Bridge in San Francisco and says, this is the anniversary of my surgery. And I just want to

395
00:46:24,720 --> 00:46:30,560
thank you or remember that fateful day I walked into your office. So it makes me feel good,

396
00:46:30,560 --> 00:46:38,080
because here I am, I signed on to learn how to fill teeth and started dental school in 1966. And

397
00:46:38,080 --> 00:46:44,480
here I am later on still at it, even though I'm retired, I'm semi retired, because I'm literally

398
00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:50,320
trying to help others do what I learned to do by listening to my patients.

399
00:46:50,320 --> 00:47:02,160
Yes. And you are helping to give the two most important things that people hope for in their life.

400
00:47:02,160 --> 00:47:11,360
The first one is to be happy. The second one is to be free of their suffering.

401
00:47:13,200 --> 00:47:20,400
And so I hugely acknowledge you for what you do and how you take care of people and your

402
00:47:21,520 --> 00:47:30,480
persistence and your relentlessness to get your approach out there to help people.

403
00:47:30,480 --> 00:47:39,200
All right. So tell us about what do you think there's lots of general dentists doing orthodontics

404
00:47:39,200 --> 00:47:46,720
now. How can either of your groups, if they would to join your groups, how can they help

405
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:56,880
their patients get healthier and help them live a long and healthy lifespan?

406
00:47:56,880 --> 00:48:03,600
That's a great question. Let's talk about the echo group first, because my target there is

407
00:48:04,240 --> 00:48:09,520
general dentists doing ortho and more than that, the pediatric dentists have the skills

408
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:17,280
to treat the brilliant kids. Well, I have more than one practice, whether one general dentist

409
00:48:17,280 --> 00:48:23,520
and pediatric dentist, all they do now is airway treatment. They don't get a handpiece out,

410
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:28,800
they don't put stainless steel crowns on teeth, they're not fighting the sugar wars anymore.

411
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:36,880
So you can literally have a practice where that's all you do and feel very gratified in doing it

412
00:48:36,880 --> 00:48:42,480
and have people come from great distances, because sadly there's no, there's not competition, but

413
00:48:42,480 --> 00:48:46,320
even though the American Dental Association mandated screening for airway issues

414
00:48:46,320 --> 00:48:53,600
seven and a half years ago, it's still not commonplace. So there's plenty of room for growth.

415
00:48:53,600 --> 00:49:01,040
The other aspect is the adults and the people who've been retracted, reopening extraction spaces,

416
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:06,880
adding bi-cuspids where no teeth are missing, that sounds completely crazy to most people.

417
00:49:06,880 --> 00:49:10,800
You think, oh, if you try to do that, you're going to push the teeth off the bone support

418
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:16,640
and lose teeth and the answer to that is, well, no, the answer is no, if that were happening,

419
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:23,600
I wouldn't be doing it. So my goal is to train people to be confident to do those things. And

420
00:49:23,600 --> 00:49:29,120
my mentorship is truly that. You can't just give this stuff out in a two-day lecture,

421
00:49:29,120 --> 00:49:34,480
I've tried that, and have someone do it. You have to hold their hand. It takes many times

422
00:49:35,040 --> 00:49:40,080
hearing the same message many times. Oh my gosh, I've heard that person lecture before.

423
00:49:40,080 --> 00:49:44,400
He may have said that a year ago, but I never understood that. And I've had that happen in

424
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:50,400
my own life. So I know that I need to have a mentorship where I'm holding somebody's hand,

425
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:54,960
they present their cases on an internet forum to me, I get up in the morning and I go,

426
00:49:54,960 --> 00:49:59,520
I have breakfast and then I go to my computer and I'm responding to those people every day

427
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:06,000
and trying to help them. And they post their cases before they treat. And then during the

428
00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:11,120
treatment so that they get support. And I may sometimes I'll get on the phone with them and

429
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:16,160
say, Hey, this is, you got a problem here, you need to be doing such and such. So it's

430
00:50:17,040 --> 00:50:24,080
in our lives, we want to, we rise on the shoulders of those who came before us. And we,

431
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:29,520
as they say, we need to pay it forward. And that's what I'm trying to do. I've had mentors that have

432
00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:35,600
helped me along the way. And more than anything, I've learned from my patients and I just want

433
00:50:35,600 --> 00:50:41,600
to make that, I don't want to go to my grave with the ideas that I have that can help other people

434
00:50:41,600 --> 00:50:48,160
that made my life fun and my practice fun because I did get so much positive feedback and I had a

435
00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:54,160
lot of fun doing it. I want others to have that same experience. But more than that, it makes

436
00:50:54,160 --> 00:51:03,920
me feel great to have someone write me an email even after I'm retired. This happened not infrequently

437
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:11,040
where someone on my former patients gets my email address and they contact me and they may ask me,

438
00:51:11,040 --> 00:51:16,720
GD, you know, somebody in such and such an area, because I have a relative there that I want to

439
00:51:16,720 --> 00:51:27,440
see have done what you did for my child, whatever. Well, you are the epitome of a compassionate

440
00:51:27,440 --> 00:51:37,280
person. And I so want to thank you for all that you do. And I would encourage listeners

441
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:48,240
to contact Dr. Hang and both of his groups, check them out and really do this on behalf of your

442
00:51:48,240 --> 00:52:03,040
patients. And the oath that you've taken to never do any harm. Yeah, I went through a very dark

443
00:52:03,040 --> 00:52:10,960
time in my life and I put this out there for others. When I first started down this path in

444
00:52:10,960 --> 00:52:16,000
the early 80s and was going to continuing education courses all the time, and I still had patients

445
00:52:16,000 --> 00:52:24,320
that I had teeth taken on, it was a very hard time for me. And I had a lot of guilt and I got

446
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:28,560
professional help for that, which is important. And I needed to share that with other people,

447
00:52:28,560 --> 00:52:35,600
because there was a time when I thought I would end my life. I didn't even know back in those

448
00:52:35,600 --> 00:52:40,320
days in the 80s that people had to breathe. Let's be honest, I was straightening teeth,

449
00:52:40,320 --> 00:52:46,480
taught it to line up teeth and make them fit like gears. When I realized almost 30 years ago,

450
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:53,520
the impact that the airway had on this whole thing, that's when it became, oh my gosh, really

451
00:52:54,080 --> 00:53:01,840
crazy. And I was happy by that time in my life that I had long since quit any form of retraction,

452
00:53:01,840 --> 00:53:07,680
wasn't taking out teeth, wasn't using headgears. But what people have to understand is,

453
00:53:07,680 --> 00:53:12,560
there's going to be a guilt for people who decide they want to change, there's going to be a guilt

454
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:18,320
feeling. What you have to say is, okay, fine, that's then and this is now. I did that then,

455
00:53:18,880 --> 00:53:26,240
that was accepted. And I can no longer do that. And you can't worry about what you did yesterday,

456
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:32,480
because you can't, to some degree, you can't change it, although reopening spaces is something

457
00:53:32,480 --> 00:53:39,600
that you could do. But it's a very emotional thing. And I've gone through it. So I can see it and

458
00:53:40,400 --> 00:53:44,800
people's faces when I have a conversation with them. And I know they're going through this problem.

459
00:53:45,520 --> 00:53:51,600
But as one of my very good mentors, Omer Reed, and you know his name, Dr. Omer Reed,

460
00:53:51,600 --> 00:53:59,200
used to say, if it's been done, it's probably possible. I like that one. And one of the other

461
00:53:59,200 --> 00:54:05,440
things that he would say is, I'm here to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.

462
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:14,240
Those are great homerisms. And I learned so much from him. And that's what I'm here to do is to

463
00:54:14,240 --> 00:54:19,120
comfort the afflicted. I've been that person. But I'm also to afflict the comfortable and say,

464
00:54:19,120 --> 00:54:23,200
you know, you may want to look at this in a different way. Because to be honest,

465
00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:28,720
you know, what we learned in dental school, there's I have one quote out of the literature

466
00:54:28,720 --> 00:54:33,760
I'm an academic from the State University of New York in Buffalo, talking to years ago,

467
00:54:33,760 --> 00:54:40,400
an article that said about 8% of what we do in dentistry is evidence based. What a way to end

468
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:45,840
that this interview by saying that when we when people say, Oh, I have an evidence based practice.

469
00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:53,520
Really? Nobody has an evidence based practice. They don't exist. Let's be honest. Yeah. Yeah.

470
00:54:54,560 --> 00:55:04,080
Well, this has been an amazing discussion here today. I want to thank you for your time and

471
00:55:04,080 --> 00:55:10,720
all the effort you've put in over the past. And I encourage anybody that's listening,

472
00:55:10,720 --> 00:55:18,080
be like Dr. Hang, step out of line, and really and truly make a difference,

473
00:55:18,720 --> 00:55:37,360
and save the lives of your patients and bring that emotional aesthetic and pain problems to an end that they have. So, thank you so much, Dr.

474
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:45,120
Hang. Thank you. One thing I want to say before we stop here is you and I both share the

475
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:50,640
distinction of being on the advisory board for the Children's Airway First Foundation.

476
00:55:51,280 --> 00:56:02,000
And that helps to drive a lot of what both you and I believe in and I encourage everyone to go to

477
00:56:02,000 --> 00:56:16,000
Children's Airway First.org and check out the website, Meet the Executive Director, Rebecca St. James. We have a great

478
00:56:16,000 --> 00:56:24,960
mama bear that will help you with challenges that you have with your kids. And they'll even help you find someone like Dr.

479
00:56:24,960 --> 00:56:33,760
Hang if it's possible in your area. So go ahead. Also, read Candy Spark's book, Mom's

480
00:56:33,760 --> 00:56:40,640
Street Saved My Brain. It was just released a couple of weeks ago and it tells a very compelling story that everyone should read.

481
00:56:40,640 --> 00:56:51,920
I'm very, I'm promoting that book to everybody right now. Yes. Mom, Save My Brain and it's available on Amazon and in other

482
00:56:51,920 --> 00:57:00,400
bookstores all over the place. So thank you again, Dr. Hang. I hope to see you soon. Okay, thanks so much. Bye now.

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That's it for today's episode of Health Lifelines, brought to you by the Lifeguard Approach. I hope you found

484
00:57:08,320 --> 00:57:15,760
inspiration and actionable insights to support you and your patients' journeys towards better health and more fulfilling lives.

485
00:57:15,760 --> 00:57:23,040
Remember, every small step you take today builds the foundation for a healthier tomorrow.

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00:57:24,720 --> 00:57:32,560
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to rate, review, and share the podcast with someone who could benefit from it.

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00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:42,480
Your support helps us reach more listeners and grow this community of health-conscious individuals and dental professionals focused on becoming

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00:57:42,480 --> 00:57:54,320
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00:57:55,360 --> 00:58:03,120
Also, follow us on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn at the Lifeguard Approach. Thank you for tuning in.

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00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:10,320
Until next time, stay informed, stay inspired, and keep showing up as a Lifeguard for your patients

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at every single appointment.