The Root of the Matter

Sleep Apnea and Dentistry: Unlocking the Airway Connection with Dr. Casey Jones

• Dr. Rachaele Carver, D.M.D. Board-Certified, Biologic, Naturopathic Dentist • Season 3 • Episode 4

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Dr. Casey Jones joins me to uncover the fascinating interplay between dentistry and sleep apnea. Her journey from a professional dancer to a devoted dentist is deeply influenced by personal experiences with obstructive sleep apnea, including witnessing her grandfather’s struggles. We promise that you’ll understand how snoring might be more than just nighttime noise and why dentists are crucial allies in identifying and managing sleep apnea. From advancements in treatments like the Inspire device to the intricacies of breathing techniques, Dr. Jones's insights illuminate the path toward better healthcare outcomes.

Our conversation doesn’t stop at sleep apnea. Dr. Jones delves into the importance of comprehensive screenings for oral cancer and airway health in dental practice, challenging the norms of addressing jaw issues and teeth grinding. She shares compelling cases where early intervention made a significant difference, especially in children, advocating for a proactive approach to prevent future health complications. We explore the connections between breathing patterns, dental health, and overall wellness, examining how improper dental appliances might exacerbate sleep problems.

We wrap up with an exploration of breathing techniques that can transform health. From box breathing to myofunctional therapy exercises, Dr. Jones offers practical strategies that enhance not only sleep but also mental and physical well-being. The discussion emphasizes the necessity of collaboration between dental professionals and sleep specialists to ensure holistic patient care. This episode is a treasure trove of knowledge, bridging the gap between dental practice and sleep health to foster better living through understanding and innovation in breathing and wellness.

Ready to connect with Dr. Jones? 

https://inspireddentalwellness.com/

Follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drcaseyjones/

Follow her on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dr.caseyjones7564

To learn more about holistic dentistry, check out Dr. Carver's website:

http://carverfamilydentistry.com

To contact Dr. Carver directly, email her at drcarver@carverfamilydentistry.com

Want to talk with someone at Dr. Carver's office?  Call her practice: 413-663-7372

Reverse Gum Disease In 6 Weeks! With Dr. Rachaele Carver Online Course!

Learn more about here: https://reversegumdiseaseinsixweeks.info/optinpage



Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. Before using any products mentioned or attempting methods discussed, please speak with a licensed healthcare provider. This podcast disclaims responsibility from any possible adverse reactions associated with products or methods discussed. Opinions from guests are their own, and this podcast does not condone or endorse opinions made by guests. We do not provide guarantees about the guests' qualifications or credibility. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

Dr. Carver:

Welcome back to another episode of the Root of the Matter. I am your host, dr Rachel Carver, and I am thrilled to have my friend and colleague on today, dr Casey Jones, who's recently come back to our wonderful area in Berkshire County and she has a real expertise in kind of sleep apnea, snoring and we've talked a little bit about this before on the podcast. But this is becoming a real issue and I think in dentistry we have really neglected this for a very long time because we didn't understand and also as dentists, technically we cannot diagnose sleep apnea, which seems bizarre since it's all in the head and neck, which is our realm, and so there's a lot of dentists who have seen this and there's some amazing foundations and organizations that really teach us a lot about sleep. But I think you know for patients to understand that snoring, although it's common, isn't necessarily normal and that we shouldn't maybe ignore that. So, Dr Jones, thank you so much for coming on, and why don't you tell us a little bit about your story and why you found this interest?

Dr. Jones:

in. First of all, dr Carver, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here. I think you're amazing and everything you're doing to raise awareness is fantastic.

Dr. Jones:

I was thinking about this last night for what drove me to be interested in obstructive sleep apnea and how it connects to dentistry, and I feel like that could be an hour long talk in and of itself. I'll try to give some snapshots. And it wasn't just one thing, it's been lots of things in a journey along the way. First of all, in college I first got interested to do research in obstructive sleep apnea because I would see my grandpa fall asleep in the chair, stop breathing and then to wake up, and it has been that long that we've really known about obstructive sleep apnea, so that was my first exposure to it. And at first we were doing research to try to develop like a pacemaker for the tongue to stiffen and get out of the airway, which it's fascinating that now exists in Inspire, which is not something that I do, but it is actually like a pacemaker for the tongue. And then later fast forward and I, at the end of my dance career in New York City, decided that I wanted to go back into research. So I did research again in obstructive sleep apnea. They were trying to figure out how to train the positive airway pressure machines to calibrate themselves in real time instead of them having to go back to a sleep position. And amazingly that now exists as well an automatic positive airway pressure therapy. So that's fascinating as well. But I hated it because it was the first time that I would go into work. I had no people interaction. I was sitting in front of computers scoring these breaths and it's great to have that knowledge of how they're looking at the things. That it wasn't for me. So I went back into dance and then figured out that I wanted to be a dentist and I still have carried this interest and I guess I gave a talk while I was in dental school on it, which I don't even remember doing.

Dr. Jones:

And then later my child was struggling because he was still wetting the bed not wetting the bed but in pull-ups, and no interest or caring. That was the case. His younger sister was out and there was nothing wrong with him, but he was restless, sleeping, and it was an airway issue. And once we put him in the myobrace, within a few nights he was able to sleep through the night, dry pull-up, and all of that can be related. So that was another touch point.

Dr. Jones:

And then for myself, I've always been a dysfunctional breather and just not known it. So if I am sleeping on my back, I have moderate sleep apnea and it can be positional, but I don't sleep on my back, so I'm not considered bad enough. Positional, but I don't sleep on my back, so I'm not considered bad enough. And yet I was waking up 3, 4, 10 tonight without feeling rested. I had asthma as a child, allergies as a child, just so many different things that pointed to dysfunctional breathing, which I believe is the precursor to obstructive sleep apnea.

Dr. Jones:

So I, during the pandemic, picked up the books by Patrick McEwen again Close your Mouth, and then the Oxygen Advantage, and I was on a jog and I came back and wrote in my journal that I wanted to teach the world to breathe and I thought that makes no sense, because I'm a dentist, there's no codes for that. How do you do that that? And yet I trained with him in the Oxfamage method and then in the Buteyko Clinic breathing methods, and so that's been several years now and I incorporate that all the time because I see so much more decay, more gum disease. I see so many more systemic issues in these people that are maybe mouth breathing or maybe have undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea, and the way that you put it was that we've ignored this for so long in dentistry. And I don't know if that's exactly true, because I think it's such a huge conversation and such a huge area to open up that if I had anything to fall back on that had been secure in the last several years, I definitely would have jumped back to the dentistry that I've known because it's easier.

Dr. Jones:

But at the time in my journey I was in North Carolina and I moved there right before the pandemic hit, and six months in I was let go due to a lack of work related to the pandemic and I just ended up filling in various offices. I've been in 40 different offices working as a dentist. I've gotten to see and learn a lot, but I've also had the time to get my American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine. I've become a diplomat and just really dove into this and tried to figure out okay, what is this? How do we open these conversations with patients? And then how do you get this into an already busy disc where we're looking at so many things. And now here we have to get to I shouldn't say have to, but we get to look at another possible root cause of everything that's going on and at least empower the patients to make the decision on if they want to explore it.

Dr. Carver:

It's so true and, like the new patient, exam has gone from half an hour to 45 minutes to an hour and a half because, you're right, there's so much when you start thinking about root cause of problems. We cannot ignore the airway, right, it's right there. And I was getting frustrated recently I have had so many patients come in with joint issues and I was like I, just like you, I did that Dawson Academy about eight, nine years ago and I was like I think I need a refresher and I remember, after finishing that in like 2015, I'll never forget the one story and maybe they told it while you were two about how each of them Dr Dawson first, and then Glenn and then Whit they all had this one patient and he kept destroying all of the crowns that they kept and each dentist was like I can do it better and I can do it better, yeah, and they would all break. And I remember that stuck with me because I was like afterwards I was like you know what? That patient had an airway issue and they didn't realize it. That's why he kept breaking it. It wasn't that their dentistry was poor, right, it was that they weren't addressing the airway issue. So he was really rexing and destroying all that porcelain because of an airway issue. And now so I recently was there a couple of weeks ago, went down for the TMD and airway course and they know now they said, yeah, we were missing this huge piece.

Dr. Carver:

So people who have a lot of joint issues, we've got to screen them for the sleep issues. And then we've got to think about, okay, if there is an issue with sleep, we need to address that before we can fix the joint issue. And then it's interesting and we'll probably get into it right. I like the way they divided it. So do we manage the airway problem or do we resolve the airway problem? And those are two different things. And again, that really depends on that conversation with the patient and what they're willing to do.

Dr. Carver:

We've talked about this on the podcast with other doctors our other colleague Ballinger when we catch them when they're little, right, she's a pedodontist and that's where she loves to live and she wants to see them before age six, right, because if we get them at the earliest stage, we can prevent all of this sleep apnea and all these joint issues, which is amazing. But once we get to adulthood, the thought of wearing all these expanders and all these crazy things. Some patients are like I just I don't want to go through that. So then those are. The patients were like okay, then we're going to go management, but, like you said, it's, how do you start talking about this?

Dr. Carver:

So one of the goals of the podcast is to create awareness, because I want patients to be their own best doctor or dentist, whatever it may be, so that if you are a snorer or you've been diagnosed with sleep apnea, maybe you hate your CPAP right, that's still the gold standard. Many people cannot tolerate that, so they just live with the sleep apnea. People cannot tolerate that, so they just live with the sleep apnea right, which we know leads to so many chronic issues. So we've got to start creating more awareness among dentists. And again, it's hard to do everything in dentistry. As a general dentist, you got to be able to pick and choose. You can't be the expert in everything, and so it's nice to have colleagues like you and the endodontist and Dr Brown, like all these people who I say I do know a lot, but I can't be the expert in everything. I'm so happy that you're back in the area and you're taking this on. So tell me a little bit. If a patient comes to you, how are you screening them for any sleep issues?

Dr. Jones:

Yes, yes. So essentially I've developed what I call an oral cancer and airway screening, because I was always looking at the airway when I was doing the oral cancer screening anyway. So I start with them sitting up and I basically just have them open their mouth and I look and we have what we call a Malampati or Freeman score. They're both very similar. But I'm essentially looking at is there much space between their tongue and the roof of the mouth when they're awake? And if there isn't, then they have a small airway to begin with, and that airway can collapse even more when they fall asleep. So that's one thing where they can just be high risk. Simply from how they're built, that airway can collapse. There's no bony structure to hold the airway open. Aside from that, I may see a big tongue when they open. If their tongue goes all the way over their teeth, then they've got a big car in a very small garage and you'll often see the scalloping. It almost looks like the pinking shears went around the tongue and that's the tongue pushing out to try to get out of the airway, but there isn't room. I often see acid erosion on the teeth because there's reflux. They're trying to breathe and that acid will get pushed up. I see a lot of wear because oftentimes they're trying to open up the airway, or the body's super smart and its goal is to keep you alive, and in order to do that it will either wake you up to breathe or it may try to even just do CPR at night and bring that job forward. But if it's constantly coming forward and the teeth get in the way, we'll see lots of wear. And so people may not be aware of the grinding, they may not be aware of waking up, because sometimes the body just wakes that person up enough to be able to breathe and then they fall back asleep, and so it never gets into that restful sleep, into the REM that we need. And it's such a huge puzzle because it's not always just here. It might be here. They may have difficulty breathing through their nose, they may not breathe through their nose, and so their mouth may be open while they're sleeping. If their mouth is open while they're sleeping, it's going to close off the airway even more, because the jaw goes back, and so if you're breathing that way, you're also breathing more air in. So if you imagine drinking through a straw and you suck really hard, it's going to collapse, whereas if you're more gentle in how you're sucking through that straw, it's going to stay open. Same thing happens when we're breathing through our mouth. If we're breathing a lot of air in an airway that is prone to collapsing is going to be more likely to collapse than someone who's maybe breathing gently through their nose, and that airway can stay open. Not to mention that breathing through our nose helps to use our diaphragm, which helped airway open.

Dr. Jones:

There's so many pieces to it and that's what's so fascinating to me. When you brought up the jaw joint issues you're bringing up so many good things. Yes, we see a lot of joint issues in people who are also suffering from obstructive sleep apnea. Some of that's the grinding, some of it can be other things, and sometimes it's a chicken before the egg. Which one happened first. But if we put oftentimes if we put a traditional appliance in the mouth in order to treat just the grinding of the teeth and protect the teeth, usually the goal of that is to relax the jaw, which then causes the jaw to fall back more and that's going to close off the airway even more. So when someone who does have undiagnosed obstructive sleep apnea, trying to help to protect their teeth can actually make it worse for their breathing, and so it's really.

Dr. Jones:

I think one of the questions that you asked me when I was looking to prepare for this is should everyone have a sleep study? And I don't know if everyone should, but I do think it should be a lot more common than it is. I had a patient the other day where I just saw her for one of her well visits. I came in to do the exam and I started doing my oral cancer and airway screening. I'm also doing all this stuff. And I start saying has anyone ever told you that you snore? And she said we've already had this conversation. You did this last time. And I said I know I do it every time. And she said no, but I had the sleep study done and I had moderate to severe obstructive sleep apnea and she had no idea it's this fit female. She, her physician, didn't know. And you bring up that if we can get to these children when they're six or younger, then we can make changes in how they grow.

Dr. Jones:

But because I was one that was struggling, I believe there's hope and I think there's always something that you can do, and so we both did the Dawson Academy training, and one of the biggest things I took out of that is the Wydium rule.

Dr. Jones:

Would I do it on myself? And so I always will try it on myself. So, whether that is, I've trained in the homeoblock. I've trained in the Soma appliance. I am currently in some clear aligners right here I'm my own puzzle, trying to figure it out, trying to figure out what is the best way to do this. I've gone through the training to have functional breathing. I then realized that if I'm teaching breathing, I can't not teach myofunctional therapy. So then I trained in myofunctional therapy and I will often see a patient and just give them, you know, maybe three exercises in order to start to raise the awareness on their tongue. I've put videos on our website under patient resources to try to give some resources so that people can go away and educate themselves and then come back to me with questions and figure out do they want to continue this conversation? Because it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot to figure out and no one's the same.

Dr. Carver:

Yeah, what you bring up is such an important point for any dentist who may be listening to this. You know we were taught we weren't taught much about joint issues or nothing really about airway at all in dental school and but we were taught to make guards Right. If there's grinding, just throw a guard. So you make a really important point that I think needs reiterating that when we see where we really need to understand, why is there where that's my biggest thing always why? Because if we really don't understand where it's coming from, not only could we not be helping, we could be making matters worse. So I think this was fascinating when I learned this years ago that, oh my gosh, these guards could actually be increasing sleep problems Because, again, if they're really slippery and the teeth are able to slide around, yes, we could be causing that airway to fall back. So that's why it was great in the course I just took that when we see somebody with a joint issue or were that, we need to screen for the airway first, because, again, we don't want to just make. There are lots of different kinds of splints that you can make. So it's really again important Is this a TMD patient with airway or a TMD without Because you're going to treat them differently. And so, again, having that awareness of what exactly is the issue, right? So do we need a device that holds the jaw forward, versus just something that is, if they're not an airway case, then we can make something like a B splint, which is a typical guard that just has even contacts all around and the idea of that is to stop take the pressure off all those muscles. Again, it's really important to do this thorough evaluation, because worn teeth is one thing, but not being able to breathe is a whole other issue. You talked a lot about the mouth breathing, right, and if we are mouth breathing and we're in that sympathetic nervous system all the time, it shuts down our digestion, which impacts our immunity. It's a really big deal.

Dr. Carver:

I thought it was interesting Maybe you can elaborate a little bit when you said like asthma, so some things in childhood might be a precursor to sleep apnea. We certainly know that teenagers who got their teeth extracted to have straight teeth, all of those people end up with sleep apnea, right? Because when it used to be, we called it four on the floor oh there's crowding, let's just take the teeth out. And then what happened? They shoved everything back, so everybody with that. Unfortunately, their teeth may be straight. A lot of them not, though, right, because we didn't really address the whole issue. Tell me a little bit about that, the precursor. I'm interested to learn more about that.

Dr. Jones:

Yeah, so, like I said, dysfunctional breathing can look like a lot of things, so it could be for me. I did have asthma, I did have allergies, so for me that meant that I was. I didn't realize that I was bad, but I would be breathing through my mouth and you can breathe through your nose, you can retrain it, you can do that. I guess a lot of times I'm saying that we can fix the structure. But just because we fix something and it may not be we, it might be an ENT that does nasal fixes, the structure of the nose, for example but if you don't address what's causing that problem to begin with, then nothing's going to change. So I guess with asthma, what I would say is that I was on medications and I had sometimes exercise induced a lot of allergies as a child. I did have allergy shots as a child and stuff. So it helped to address my breathing, but I didn't realize that I was still. You can be breathing up in your chest a lot, so I wasn't necessarily breathing down deep enough to be able to be using my diaphragm, and that can be related to anxiety as well and going off on a tangent. But when we don't breathe through our nose, we don't get to use the nitric oxide that we produce naturally in our sinuses, which does so many cool things, including disinfecting the air. It's been shown to fight the virus that causes COVID. But if we're not breathing through our nose, we don't get the benefit of all the wonderful things that our nose does. Nitric oxide being produced in our sinuses is just one of those things. But if I was so stuffy that I wasn't able to use my nose, then I was sick more often and I was sick a lot and that affected my breathing. I was the child that was messy sheets everywhere and I would wake up in the middle of night. I would go into my parents' room. I couldn't sleep. I would sleep on the ground just so that I could fall asleep again. There's a picture of me on my bed with one leg down even because that's how much I had moved around in my bed. So I think that it was happening all throughout my life and again, I'm not that bad, so you wouldn't think of it and I've always been fit. I've been a dancer.

Dr. Jones:

But sometimes even in the people that exercise, it could be as simple as you're not breathing. When you breathe in, you want to expand like a jellyfish and then, when you breathe out, everything collapses. And if you're constantly holding your core, you're not ever going to be able to be using the diaphragm in the way that you want to. So again, so many pieces of the puzzle, but yawning can be a sign of over-breathing Sighing frequently.

Dr. Jones:

There's ways that the body will trick us into breathing more air than we need to, and it's so interesting. Just like anything or a lot of things, right now we are overdoing it. So, whether we're overeating, whether we're over breathing, you actually can learn to breathe less. And if you breathe less, you can breathe more efficiently. And as you breathe more efficiently, you will start to breathe better at night as well, because if you're breathing badly during the day, absolutely going to be breathing badly.

Dr. Jones:

And so if we can address the breathing along with the other stuff, sure, I'm going to recommend the positive airway pressure therapy, I'm going to recommend the appliance, we're going to do the things to help you be able to breathe, but we're also going to need to fix that root cause. If you're willing Not everyone is but if you're willing to do the myofluxial therapy and the breath-free training along with all of that. I try to incorporate that into every appliance that I do. I give them morning exercises when they do their AM aligner to try to prevent jaw changes, teeth changes, bite changes, all of that. We are trying to minimize any side effects but ultimately we want you to be able to breathe.

Dr. Carver:

That's really important and I've recently really discovered that too. Before I was thinking sleep apnea, we'd look in the mouth and looking at the structures. Oh yeah, we're doing a CBCT, a 3D x-ray. You could see whoa, that airway is so narrow. But I started to realize the more I would do these 3D x-ray. You could see whoa that airway is so narrow. But I started to realize the more I would do these 3D x-rays. I was like, wow, some patients have a huge airway yet they have sleep apnea or vice versa, the narrow airway.

Dr. Carver:

And then I was doing a lot of my laser training. One of the reasons you can have the airway obstruction rise, the soft palate collapses. Sometimes you see the uvula really stretchy. So the laser is a great non-invasive way to go in there and help stimulate the collagen to pull that up. But it made me think, okay, this is good, but there's more to it than just the structure. Because then I would see a patient who's yes, I want to do the laser, and I'd look at their throat, their soft palate looked beautiful. There was no stretching of the uvula and I would think is this really a structural issue? And then I was like I think this is more breathing issue, and so I started doing more research too, and it was like started having all of my patients who if they get the laser, then they also get all the breath training Right, and like there's great YouTube videos. You have amazing resources which we'll link to at the end here and in the show notes.

Dr. Carver:

But so, right, and I was really interested in my breathing because I was like, oh man, I feel when, at the end of the day, I'll be driving home and I'm yawning like crazy or sighing, and so I was like I think I'm not breathing properly, especially when we're at work, we're concentrating so hard and I hold my breath my husband would say I'd hold my breath at night sometimes too and so I was able to find this little device called OXA, which now they've sold company, so I don't know if you can get this anymore, but it was like a little breathing belt and I started wearing it during the day and ideally right, according to the experts, right, we want to breathe about six to 10 breaths a minute. I was breathing 17. I was like, no wonder I'm exhausted when I'm, when, maybe why I snore more often, and so it's fascinating. And so now during the day, like you said you have to do it during the day. Right, the more that we can learn how to breathe properly during the day, the better we'll sleep at night.

Dr. Carver:

Because I was looking at myself in the middle of my workday but then, even at night, I was like, oh, I'm still breathing a lot and I notice when I track it, when I start breathing better during the day and I practice, I'm getting better and better at night, which is so important. Right, because we need to get into those deeper parts of sleep, like REM and deep sleep, if we want our body to be able to repair and heal from all the nonsense that is in our life all day long. I think this is a really important part to the sleep picture. We've got to make sure we're breathing properly, training the tongue properly, because again we've got to, these devices are great and they're helping, but again they're managing and ideally, we want more resolution. So when we can stack, when biohacking they always talk about stacking things. So this is what I think we're stacking the deck, we're doing anything. The physical stuff, the breathing stuff, all of these combined are going to give us the biggest bang for our buck.

Dr. Jones:

Yeah, and I think it's so many good things. You're saying. Atomic Habits, I think, is a book that I love that talks about putting habits with other things. You're already doing so as dentists.

Dr. Jones:

I think there's so many things that put us at risk for dysfunctional breathing or maybe even obstructive sleep apnea Because we're talking all day. That's part of our profession, right, and that is a form of over-breathing. You can't avoid it. But it does affect how we're breathing, how much air we're giving out, taking in all of that, and so it's resetting that throughout the day, doing things at night to help with that. Some of it you can't avoid. In addition, our posture is constantly looking down. There's cool loops now you can use. I haven't dove into those yet but with with having that posture, I would notice that during certain things I would start to really concentrate and I would open my mouth and push my tongue towards a certain tooth for some reason, and every time I did that I would end the day with a headache and I realized that I was switching to mouth breathing. I was was changing my pattern, and as soon as I recognized that and switched that, it helped tremendously, because posture is also related to breathing, and I've started training with the Postural Restoration Institute. That's amazing. I didn't even know that there was pelvic floor therapy. I did some of that because that also helped me to be able to breathe with my diaphragm.

Dr. Jones:

There's so many practitioners, so many pieces that can help put this together, and that's what I love to do is collaborate and figure out what are those pieces. So when I do my intake for doing a sleep appliance, for example, I'm also looking at the nose. So I will ask people to inhale and see do their nostrils close when they do that? Because if this is closing off every time you breathe in, then that's going to be your limiting during, and you could try something like a mute nasal dilator. Or some patients love this new product called Hale. I think there's a few different types of it, but you could try something reversible, even a breathe right strip, to see if opening up your nose is going to help to. You know, open up the airway and be able to breathe. It could be a piece.

Dr. Jones:

I'm not going to fix your nose as far as the structure, but if that's something that needs to be addressed, let's try something that's reversible first. Same thing with the appliance let's try something. I'm always of the stand of. Let's try something that we know that we can just take out and reverse and then figure out if that's going to work for you before we jump into surgery and other things. So let's get you as well as we can with myofunctional therapy, with breath retraining, all of those things that, if you want to take that into your hands and empower yourself to become healthier, I'd love to partner with you. There's just so many pieces to it and we'll even like test. Do you have trouble breathing through your nose and then I'll treat, I'll teach the natural nose clearing exercise that Patrick McEwen does, where you take a normal breath in and a normal breath out of your nose.

Dr. Jones:

You pinch your nose and you gently nod your head up and down as many times as you can, holding your breath after you breathe out, and then, as soon as you have to take a breath, like you've been swimming as long as you can, then you're going to let go and breathe through your nose and if that makes you feel less stuffy when you do it, then you can do that as many times as you want, because that will help train you to have that airway open, be able to breathe through your nose. And the more you can breathe through your nose, the easier it becomes to breathe through your nose. There's rebound stuffiness. If you don't use it you lose it. And if you can breathe through your nose, it depends on who you ask. But if you can breathe through your nose for a minute, you can breathe through your nose for life. Other people say three minutes for life. But either way, we want to make sure that nose isn't obstructed, because there are ways to take the mouth closed at night. We haven't even talked about that and sometimes that will help people to stop snoring, because if you snore through your nose then if you breathe more lightly you can't make that same noise, but if you're breathing through your mouth and you close your mouth, you can't make that noise, and so for some people, just closing the mouth will actually make more room in that airway, because now it's not closing it off, and so there are so many different ways to do it and I'm always cautious about telling anyone to do it. You can always try it during the day. But Patrick McKeon developed MyoTape, which does go around the lips, so there's nothing to actually keep you from opening.

Dr. Jones:

Great way to start. You can take a little bit of Micropore tape and put it this way so you could still breathe out of the sides if you needed to. I do it every single night. I'm not saying that people need to do this, because it's very important that you be able to breathe through your nose. You don't want to be nauseous. Obviously you don't drink before. There's so many things that as practitioners, we need to be careful, just recommending that to everyone. So you want to make sure that you can breathe through your nose, but it's been as simple as that for some patients I had yesterday and she was like, oh my gosh taping.

Dr. Carver:

What a difference she's. I can't believe it is so simple, it's great. But I also warn them. I'm like don't do this at night, like I did when I first started. I would start ripping it off in the middle of the night because I was not used to and I was using the micropore. It wasn't like it was duct tape, but my brain was not used to breathing through my nose at all and I felt suffocating. So now I always tell people always do it during the day first. Okay, just let your brain understand that you're safe and that you can breathe through your nose before you start just putting it on before bed. That's you know people who aren't used to it. It feels different, but it is. That's an amazing, just like you said, we try these babies, that we're going to try these things first, right Before we go to the bigger surgery. We want to see does this make you better?

Dr. Carver:

And now the sleep studies. They're not what I just learned in the course a couple of weeks ago. The one drawback with a sleep study is it can be expensive and it's only one night. So if for one reason, the night you did it, you did something out of the ordinary, it might skew the results right. So when I'm giving them now, I say, okay, do it in midweek, when you're in your routine, don't do it on a Friday or Saturday or on vacation.

Dr. Carver:

But now there's something called the sleep sat pulse oximeter, which is a little bit fancier than the ones they can buy in the store. Which is a little bit fancier than the ones they can buy in the store, but it gives an idea of what the AHI, or the apnea hypoxia index, is. That's what we usually look for at a sleep site to determine if you're mild, moderate or severe. But it shows, like, how often your oxygen levels are dropping and how severe the drop is, and that with that because it's much less expensive you can do that maybe over three nights or something like that and that may be more repeatable versus always doing a $200 test.

Dr. Carver:

It's amazing, all of the wearables and everything we have nowadays. We're really coming into an age where we can be our best. We have so much data that we're able to. There's so many. All the Apple watches and the whoop and the all the different things are so great. Can you maybe tell us about sleep a little bit? What would be ideal sleep? Maybe talking about like the different phases and why we need to have those phases?

Dr. Jones:

Yeah, so I guess in layman terms there's different parts of sleep that do different things. And in people who do suffer from sleep disorder breathing I've had it explained to me as almost like junk sleep, so just like you eat junk food. Some people are sleeping eight to 10 hours a night, but if they're constantly in this light sort of sleep then they're never going to get that restful sleep that they need. Rem is the rapid eye movement sleep. That's not a lot of your night of sleep, but that is the time when things start to clear themselves out. That's when you're dreaming, everything is really relaxed and that's on purpose, because there is a disorder where you will act out your dreams and that can be dangerous. But because everything is so relaxed and you're almost paralyzed, that's going to be when it's more likely that people's airway will collapse, if it's going to collapse. And so those who are struggling with untreated obstructive sleep apnea, a lot of times what will happen is they'll start to enter into that REM sleep where a lot of things clear out. It helps with Alzheimer's, all that sort of stuff. Memory gets integrated and if we don't get into that then we will wake up and so you're not getting that restorative sleep that you need. So I unfortunately I can't remember off the top of my head I should have studied this for you exactly how much time we should have in all of these parts of sleep, but I will say that a lot of people don't understand what it is that we're looking for. So you mentioned the AHI, so let's talk about that.

Dr. Jones:

What we're looking at in sleep studies, ahi stands for apnea hypopnea index. Apnea means that you literally stop breathing for 10 seconds or more. Hypopnea means that you're essentially breathing badly for 10 seconds or more. It is the benchmark, I believe is about 30% less of a breath, and it's a measure of how many times you're either stopping breathing or breathing badly per hour, though, and so for people who have mild or stage one obstructive sleep apnea, that means that you're stopping breathing 5 to 15 times per hour. Breathing five to 15 times per hour, so that's every four to 12 minutes that you're struggling to breathe in some way.

Dr. Jones:

And then if you go up to higher so moderate would be 15 to 30, which is like stage two, and then severe would be 30 plus. So if you're struggling 30 times an hour, that's every couple minutes that you're really having difficulty breathing, so you can imagine how hard that would be to get that restful sleep, and sometimes people who are struggling to sleep have insomnia, maybe have trouble falling back to sleep Again. Your body is super smart and the goal is to keep you alive, and so if it knows that when you fall asleep you're going to essentially be suffocated, strangled, or at least that's how it's interpreting it, and why would it let you fall asleep? It's going to keep you awake in one way or another, and so that can be waking up to go to the bathroom, waking up frequently. Your body is never getting into that rest and digest, and so people will say I don't sleep because I'm getting up to go to the bathroom. Are you getting up to go to the bathroom?

Dr. Carver:

Like which one is coming first. When we are not, we're more mouth breathing and not sleeping properly. We don't activate that anti-diuretic hormone, right? So men will say I'm at that age, it's my prostate, it's airway. My hygienist, her husband, never gets up in the middle Once he started mouth taping, never gets up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. So we've got to get away from this myth that it's all about the prostate, that really it's more about airway, right? Because again, there is an actual hormone that's secreted when we're sleeping that says, hey, bladder, kidneys, we're good, we don't need to pee right now, wait till we wake up, right? So we should not be getting up in the middle of the night.

Dr. Carver:

And to circle back to the REM and the deep, ideally we should get about an hour and a half of both REM and the deep sleep, or about 30% of our total sleep of those kind of things, and that's again necessary, right? The REM is when, like you said, that memory integration, that's when we're dreaming. So people who don't ever dream, you're probably not getting into that REM. And then the deep sleep that is when we everything's getting repaired, we're not dreaming, we're just, we're completely out. And again, very important for clearing all this stuff.

Dr. Carver:

Like you mentioned the brain, like we've discovered this whole lymphatic system in the brain and if you're not getting into deep sleep you're not draining. So then all the toxins or whatever that may be in the brain, could they be causing some of the plaques forming and all that kind of stuff? Again, those stages of sleep are important and if you've got that severe apnea you're never getting into those and of course you wake up feeling exhausted and sluggish and you're having cardiac issues. Right, if you're not breathing, you're not getting that oxygen right throughout the system, you're not oxidating anywhere in your body. We know how vital oxygen is. So if we're not having that proper and the other thing that's interesting about oxygen, it's that balance with the carbon dioxide- yes that's what I was just going to say.

Dr. Jones:

Yeah, so people think of carbon dioxide as a waste gas. But in order to use the oxygen that we have, most of us are breathing plenty of it, but it gets stored in the hemoglobin and if we don't have carbon dioxide to replace that and release the oxygen to then go to the places that it needs, then we're not going to get to use the oxygen that we have. Same thing, if we're breathing really up in our chest and it's rapid and it's here, we don't have anything to do. Gas exchange Everything in our lungs is located further down. So if we breathe more deeply and more slowly, we're going to be much more efficient at using the air that we have, because we can be working so, so hard to breathe, but we're not getting the benefits of it. And if we're breathing up in our chest you were talking about blood pressure, things like that, even digestion that can be related to dysfunctional breathing, because the diaphragm does so many more things than just breathing.

Dr. Jones:

It is this really cool muscle. That is somewhat automatic, but you can control how you breathe as well. You can retrain yourself in the mechanics of breathing and when you do use it it actually massages all of those organs. We need that movement of it. It helps with digestion. There's so many cool things. It helps with posture. So a lot of people who are struggling with back pain it can be related to the breathing as well, and I am one who also, along with my dysfunctional breathing as a former dancer, I have some chronic injuries or things. Being a dentist, posture, all those sorts of things. I've had back pain in the past and one of the times that triggered I still had to work a full day Like what do I do with this? And I just got down and squatted and started breathing with my diaphragm and that breathing alone was able to start to release, not that it essentially just triggered, which that's a whole other conversation too, because emotions and all of that can also trigger some of those things.

Dr. Carver:

But that's important, like we've had people on talking about. We had Alina Canron who talked about the postural restoration, talks about the fascia right, people with hiatal hernia and reflux. Well, what's your breathing like? What is your diaphragm doing? Because usually it's like when that pushes up through the diaphragms, how do we get that diaphragm in better shape and breathing properly? So important. And it's talking about that carbon too, right? That's why a lot of breath training is having a longer exhalation, right, because that allows that carbon dioxide to build up a little bit so that we release the oxygen. So that's a really important thing to understand. It's not just about breathing air, it's like you have to. And breathing is the fastest way to get in the proper acid alkaline balance in the body, right. It's the fastest way to get into a balanced nervous system and the cool thing is like your breath is totally free.

Dr. Jones:

And you can control it. Thankfully it's automatic. You don't have to think okay, today I'm going to breathe, but at the same time you can bring awareness to it and you can control it. And oftentimes, when there's these simple breathing exercises that you can do to reset yourself, like small breath holds or whatever you choose to do, whether it's cadence breathing, there's so many different ways that you can breathe and lots of them have great benefits, but most people don't know you're doing them, so you can do them in the middle of a workday. There's so many.

Dr. Jones:

Every profession Dentistry maybe it's a difficult procedure, maybe it is a patient that's upset, for whatever reason. There's a lot of fear in dentistry and that can affect their perception of things going on. So I've been known to, when I'm giving anesthetic, so many things to try to make them comfortable in that process. But I've also learned I don't tell them to take a deep breath, I just tell them to exhale slowly as I'm doing it, because if they go, that's going to mimic that anxiety feeling and they're going to be really as I do it, whereas if they're just breathing normally and slowly breathing out if I sense that they're anxious about it, then that's really helpful and something that you can use as a tool anytime.

Dr. Carver:

Speaking of things, a lot of that in the fast, rapid breath rate contributes directly to the anxiety. So is there a particular technique for if you're anxious, whether it's right before a dental procedure or before a test or something, any kind of environment that gives you a little anxiety what do you find is the best technique for reducing anxiety.

Dr. Jones:

Yeah, my favorite and simplest one, because you don't have to think about how you're breathing or anything is just small breath holds, and so how you do it is you usually want to ask people to hold their breath. It's after the exhale, which is different than most things, but you just take a normal breath in and a normal breath out of your nose and then you hold your breath to pinch your nose, but you can if you want but you hold your breath for three to five seconds and then you just let go breathe normally. You don't have to do anything about and alter any way that you're breathing. You don't have to slow it whatever. Just breathe through your nose, if you can, and then breathe normally for 10 to 15 seconds and then repeat. So, normal breath in, normal breath out, hold it for three, two, one, and then you just breathe normally for 10 to 15 seconds, and then you just would do it again, where you take a normal breath in, normal breath out, and if you do that for about a minute, usually it'll help you reset and what you're doing is you're actually it's similar to where you're prolonging that exhale right, because you're stopping the breathing, you're slowing it down, you're putting a pause button on that rapid breathing that you're having, and that will often just relax people.

Dr. Jones:

You can also use box breathing. That's super, super simple. It balances both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems. It's been used for ages. It's supposed to make you calm and alert at the same time, and the way that you do it is you just breathe in for four counts.

Dr. Jones:

So you breathe in two, three, four, hold your breath two, three, four. Exhale two, three, four. Hold your breath two, breath two, three, four, and then you just keep repeating that and that will help to balance things. But I also learned there is I'm throwing a lot at you, but sunrise and sunset breathing, so if you want to be more alert, you can stay in that sunrise or top part of it more. So you would breathe in for four, you would hold it for four, exhale for four and then just go. You don't hold it, you just in. And if you are trying to calm yourself down at the end of the night, you could basically breathe in for four, exhale for four, hold it for four, inhale for four, exhale for four, hold it for four, and that puts you in that part where you're in exhale mode for longer.

Dr. Carver:

Yeah, so many ways prolonging the exhale but it's a journey, what you're doing, so that's not embarrassing for any reason, and so those are absolutely great techniques. And again, your body is really agile, right, it wants to heal and help you with practice, and five to 10 minutes a day, it doesn't take a whole lot. And how about some other teach us a little bit? We've had myofunctional therapy on, but it's always good to refresh our memory. Maybe give us like three good exercises that you think are the most helpful to retrain that tongue, maybe?

Dr. Jones:

Yeah, yeah, my favorite three to start with, and you mentioned fascia. So sometimes there literally is a tongue tie that's preventing that tongue from going up to the roof of the mouth where we want it and there are some restrictions that sometimes people have just never had it. And having an open mouth posture with that tongue low can be as bad as breathing through your mouth, because some people are breathing through their nose but their mouth constantly like this, and that's going to affect things as well, especially if it's a child. So the three go-to that I will teach are to take your tip of your tongue, start right behind your teeth, a thing called the incisive papilla. It's a little bump and you're going to trace your tongue from right behind your teeth as far back as you can, and I usually say to do that 20 times.

Dr. Jones:

So for people who haven't had it up there, I often will hear them say it tickles. That's how the body interprets that sensation if it's never had that before. So you just would go like this and you can see how this is going down and it doesn't really matter how far open you are, but it is good to try not to move the jaw. At the same time we're trying to separate the tongues from the jaw. So doing that 20 times. One of my favorites super simple, I would say it's like a typewriter and younger kids may not know what that is, but people always ask do I trace it forward and back? No, you reset, trace it, reset, trace it. So that's one. The next one I love is doing tongue circles, and so you would basically put your tongue between your lips and your teeth and make a circle, and I do 10 times each direction to start. So it would look like this so her lips are closed.

Dr. Carver:

Anybody who's listening. Her lips are closed and she's just rotating that tongue around the whole side. So it's like a face yoga thing too.

Dr. Jones:

It is. And so you're just drawing that circle, trying to be intentional with all the corners. You go the other direction, and that's the one where usually people are like, oh, my tongue's tired, or they may feel it in their jaw, or I actually feel it all the way in the back of my neck, and so you can then start to bring the awareness that, okay, this is a really big muscle, it's really strong and can do a lot of things. So that's the second one. The last one that I love to do is start people off with tongue clicks. Just get them. Can they get their tongue up there at all? And then cluck.

Dr. Jones:

To me is more like getting the back of the tongue up there and so trying to suction the whole tongue up in the roof of the mouth, including the back part of it. So if you were to look at someone doing it, it would look like a line and caves, almost like you can put those two fingers on each side of the line, which is your attachment to the tongue, or what we call the frenum, and so you're going to suction up there and I usually say count to three and then make the loudest you can. So it would be like and if you can see, you would see how there's the line and then the space that's there. So I usually just start people going to take less than five minutes at a time. I have one video that does just those three so it's easy for people to remember. Yeah, and that gives them a good start, because I'm always saying tongue up, lips together, teeth apart, breathe through the nose. The more we can have that habit be happening all the time, say that one more time.

Dr. Carver:

What are the four things we're looking for?

Dr. Jones:

So, tongue up, lips together, teeth apart, breathe through the nose, and by teeth apart I really just mean we don't need to be clenching. You're going to have your teeth together when you're swallowing, when you're chewing, often when you're talking, but they should just be really lightly touching the rest of the time. And if your tongue is up in the roof of your mouth. I don't have science to support this, this is just my experience is that if your tongue is actually suctioned up there, it does tend to release for those clenchers, so that I personally can't keep my tongue up where I want it and clench at the same time. So it can help to retrain.

Dr. Carver:

Right, those of us who are clenchers or have those sore muscles. Every time, especially those back teeth touch you instantly activate your muscles At rest. We don't need our teeth touching. So that's important and it doesn't mean your mouth is wide open.

Dr. Carver:

It just means that because we do, we want the lips closed, but the teeth don't need to touch. Those are important tips. And, again, taking five minutes, I tell my patients you're going to brush in your floss and you're going to do your exercises or other things that I like too because, as you said, like we don't have bony structure in the throat, right. So how can we help that collagen stay strong? So in the shower, I'll tell people, last 30 seconds of your shower, try to gargle some of the water right To create good strength in the airway. Humming is a fantastic way to vibrate because not only do we build the collagen but we're also stimulating that vagus nerve which is important for that rest and digest. So those are some great ways. And then again you can hum while you're in the shower or hum in the car.

Dr. Carver:

Like you talked about stacking habits, we don't want to add something. We're busy enough and trying just the thought of having to do something else. But if we're already showering, hopefully, or if we're already brushing and flossing, we just add one little thing and it's baby steps. But both of us have found these things to be remarkably helpful. Both of us are really inspired to steal your lovely name of your practice. I love it Inspired Wellness. We really want to give our patients the tools to be their best selves and, as you said, I love that you use the word partner, because that's been a word for mine always we're not here to tell you what to do. We're here to educate you and partner with you and facilitate what you want to do to gain the best health you can get, absolutely.

Dr. Jones:

My goal is really to empower the patients, because if they they're the ones that are, we see them occasionally and we can't control, and that goes for the dental stuff too. So that's why it's inspired dental wellness. There's the breath part of it. There's inspiring the people. There's getting that information out there and just letting it go, cause that's all I can do. Not everyone is going to want to hear about obstructive sleep apnea. Not everyone is going to want to open that conversation.

Dr. Jones:

Someone once told me a story about how there was someone on a beach and there were all these starfish that were out on the beach and that person started throwing the starfish back. And someone said why are you doing that? You're not going to make a difference. Look at all these that are out there. And they said what made a difference to that? And so all we can do is try to keep throwing one starfish back at a time. Give people the opportunity to make the decision for what's best for them and let go of what that outcome is, because I don't know what's going on in their lives and what might be prioritized above what I'm telling them that day or when they might be ready. What might be prioritized above what I'm telling them that day, or when they might be ready to hear it, or who wants to hear it. I've often been wrong as to going. I probably shouldn't talk about that, because I don't think they want to hear this, and then they're the one that is so interested.

Dr. Carver:

So you get the blank stare and then they start asking questions. You're like, oh, okay, I am making it like, okay, this is good. That's often sometimes when you and I we okay, I am making it like, okay, this is good. That's often sometimes when you and I, we both know so many things beyond conventional dentistry that we're talking and sometimes like is this person and are they absorbing this? Like you said, every time they come in you talk about, unless the patient says I don't want to hear about any of that, okay, great.

Dr. Jones:

But those that are.

Dr. Carver:

You know they come in and you know over the 15 years people now will come to me and ask stuff, because people will talk hey, well, ask Dr Carver because she helped me with my reflux or my arthritis or whatever it is. But I think you know one thing that I want to leave patients and Dr Everybody with is to think about that airway. Right, because, let's say, you have the gum disease or you have so many carries that maybe in kids too. Right that you're trying everything. Right, you're doing all the mechanical stuff and the brushing and the flossing and you're using all the mouth rinse or whatever and you're not getting better. What is the puzzle piece? We're missing. And airway is really big right. Not to mention we didn't even talk about how, when you're mouth breathing, you're drying out the mouth severely.

Dr. Jones:

You're changing the oral microflora, all that stuff, and so you are going to. Absolutely that is definitely my wheelhouse and one of the things that's driving them this so much is that you do see those patients where you're like, okay, they're brushy, there isn't that much plaque. Why is it so much gingival bleeding, so much gum bleeding and putting that knowledge there so that they can learn to close their mouth or is there an airway issue? So many of these pieces, and I think that one of my huge long-term goals is really to get this out into more dentist's hands, because this is huge and not every dentist is going to want to pursue knowing as much about this area. But every dentist has the opportunity to screen as they're doing their oral cancer screening, because hopefully everyone is doing that and I believe that they are. So you can just add in screening for airway issues and just open that conversation and have somewhere to send them to get more information, whether it's books On my website there also are all the books that I love.

Dr. Jones:

Just trying to put some resources that you can get to why I love them. Products like what is the name? The Rem Plenish water bottle, for example, with that little myofunctional straw. That's great in some people's hands. You're going to be drinking. So anything that we can think of to help give the patient at least the opportunity to start to explore on their own, I think is helpful. And so if I'm using you have so much knowledge, dr Carver, that I don't have so if I can use your resources to send patients to you or refer patients to you, I think that's the key. We don't have to know it all, but if we can work together and if we can start to at least recognize and say okay, this tooth is breaking and I'm not going to do any better to fix it, let's see. Maybe you need a sleep study.

Dr. Carver:

Let's just try to start to open those conversations.

Dr. Carver:

Well, I think it was 2017 when it came out the ADA said that we are obligated to screen for sleep, which is still frustrating, why we can't diagnose or be, but regardless another conversation but still that's seven, almost eight years ago that we we need to be screening for this and there is education out there for those and, like you said, we don't have to know everything. I certainly do not have the knowledge you have. I haven't done as much training, but at least I'm I'm looking for and I know, and so then I can say, okay, here's, I can scream, we can do the test and be like, okay, and now you're going to see Dr Jones and she's going to help you manage the airway and do all these other things we didn't even actually talk about too. We talked about management right, these advancement devices, but we didn't really talk about resolving it right, which we've talked about on the podcast before, like with expansion, and there are multiple ways to do it.

Dr. Carver:

Do you have any thoughts? Are you doing any of the expansion? It's a tougher treatment to not necessarily sell, but a lot of patients don't, especially if they're older. They don't want to go through the expansion. I think it works amazing in my patients who are compliant. It works amazing and it's relatively quick. In a matter of six months we can, and I've, treated patients well into their 60s.

Dr. Jones:

Right, you can get expansion but you've got to have good compliance. Yeah, and I think it always comes down to the priority is that they breathe right, and so if, depending on what the diagnosis is if they are moderate, severe, whatever the case is I would definitely I want them to be treated in some way. So I always want to know what is the diagnosis? What are we trying to do? Because expansion is fantastic and it can fix the structure so it can create more space for the tongue, and then the roof of the mouth is the floor of the nose, so sometimes you actually even get a larger nose essentially to breathe in and all the things. So you're fixing the structure and then we still need to retrain the people on how to breathe and breathing through that nose, getting that tongue up into the correct position so that once we create this wonderful thing for them to use, they're able to use it, because it's not. What I keep saying is it's not magic. And that is a harder area because we don't we don't know for sure.

Dr. Jones:

With a CPAP you can that positive pressure is like a vacuum in reverse. At some pressure we can pop that airway open. We know we can have that person breathe, Whether or not they can tolerate it. That's a different story. Same thing with the appliance we can bring the jaw forward. It doesn't work for everyone, but it works for a lot of people to help keep that airway open.

Dr. Jones:

But when we are expanding, to me it's always a piece of the puzzle, because we may expand and they still may need to wear an appliance or they still may need to have CPAP. So it can tremendously improve and I think it is a wonderful thing that it's such a great area that we've opened, and I am looking at it in that way. So when I do any sort of repositioning of the teeth, I'm considering like, okay, as a side effect, we might get a nicer smile, but how do we protect these teeth and their function? How do we create more space for the tongue? What's the whole picture of what we're trying to fix as we're doing the rest of the stuff? So, yeah, it's a great field and there's so much to learn there as well. So exciting in kids, but yes, there's still hope for adults. So many different ways to do it.

Dr. Jones:

Absolutely. I'm so glad that you're doing it no-transcript.

Dr. Carver:

Obviously, please tell us your website and all those great resources you mentioned too.

Dr. Jones:

Yeah, absolutely. I don't know that there's anything else that I would like to share other than thank you so much for this opportunity. This has been really fun to chat with you. I always love getting to chat with you.

Dr. Jones:

Just felt like we were having a conversation and the website is sleep wellness or, excuse me, it is two one back, so it is Inspired Dental Wellness, so there's two D's in a row. It's Inspired Dental Wellness and you can go to patient resources and there's videos. There's links to different books, different products, things that I love and often recommend and why I recommend them, so you absolutely can go to that. The videos that are on there are actually on YouTube. It's not easy to find me on YouTube, so that's probably the quickest way is to go that way. I just didn't know what I was doing when I was setting it all up, so it's a little convoluted, but that's okay, we get it done. And other than that, I would just say, dr Carver, have a fantastic day, don't forget to smile and dance, look for the blessings, and I promise you'll see them. Thank you so much for being a blessing in my day and getting it started in this way. I really appreciate it.

Dr. Carver:

I know how busy you are starting your practice here and I am so grateful that you took the time to come and chat with us. And, for those of you local, dr Jones is in Lee, massachusetts. If you are having a question about airway sleep and all that, please reach out via that website. You'll find her number and all that good stuff. Thank you, I love you dearly and I'm so happy to be your colleague and friend, and thank you for inspiring all of us to smile and dance. Thank you so much. As always, please reach out to me if you have any questions or comments or topics that you would love to learn more about. And otherwise, have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll see you on the next episode.

Dr. Carver:

Hello, I'm Dr Rachel Carver, a board-certified naturopathic, biologic dentist and a certified health coach. Did you know that over 80% of the US population has some form of gum disease? Many of us don't even know that we have this source of chronic infection and inflammation in our mouth that's been linked to serious consequences like heart disease, diabetes. Linked to serious consequences like heart disease, diabetes, stroke, dementia, colon cancer, kidney disease, even pregnancy complications. Would you like to learn how to reverse and prevent these chronic debilitating conditions without spending a lot of time and money at the dentist. Join me for my six-week course where I will teach you the root cause of disease. You'll learn how to be your own best doctor. Are you ready to get started? Let's go.