The approach to take for kids
Getting this stuff right for your kids will probably do more for them than anything else you can do for them. By A LOT!
A lot of folks ask me what my advice is for kids.
And so I figured i’d lay it out clearly in a post so that I can refer parents to it.
Some context is that I have a 10-year old, Kevin, who was a mouthbreather at two years old (back in 2016). He had sleep disrupted breathing and while he was cute, I could tell even from that young age how it was impacting his development.
So i’d vowed he was not going to go through what i did.
I declared war and decided my kid was going to grow up never having to worry about this stuff as an adult.
As my understanding of this stuff evolved, I tried everything under the sun on him.
In 2015-16 I was heavily influenced by the Mews and Weston Price. And so he was drinking raw milk, eating hard foods, and having me tape his mouth shut at night.
Now i laugh at how stupid that shit was.
Later I made him wear all kinds of Myobrace mouthguards, which was a constant struggle. Because he didn’t want to wear them and would not be able to sleep well with them.
Finally in 2021 I made the decision to put flat composite on his back teeth and haven’t looked back since.
Everything expanded, we fixed his mouthbreathing, and tons of stuff has improved.
It’s perhaps a bit early to declare total victory… but victory is on lock.
And he’s gonna have a much easier life for it.
I recommend every parent try to gift this to their child.
Ok, let’s begin.
First, who is my advice for?
My advice is for pretty much any parent.
Your child can be pretty much any age from two up until being a late teen.
Your child might be a mouthbreather and have sleep disrupted breathing. If so this advice is even more pertinent to them. But even if they don’t, they will benefit.
Your child might have ADHD-type symptoms. If so this should help them. But even if not, they will benefit.
Basically as I state in the article below, i think every child benefits from the correct intervention.
Because this stuff literally NEVER just grows 100% correctly on kids these days. Unless you’re perhaps living in the Amazon jungle or in a tribe in Africa.
The question is.. what is the right intervention?
Do NOT do orthodontics. Period
Before I start with my advice, I first want to advise what not to do.
Rule 1: Do not do orthodontics. I state why here:
Rule 2: Do not use palate expanders. I state why here:
Rule 3: Do not do extractions. I state why here:
Ok now that we’ve cleared out of the way all the wrong things to do… let’s start with what you SHOULD do.
Try a rubber mouthguard first
Rubber mouthguards are probably the fastest way to fix this problem. Because it is a problem of stretching soft tissue.
In terms of which rubber mouthguard, pretty much any will work. As long as it is NOT molded to the teeth.
Yes, all of the Myobrace appliances will work. Toothpillow will work. SODIS will work. Reviv will work.
And they all work more or less the same. Because they add vertical and unlock the occlusion.
The only main differences are cost, comfort and how long they last.
In terms of which appliance for what age? I’d say:
<10 years old: Choose a Myobrace appliance from Aliexpress. For example the K2 series is designed to fit 5-10 year olds. I don’t have a Reviv appliance for this age group yet.
10 - 14 years old: A Reviv One small appliance will be one of the best combos of price ($25 incl shipping), comfort, and durability. But of course there are plenty of Myobrace options that cost more.
15+ years old: A Reviv One large appliance is probably your best bet (also $25 incl shipping)
If a rubber mouthguard is not working try getting dental composite
Younger children (eg. <8 years old) will probably not like wearing a rubber guard. And so it will be a constant battle to get them to wear it.
I fought that battle with my son many many times as he was growing up.
And in the end we kind of drew a truce. He wore it whenever I was looking and took it out whenever I wasn’t. LOL
Plus it was very hard to get him to wear it to sleep because it made it harder for him to breathe and so he almost always spat it out eventually.
For this reason we ended up going for composite in 2021. Another term some dentists use is ‘turbos’ or ‘Planas tracks’ is very similar.
How to add composite to your child’s baby teeth?
Basically we went to a dentist in Thailand and had them add 3-4 mm of composite height to the last lower baby teeth on either side (the red circles below). And the top should be completely flat so as not to lock an occlusion.
They added enough height such that there was a 2-3 mm gap between the front teeth. The whole thing took about 20 minutes and cost us ~$50 here in Thailand.
Then a few months later the gap between the front teeth disappeared and they made contact because curve of spee develops plus the composite might get ground off a bit. So each time this happened we added more composite to the back teeth.
I always use a dentist to do this because its cheap and easy here in Thailand. In the US it will be harder to find a dentist to do this, but there are dentists in the US that have been doing this on kids for decades. You just need to find them.
But they will probably charge you a lottttt more :)
It is worth it, however. My experience is that your child’s arches will expand, mouthbreathing will cease, and even their personality will change (less cranky, more social, etc)
If you don’t have access to a dentist that is willing to do this than options are:
doing this when you travel somewhere (in many developing countries dentists will do whatever you want them to as long as you pay them).
do this yourself. Meaning buy composite from a dental wholesaler and a flourescent lamp and try doing it yourself on your child. This is not for the faint of heart but I actually came close to doing this back in early 2019 when I saw how easy it was to do.
A lower splint can also work
Yet another approach is to have a dentist make a flat plane lower splint. I had a US dentist do this for my child back in 2017 and it sort of worked for awhile.
The problem was mainly that my son was only three years old and so he broke or lost them very quickly.
And so it ends up being a pretty expensive option.
Plus the splint prevents the lower teeth from moving or evolving as they normally would, so you need to anyway take a new impression every few months.
This will probably impact your child’s life more than anything else you can do for them
So i’ll close by saying that I view that this will have improved the trajectory of my son’s life more than anything else I can do for him by a LONGSHOT.
Far more than what college he goes to.
Far more than what extracurricular activities we send him to.
I can show you a whole list of Ivy League grad friends who are around my age and are struggling in life at this point because of these biomechanics.
Physics will ALWAYS WIN. Period!
And what i will struggle to find you is a bunch of people that are my age and had great structure their whole life who are not successful at this point. Because everyone that still has solid structure at 47 years old probably had an amazing run and eventually got successful at something.
You just get a lot more shots on goal in life.
Thinking about all the folks I’ve known over the years… I struggle to find an exception to this rule.
So… there you have it. Now that you know what to do, the question will be….
Will you do the right thing?
General strategy is that adult teeth grow into the new height behind it. And baby teeth with composite fall off.
It would be really helpful to make a rescource of orthodontist in the U.S. who are willing to place the bite blocks on children & adults as im sure this is tough to find.