In the facebook TMJ/TMD Discussion Group discussion one person posts the above picture asking if that splint will help with her TMD. It opened up an interesting discussion out of which reveals most doctors don’t have clear explanation of what causes TMD?

John Mew states that all bite splints cause the face to lengthen.

I asked Mike Mew on this matter and he agrees, one of the reason being overtime the masseter muscle will become accustomed to being lengthened and this will surely cause an increase in vertical dimensions. To me this is symptom alleviation and not addressing the cause.

The cause of all these issues is Cranial Facial Dystrophy or Maxilla that has dropped down and back.

John Mew posted in the comment section and shares his ideas on this matter.

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This is a fantastic video by Mike Mew on oral posture practices to drive the maxilla forward & up in the face. The key for change is posture. Good tongue posture & head posture by imagining a string attached to the back of the head pulling you up (this will tuck your chin).

Out of all the things I’ve done including adult palate expansion, face pulling, self-ncr, crane, I have found it was posterior tongue posture that mattered most.

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Great facial development is achieved with the tropic premise, in a nutshell the most important factor is the resting position of the tongue on the palate.

When the maxilla goes forwards and tongue posture is corrected, facial beauty becomes actualized.

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Comfrey has been used by herbalists to speed bone healing since the ancient Greeks, there is documents of physicians treating the army of Alexander the Great.

I’ve read some pretty miraculous stories of this herb.

It is referred to as “knitbone” herb as it has the ability to seemingly “knit” or put back together flesh, sinew, and bone.

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Here is a video demonstrating expansion of mandible with appliance and oral training.

“A short movie after expansion with K1 and exercises. A 100 days using the K1. She is 15. Great cooperator.”

This girl used the Myobrace K1 Appliance only which is a mouth piece that has a tag to serve as reminder for getting the tip of tongue on the “spot” or incisive papilla.

It is empirical evidence that bone remodeling occurs in the lower jaw, and dental arches can expand by getting the tongue on the roof of the mouth.

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To ensure good oral posture for excellent facial development, strong jaw muscle is the key. Modern food has become very soft, chewing gum is a great way to compensate. I have found new chewing gum that is 100% tree sap that is tougher than Falim gum or any other gum I have found called Mastiha gum.

It’s an interesting product, crystals of Mastiha Tree sap that only grows in southern part of island of Chios in Greece. When you bite into it the crystal will shatter in the mouth but as you keep chewing it begins to mold together and turn into a tough gum that has a pleasant pine-like flavor. Some crystals turn into tougher gum and others are softer, but on average I have found this product to require much more mastication efforts than the Falim gum from Turkey.

When I first started chewing the Mastiha gum, I had to stop after 30 min because my jaws were aching, and this was after I’ve been chewing Falim gum for several months. Now after almost 2 month of Mastiha gum I have noticed increased muscle tone and better ability to keep the mouth shut (at rest & during sleep) which is critical. And my lower jaw is coming forwards more & beginning to appear more horizontal gradually, I can tell that this gum is making a difference.

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Besides getting hair cut and improving skin condition, is there something one can do to improve the facial appearance by changing bones & muscles? What is MyoBrace and how does it differ from Orthotropics?  Is Starecta a real cure? How to become more attractive over time?

We all know that bone is remodeled by long term forces.

Besides putting your body party in crazy apparatus like in foot binding or neck rings, it is the way we posture our body with our muscles that reshapes it overtime.

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Why crooked teeth? When you ask the doctors, you find that we don’t really know what causes teeth to grow in crooked. Malocclusion seems to have been accepted as normal part of life.

John Mew is a researcher & scientist as much as he is an orthodontist. The readers of this blog know him to be the creator of biobloc orthotropic system. But I wanted to write a bit about how one man uncovered for us the real cause of malocclusion and all its variations Class I, II, III.

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What affects our jawline? How our muscles influence the shape of our face and jaws.

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A look at our Native American ancestors to understand what it means to have good facial development. When over 80-90% of modern population is affected by Cranial Facial Dystrophy, we have now lost sight of what “ideal” is. We have come to accept narrow palate, and impacted wisdom teeth as normal. And now we believe good looking faces with strong jawline is a result of good genetics.

But we know that when someone doesn’t have “good jawline” they will have difficulty with breathing, symptoms such as snoring & sleep apnea will begin to show up which affect quality of life from mild to severe And of course, the obvious symptom of malocclusion.

When you add in the element of health with facial development then does it make sense to say good jawline was caused by the genes? Would there ever be a gene that would cause difficulty with breathing, the most vital thing for life?

Malocclusion just simply does not naturally exist in nature.

Humans are creation of nature. DNA is nature’s blueprint.

Why would humans be separate from nature’s designs, and have such things as “faulty genetics” that cause malocclusion & poor facial development?

There is no doubt genetics play a role in building our body, but hard evidence does not support the fact that there is genetics that cause poor development that is unattractive & unhealthy.

It seems development is directed by the intimate relationship between the genes and environment. The problem with modern humans is that all of us have now lost the way on how to properly live as nature intended.

isn’t it interesting that when we see wild life they all exhibit qualities of innate natural beauty and proper development? Let’s face it, wild animals are photogenic… often much more than most humans.

A look at our ancestors will also show this element of beauty. Sort of effortless elegance about them. A majestic look.

I believe this is human birthright as creation of nature.

Below are some breath taking old photographs of Native Americans. Notice the great cheekbones, broad faces, & square jaws.

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When over 80% of the modern population now get impacted wisdom teeth, we have lost sight of where we came from and believe wisdom teeth are unnecessary teeth, some sort of mistake in nature’s design. Why is the jaws getting smaller, what role does small jaw vs. large jaw play in attractiveness of an individual?

Begin to study our ancestors just 200-300 years ago or hunter & gatherers of today or the past, and you see fully functional wisdom teeth with broad jaws and robust facial features.

Ancient aboriginal skull vs. modern skull.

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Techniques you can learn for proper swallowing pattern that will give you hollow cheeks & lead to facial beauty. You can get ride of tongue thrust & chubby cheeks. Begin to raise the posterior tongue higher in the palate leading to more ideal oral posture.

New walk through tongue training video by Dr. Mike Mew. (DIY Oral Myology)

Click “Read More” for part 2… & my experience with it.

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how to raise children with naturally straight teeth? make sure to begin developing their jaws from young age.

In my previous article, what causes crooked teeth?

we identified that crooked teeth is actually caused by incorrect skull shape.

We have been anatomical humans for well over 160,000 years and malocclusion (crooked teeth & jaws) only begun to show up in the masses 200-300 years ago after Industrial Revolution.

We are evolved to live in more natural hunter & gatherer lifestyle not our current modern one. When early European settlers went to various islands, they often commented how physically perfect the indigenous tribes people were.

Because our diet has gotten too soft our skulls are lengthening due to weak jaw muscle and the jaws aren’t developing to its potential due to lack of use.

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What causes crooked teeth? How to prevent it? Is it caused by genetic or environment? Studying past human skulls gives us great insight about crooked teeth, is it a natural phenomenon? when did it occur and why? Orthodontists prescribe to the idea that the cause is a mix of genetics and environment like most other diseases however we are treating it as entirely genetic problem while overwhelming evidence points to the environment.

Malocclusion is misalignment of jaws and/or teeth. It has become an endemic problem affecting 80% of civilized population.

In the modern world getting braces have become right of passage to growing up. But should this be accepted as normal?

An important distinction between cause and effect: orthodontists are treating the symptoms(the effect), it is openly admitted in the profession that they don’t know what actually causes malocclusion.

Isn’t it interesting…

• Humans are 1 species out of 5,400 other species of mammals and we’re the only ones that get crooked teeth
• we have been anatomical humans for 160,000 years out of which malocclusion has only begun to show in the mass population 200 years ago
• Our ancestors had 32 perfectly aligned teeth with 10 mm of space behind their wisdom teeth. There was no need for orthodontics!
• only 5% of ancestors had malocclusion (from obvious causes like trauma or illness), in modern population only 5% have correct occlusion

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I went to see a Ceraroot surgeon after previously visiting regular oral surgeon 2 months prior that told me I had enough space between teeth but not between the roots.

After 2 or 2.5 years of reverse extraction work, I felt that there was still long ways to go before I got enough space between the roots, and the first surgeon even made it sound like it might not be possible to get enough space and that I may have to settle for a bridge.

One thing I learned through this process was to not trust doctors statements blindly as the truths. The first surgeon called me a month after the first consultation after many attempts to try to reach him and basically told me he was refusing to take on my case because he was concerned with thinning of the bone in the front teeth because we had expanded them forwards. But this is done all the time in orthotropics, yes if you move one teeth far out, you run the risk of moving the teeth out of the alveolar bone and the bone can reabsorb causing one to possibly lose a teeth. But if you move a group of teeth together, the alveolar remodels and follows where the teeth are moved to. The bone will get thinner during the remodeling process and moving teeth around. To this the surgeon did not provide me satisfying responses. But by then I had already decided not to go with him because he had been so slow at getting back to me and the fact that I didn’t really want titanium implants but was looking into ceramic ones for various reasons including below which are some of the advantages advertised:

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