Mandible Expansion, K1 of Myobrace, Bone Remodeling & Nutrition?

posted on April 16, 2015

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

[xyz-ihs snippet=”mandible”]

“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.

The K1 mouth piece assists in oral training in the following ways

As mentioned above, a tag reminder for the tongue tip at the incisive papilla
The full mouth piece once in the mouth, effectively disables oral breathing, & forces nasal breathing
because the plastic of mouth piece goes in between teeth and lips, it also deactivates the obicularis oris (lip muscle) during swallows.

This appliance is worn 1-2 hours right before sleep and worn all night during sleep.

It is only part of the solution, the success of treatment requires patient participation in doing the various oral myology exercises to correct tongue posture & swallowing patterns.

Expansion with the Tongue

We have to remember that our tongue is a powerful & quite large muscle. When it finds its home on the upper palate as it should, it is going to have an effect on surrounding tissue and bone, which leads to expanded dental arch.

Here is the picture of the same patient’s Upper Palate changing by correcting tongue posture and swallowing pattern.

It is interesting to note that the lower jaw expanding in conjunction with the upper.

Doctors find that there is often spontaneous lower arch expansion when you expand the upper. “The lower arch will take care of itself” was a remark made by one of the first orthodontists to begin using RPE on patients back in (early 60’s?) … long time ago.

It could be due to the fact that as the upper arch expands slowly, the teeth distribute the expanding forces onto the lower teeth as well when the mouth is closed.

and/or as the upper arch expands various other soft tissues are getting expanded/wider as well, which is putting light expanding forces on the lower.

Or combination of above/and some other factors.

Bent Wire System (BWS)

Myobrace mentions that in severe cases they will use Bent Wire System (BWS) for expansion in conjunction with K1, which is light wire expansion appliance similar to ALF’s. Or they say they will use Biobloc, but I think most Myobrace doctors are using the BWS based on what I have seen.

This is the type of wire that remembers its original shape and tries to spring back to it no matter how long or how ever you try to bend it, so this is what is used in DAMON braces system as well as the wire will continually remodel the bone as it gently tries to return to its original shape that is shaped by the doctor. Each appointment the doctor may put in a wider wire in if the arch needs to get wider.

Also note that it does not have to be DAMON, but many doctors will still carry self-ligating bracket system which is the same thing but more economical as it hasn’t been branded by DAMON. Self-ligating bracket means that the wire is free to move through the bracket. No rubber bands to fix the wire onto the bracket like traditional braces which uses much tougher forces to align teeth and doesn’t allow for free & continual movement like the self-ligating (DAMON) system. It is noted that with traditional braces, the majority of the changes happen within the first week after monthly appointment, and causes much more sore teeth. Whereas with the self-ligating system the change will continue for the whole month and much more gentle forces mean less soreness. In my humble opinion, traditional braces should never be used and its a waste of money & time. Always opt for doctors that are using self-ligating system.

ALF which is placing the wire inside the teeth versus placing the wire outside with brackets, now is that better for expansion? is hard to say, I think they can both do the job but I have my speculation that having the wire inside the mouth might be better… Certainly there is still use for brackets especially in my case where you need to move teeth more, as in re-open extraction sites, which require coil springs in between brackets to move the teeth quite a ways and torquing of the teeth to move the roots by adjusting wire entry on certain brackets.

How I saw my own Mandible Expand

I required much more expansion to take place than what is shown in the video above of the 15 year old girl. I used biobloc stage 1 in my upper and lower palate.

Many doctors say that the bone in the mandible can’t expand but you can see in the video that it is clearly remodeling as the arch form expands. I have seen this also without shadow of a doubt in my case, as I out expanded my first lower arch expansion appliance, so my doctor had to take another set of molds to make new one.

Once the mold was complete, I asked my doc to get my initial molds before treatment begun, and I sat in that office comparing both molds of my lower arch in my hands, and I could clearly see that after the expansion. The whole tissue / gum / bone underneath teeth of my mandible had expanded. The whole shape of the gum was changed. It was quite eye opening to see that, and I will get pictures soon when my treatment is complete.

I will mention that It seems that getting the very back molars of the mandible to expand might be the toughest part, as I did eventually run into the limit there as the back molar went out all the way to the very edge of the gums, and there was going to be more teeth tipping if we were to continue so we stopped. By then I had already gained enough expansion in the lower and upper to continue with re-opening the expansion sites. Most likely overtime bone underneath the molar will catch up and I could expand more but at this point I’m moving on. I have my speculations that natural expansion could be possible of the lower arch from here on out via masseter muscle & occlusion forces.

My front teeth however still seem to have plenty of gums for quick expansion.

One tip I have is that at the time I was not doing hard chewing as I am doing now, and chewing is known to prevent teeth tipping, and may help with bone remodeling of the mandible as one begins to expand with appliance. I was using acceledent the whole time but hard to say what effect that had on mandible as I still ran into the limit but acceledent has really sped up teeth movement. Also I wonder if I was expanding a bit too rapidly for the lower arches, at almost 1 mm per week in the beginning. I think if I could do it over I would opt for slower expansion rates at perhaps .5 mm per week, and do plenty of chewing a long with it to encourage as much bone structure changes as possible. Because teeth moves quick, but there is limit to how fast the bone can remodel.

Nutrition Play a Role?

When you see these changes occurring in the bone structure itself, one begins to wonder would certain nutrition aid in this process. As nutrition seems to play a role in how quickly someone heals their broken bone for example.

Osteoporosis is real, and it is caused by malnutrition. The bones become brittle and weak. Osteoblasts and Osteoclasts, the cells responsible for building new bone and destroying old bone is a process we continue to have till we die, but when there is malnutrition, more is being broken down and less is being put back in resulting in decline of bone density, which visually is seen as more porous bone matrix.

What I don’t quite understand yet, is when we hear the words “dense” we think that would be very tough to budge.

However some evidence suggests that healthy bone is more pliable which gives it it’s strength. And Osteoporosis bone is hard not as in strength but brittle like piece of glass.

Meaning of Brittle: “having hardness and rigidity but little tensile strength; breaking readily with a comparatively smooth fracture, as glass.”

For example, children are much less prone to bone fractures because they have malleable bones. Is it possible that this malleable bone is the healthy & dense bone?

It is known that it is easier to expand on children and move the maxilla forward because their bones are softer, but have we asked the question why their bone is “softer”?

What makes a bone “soft”?

Is it possible that as we age, we are becoming more and more nutritionally deficient and we are experiencing early onset of osteoporosis which is the cause of bone “hardening” but really what if the bone was simply becoming more porous and brittle?

Also I believe calcification is a real thing as we age and consume inorganic elements that is not assimilated but deposits in the body, resulting in hardening/calcification of arteries and other soft tissues. I am willing to bet that this process will also effect how easily we can expand the palate and manipulate bone.

When we think bone is becoming hard in adults, we automatically equate that to bone becoming stronger, but this may be a misunderstanding as adults are more prone to fractures!

Look at a kid take a fall, and they bounce right back up again.

So is it possible as adults with proper nutrition to make our bones more pliable again that makes bone remodeling process easier, faster & more effective?

My views on the Nutrition Industry

Nutrition Industry could be one of the most corrupted industries on earth even more so than pharmaceutical. At least the drug companies are more up front about it, stating that their drug is basically poison with 20 different side effects, however we go to the nutrition industry and if you are advent researcher you will find that there is so much misinformation out there it will make your head spin. Misinformation that leads to degeneration of the body that is guised as health & nutrition could be more dangerous than anything else. “Half truths are more dangerous than lies”

My research is revealing that most everything taught about proper nutrition in the mainstream is ass backwards. To speak of this becomes controversial because it reveals the hostile governments that enforce these things. I will say that there is great evidence out there that suggests that our food supply has been severely compromised with an agenda keep people weak, ill & unable to reach their potential, even the so-called “organic”, “all natural” stuff.

How else can you explain the fact that we have more technology than ever before but we are more unhealthy and ill than ever before?

Nutrition has always been an area of interest of mine. I’ve studied many varying viewpoints, tried many things, and still trying more new things. Over the years, one thing I have learned about Nutrition is that most everybody is clueless including myself & even the famous Gurus of the field.

I have avoided this topic because I have not seen empirical evidence that suggest nutrition plays a role in palate expansion and bone remodeling. It is clear to me that oral posture & function plays much more direct roles as seen by the girl in the video that expanded the palate by change in posture alone, but that isn’t to say nutrition might play into it in some way, and we just don’t understand all the factors quite yet.

When you see time lapse video of palates expanding like above, it really give you the insight on how alive the bone is. Just like a time lapse video of a growing plant reminds us how alive they are. & We know soil nutrients play a big role in how the plant develops and the final form it takes, then you can’t help but to think our diet might some role in bone formation?

I will mention that I am well aware of Weston Price’s work for many years, my research has taken me beyond it & into other elements and I should have some interesting things to report soon after I gain some more firsthand experience.

-CP