Few weeks ago I was approached by one of my readers that needs some help collecting more stories of people that under went bad orthodontics as a child that caused jaw growth restriction. He is developing a Class Action against orthodontic college and association to ban the practice of cervical headgear or other practices with intention to limit the growth of the jaws.
When the upper jaw fails to grow to its proper size, the tongue runs out of space in the mouth and has no where to go so it gets shoved back down into the throat.
Sleep Apnea is a condition in which the tongue falls down into the throat and momentarily stops your breathing while asleep. Many people that snore could test positive for this condition although they may not be aware, worse sufferer’s of this condition could wake up many times in the night gasping for air.
This is very stressful for the heart and one wakes up tired and restless, suffering from chronic fatigue and issues of staying awake through many events of their day.
Although I got retractive braces when I was 18, that made my condition worse. Some people were taken to orthodontists when they were much younger during critical years of development and were prescribed growth restrictive methods such as cervical headgear with the intention of restricting growth. (for example the upper jaw)
This is a sad treatment, done out of misdiagnosis and misunderstanding of the patient’s condition.
The three children above, just by looking at the profile it is obvious that they do not need headgear to pull their jaws back as the near vertical plane of mandible and weak chin appearance already indicate that their jaws are too far back.
The intent is to restrict growth of the upper jaw so the lower can catch up but the upper is already too far back. The lower jaw needs to be brought forwards, not bring the upper jaw further back.
Not only does it have disastrous effects on facial aesthetics, but…
Where will the tongue go? What will happen to the airway?
Here is my friend, Omar’s story and his call to action.. If this calls to you, please support his endeavor by sharing your story. The more personal stories he has the stronger the case he is able to build. This is for a worthwhile cause for if he is successful, many children will be saved from suffering the awful fate some of us are dealing with from ignorant orthodontic practices. Facial Aesthetics may be argued away as a subjective thing, but the size of airway can be measured and tested which can show devastating effects of these methods. Orthodontists should not have the right to mess with children’s airway.
Class Action Against Orthodontic Colleges & Associations
– Organizing out of Vancouver, BC
Contact: Omar Lalani (olalani@gmail.com)
Were you ever given headgear or fixed braces/retainers and told they were designed to restrict to the growth of your upper jaw, so that your lower jaw could catch up to correct an overbite? Do you now have sleep apnea, a compromised airway, a narrow face and/or a flattened facial profile from the side, or constant fatigue and/or chronic neck and back pain? If so, you may want to consider taking part in a law-making campaign to ban these practises as well as a class action lawsuit against orthodontic associations and colleges for knowingly teaching and spreading practices that are harmful to the public without appropriate patient disclosure, when non-harmful alternatives to such practices have been available for decades. Orthodontic colleges teach that restricting the growth of the maxilla (upper jaw) through headgear will allow a child’s mandible (lower jaw) to catch up in order to correct an overbite. Those colleges also teach that fixing the growing jaws of an adolescent with retainers to keep teeth straight, before growth is complete, will not adversely impact a patient’s health. The problem with this is that the position and width of the maxilla and mandible directly impacts the dimensions and shape of the airway; this is a known fact of anatomy. Restricting the growth of part of the upper airway can cause sleep apnea, a disastrous and debilitating, lifelong condition. Orthodontic colleges do not teach future practitioners of this danger, nor of the need to inform potential patients of this, yet professionals who govern the colleges are fully aware of the anatomical relationship between the maxilla and the airway. Since the 1920’s, alternatives to restrictive – also referred to as retractive orthodontics – have been in practice in many parts of the world and have been well documented in orthodontic circles. These practices include the use of functional orthopedic appliances that encourage forward and lateral growth of the upper and lower jaws, and hence do not put restrictive forces on the growth of the upper airway. Despite these technologies being available, many orthodontic colleges continue to teach retractive methods, and many orthodontists today continue to adversely impact the airways of the children they treat, without informing parents and patients of the known risks and the alternatives.
For this campaign and class action to be successful, enough people need to come forward with real stories.
Willful Negligence Towards Patients: The class action lawsuit will contend that orthodontic colleges and associations have been engaged in willful negligence towards patients and society in general. No orthodontic college can deny knowledge of the anatomical relationship between the maxilla and the airway, nor can any college deny that there are consequences to restricting the growth of the airway. No orthodontic college can claim that it trains orthodontists and qualifications them to evaluate impacts to the structure and function of the airway, yet colleges continue to teach techniques that adversely impact the airway. Worse yet, colleges do not teach their students consult respirologists or ear, nose and throat doctors during the course of orthodontic treatment to fully understand the impact of the restrictive forces they are putting on the airway, nor do they teach students to disclose all of this to parents and patients. This willful disregard of anatomical facts, treatment alternatives, expert opinions and patient disclosure is a classic case of willful negligence that is institutionalized.
If you were given headgear and/or fixed retainers, were not informed of potential adverse consequences to your airway and were not informed of non-retractive and non-fixed alternatives, please list your name, your contact information and send your story to strengthen the campaign be a potential claimant in this class action that is currently in the works.
Why the need to make laws that ban orthodontically induced growth restriction?
If you went to a doctor, and he told you that your eleven year old child’s feet are overgrown and needed to be put in metal shoes to restrict their growth, would you consider this doctor to be a fraud? What if that doctor told you that your child’s rib cage was overgrown slightly, and needed to be put in a metal cage to restrict its growth? Worse, what if that doctor told you that he wasn’t an internal organ specialist and nor would he be consulting with a specialist to investigate the impact that the growth restriction would have on the heart, the lungs, the digestive tract, the kidneys and other structures within the rib cage, during the growth restriction period? Even worse, what if that same doctor told you that there was evidence from his peers that the growth restriction was dangerous, put harmful pressures against internal organs and could cause lifelong problems, but that he was ignoring this evidence, telling you the side effects did not really exist? What would your opinion be of that doctor? Would you even call him a doctor?
Do you think that restricting the natural growth of the maxilla is different than restricting the natural growth of any other body part? Just like the rib cage holds vital organs and structures, the maxilla supports the airway, the eyes, various glands, the tongue and other important tissues. When the bones of the maxilla are stunted, do you think the maxillary soft tissues and the tongue still keeps growing? How much space in the airway will the tongue take up when the maxilla is forced to be too small?
Today, we know that a crowded and reduced airway causes obstructive sleep apnea. Just like we can figure out that binding the rib-cage would cause life-long health problems, do we need to continue the practise of binding the maxilla and injure more people before we figure out that this practise needs to stop?
Restrictive Ortho same as Foot Binding Which is Banned: There are many orthodontists today who wouldn’t dare bind the growth of a child’s face. Some have been asking their colleagues to stop doing this for decades. Despite these calls, orthodontists continue to practise growth binding today. Do you think that growth binding needs to be made into a criminal offense so that it is banned, and go the same way that foot binding went in China over a century ago?
If you believe this, present your story here and take part. Speak to your lawmakers and let them know. Once enough stories are assembled, we’ll have a strong enough voice to make a difference.
Why am I doing this: I was put in headgear and fixed retainers during my childhood and teens. My airway grew to ¼ the size it should be and I sleep with a CPAP machine at night so that I can breathe. I am of normal weight and height, and sleep apnea does not run in my family. I know the damage that obstructive sleep apnea can have on a person’s life and I wouldn’t wish this on anybody. How many more children need to have their present and future plagued with fatigue at the hands of an industry that knows better?
I’m presenting My Story below to give you a good idea of what to include in your story when you present it:
Hi All,
From the time I was 11 to 13 years old, I wore headgear. I was told that to correct my overbite, the growth of my maxilla needed to be restricted with headgear to allow my lower jaw to catch up. The orthodontist did not inform me or my parents that my maxilla forms my upper airway and that at my age then my upper airway was still growing. He also did not inform me that restriction of my maxillary growth could also restrict the growth of my airway. When I asked him about side effects, he said there were none other than the lower jaw growing too large, and when I asked him about alternatives, he said there were none. Two years after I wore headgear, I was given a fixed retainer that I wore from the time I was 16 to 17 years old. While the bones in my upper and lower jaw were trying to widen, they could not because of the fixed retainers I was wearing. This prevented my airway from widening. Since my orthodontic work 25 years ago, I have battled constant fatigue. My upper airway today is about 1/4 the size it should be and I sleep with a CPAP machine so that I can breathe at night.
I have undertaken an overnight oximetry test, a polysomnography, have had my airway scoped by an ear, nose and throat doctor, and have also had a mid-facial CT scan and cephalogram. All of these have been documented by medical professionals. I also have a written medical diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea.
Thanks,
Omar
Call to Action
If you have faced similar situation and would like to share a quick 1-2 paragraph story you can send them to me at cpeveryday@gmail.com or Omar direct: olalani@gmail.com. Omar (and I) will respect your privacy and your information will only be used for submission in the class action registration and proceedings. Alternatively, simply post your story here as a reply.
I’ve been battling sleep apnea for as long as I can remember. I’ve been using a CPAP machine with mild success for over 8 years now, and have had several corrective surgeries to try and offset the breathing abnormalities I’ve been suffering when prone or asleep. In the 5th grade or so I had braces applied for which they extracted several healthy adult teeth (I believe 7).
In the 7th grade I got my braces off, but I also underwent the first surgery for the snoring that had become so obstructive that I was enduring the ridicule of by my peers and their families any time I slept away from home. It was audible through several walls and on more than one occasion prompted the adults to drag my mattress into the hallway or lobby and make me sleep there. I dreaded getting invited to stay anywhere over night and had to explain that they wouldn’t like my snoring. Each and every time I knew that despite their insistence that they probably wouldn’t even notice, I’d still hear all about it the next day. Because of the humiliation I convinced my parents to take me to an ENT who removed my tonsils and adenoids on the pretense that it would make the snoring go away. It barely had an impact.
To me there was no name for what I was suffering from, but I was acutely aware that something was wrong with my sleep. I was getting yelled at by my parents as I tended towards sleeping later and later in to the day to make up for the sleep I wasn’t getting at night. By the time I was in high-school people who witnessed my sleeping were either full of laughs about how amazing my snoring and ability to fall asleep anywhere were, or adamant that they were worried I might stop breathing entirely. In high school I became vaguely aware of the term Sleep Apnea from one of those late night commercials and was immediately convinced that was what I had, but with the shortsightedness of youth and the lack of perspective as to how badly it was affecting me kept me from seeking further counseling on the subject.
In college a girlfriend provoked me to see a sleep specialist because she and my roommates were concerned I might go to bed one night and not wake up. It was here that I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. At the time I was having 72 apnea events per hour and had not yet undergone CPAP treatment. For some sense of scale, anything over 5 events an hour is when they start to recommend CPAP therapy, and anything over 20 events an hour falls into the ‘severe’ category.
The experiences I’ve had with CPAP over the past decade, both positive and negative could fill a wordy post on it’s own, so I won’t get in to that too much here. Regardless, last year things came to a head when even while using my CPAP machine, I routinely slept in excess of 12 hours, and was considerably fatigued when awake. On the nights when I would fall asleep without the machine I seriously woke up with the impression that I almost didn’t survive the evening. I underwent another sleep study, was informed that my apnea events had risen to 84 an hour and the implications of how dangerous that was didn’t really need to be expressed in words.
As a response I pursued corrective surgery and last summer had a hyoid stint, in which the bone in the throat my tongue and other mouth anatomy is attached was pulled down slightly to tighten things up a bit and keep the airway open during sleep. They also did a UPPP which means they attached the uvula to the roof of my throat. Recovery was a difficult 4-6 weeks, but I felt an immediate benefit to my quality of life. After 9 hours of sleep even without the CPAP I felt comparably well rested. Unfortunately the sleep study results weren’t as promising as I’d hoped. Since those surgeries I’m down to 52 events per hour, so we saw a calculable benefit of about 30{ae022d2295c0485893c83c8425b5bfafafba893c2d19b1bb9bc4c7c9bf3eeba6} or so. I’m not off the CPAP but it is easier to tolerate than before and I’m not afraid of dying without it.
Incidentally, my machine stopped functioning last month and because of insurance BS it took a month to get a replacement. The approach that “CPAP should be enough” (which was greatly advocated by the company that sells CPAP machines) was perhaps a real threat to my life and a genuine threat to my already scary health situation.
Story over? I wish. Now that I’ve changed states I have been seeing a different line of specialists through a different sleep clinic, and I’m getting some new and troubling information. Now they want to restructure my jaw (which incidentally, will require me to get wired up with braces again) because according to what the dental surgeon told me that when I was a kid instead of fixing my jaw they attacked the cosmetic symptoms that were associated with it. Instead they started ripping out teeth and wiring up my jaw.
Sleep apnea has ruined my life; I have suffered severe depression, anxiety, and my unmanageable fatigue levels have consistently stood in the way of my relationships and career. My heart, lifespan, and dental health have all been compromised by this condition and the treatment. It is only now that I am starting to get better that I have developed some perspective on what happened to me. I’ve finally gained an understanding as to what it is like to live with (comparably) healthy sleep, but I’m still here at the point where I am considering further painful and humiliating procedures to correct for a condition that I am now coming to believe was exacerbated or downright caused by the orthodontics industry.
I have permanent physical scars from these experiences, and indescribable emotional ones. If I go through with the jaw procedure, it will require me to live the rest of my life with a drastically different facial appearance that I cannot see before committing to it. I’m still reeling from the shock and unsure of how or if I’m actually going to proceed, but I am beginning to believe that my parents were taken in by some charlatans who knowingly put my health at a severe detriment to sell them my “nice” smile. I am not a medical professional myself, so I cannot specifically pinpoint them as responsible at this time, but I certainly want it explored for the sake of anyone else who might suffer a similar fate.
I have a permanent retainer on my lower teeth, I have also had four bicuspids removed and feel that now my upper and lower jaw have become smaller due to the extractions. I’ve been doing tounge exercises and practicing correct tounge posters and have already been noticing/feeling a difference in just a couple of months. My only question is, if I have permanent retainers on the bottom teeth, will this prevent the lower pallete from expanding?
“mouth is too small” Pulled 4 teeth, undergone 4-5 years of braces (2 years over estimation) and teeth warped the retainer and couldn’t afford a new one. No consultation with real maxo doctor.
Look at that poor girl in the center picture wearing the cervical headgear. Her mandible is obviously quite recessed. I simply cannot believe anybody would think that pulling the maxilla back to match it is an effective treatment. The girl would be better off untreated.
It’s akin to breaking a chair leg and instead of replacing the broken leg, you sand it down and cut the other three chair legs shorter to match. Because you don’t see the big picture and focus merely on having even chair legs, you end up with a functionally deficient and odd-looking chair. The only problem is, it’s children’s faces (jaws) that are becoming functionally deficient and odd-looking, and these orthodontists don’t have to live with the results. It is enraging.
I too had cervical headgear as a child, and have recessed jaws because of it. It’s only been recently that I’ve fully understood the connection between the two. I’ve been told by several people that they believe I probably have sleep apnea, and I’m going to take a sleep study in the near future to test for it. I have mild TMD on my left jaw TMJ, nighttime bruxism as witnessed by others, and the classic “headgear effect” profile to some degree. I am constantly tired.
I don’t know what to do about this now. I’ve been looking into orthognathic surgery in the case that I do have sleep apnea, because CPAP is a band-aid treatment and I’m not a band-aid treatment kind of guy. But for those children growing up in today’s world, THERE IS NO FUCKING EXCUSE FOR ORTHODONTISTS TO STILL BE USING RETRACTIVE METHODS TO STRAIGHTEN TEETH. The data is out there, and there are enough folks dealing with these issues that the dental community must know, so continuing these practices should be considered criminal.
If anybody has a lawsuit going on in the U.S., I would like to know about it.