arch. A wide arch promotes a wide, open airway and room for all teeth
“Living bone is extremely susceptible to the guidance and influence of pressure and stimuli.” (Klein, 1951)
consider the fact that (self-ligating) braces use very light forces to move teeth over time, in much the same way the tongue can exert light forces on the maxilla if proper posture is adopted and remodel the facial bones overtime…
Bone is living tissue that can adjust to changing mechanical needs
“The skeleton is a metabolically active organ that undergoes continuous remodeling throughout life. Bone remodeling involves the removal of mineralized bone by osteoclasts followed by the formation of bone matrix through the osteoblasts that subsequently become mineralized. The remodeling cycle consists of three consecutive phases: resorption, during which osteoclasts digest old bone; reversal, when mononuclear cells appear on the bone surface; and formation, when osteoblasts lay down new bone until the resorbed bone is completely replaced. Bone remodeling serves to adjust bone architecture to meet changing mechanical needs and it helps to repair microdamages in bone matrix preventing the accumulation of old bone.” –http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17308163
“Muscles trump bone and teeth. Airway trumps everything!
Pressure on the forehead from the papoose board above helped these indigenous people form what they considered a beautifully shaped forehead. Likewise, consistent muscle pressure surrounding the jaws helps shape faces to their maximum potential over a lifetime – or not. Oral/facial posture – correct or incorrect, guides facial growth. Early influences of good oral posture, before growth slows significantly at about age twelve, provide the maximum benefits of a lifetime of better breathing, chewing, swallowing and sleeping.”
-Excerpt from excellent article: http://www.mouthmattersbook.com/why-crooked-teeth-why-myo/
another excellent source: http://www.mouthmattersbook.com/mrsdalloway/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/ch12_2013rev.pdf
Video on the Process of Bone Remodeling
“it is also believed osteocytes form a complex network in bone that can sense any increased workload on the bone and respond by triggering the differentiation and activity of osteoblasts to increase bone density. Conversely when bone experiences reduced loading conditions such as during long term bed rest, absorption and remodeling increase to eliminate underloaded bone.”
Facial Beauty and the Maxilla
“The maxilla is one of the crucial elements in facial beauty. Anatomically it provides the support for the mid-face and if it is forward then the patient will have ‘good bone structure’ and attractive eyes1. If it is back they will be flat faced and appear to have a large nose. The eye is especially vulnerable and if the maxilla is down or back, the outer canthous of the eye will drop. This can easily be recognised because it will give the patient a sleepy look and some of the white sclera of the eye may be visible below the iris. This always looks unattractive and is a reliable sign of severe maxillary retrusion.”
“The work of Proffit and his colleagues9 (2000) would suggest that if the teeth are in contact for more than four hours each day they will intrude or if out of contact for more than eight hours each day they will erupt. Clearly these figures will vary between individuals but the height of everyone’s occlusion must depend on a combination of the force and the period of time that the teeth are in contact. The work of Kiliaridis and Kalebo10 has shown that strong muscles of mastication can encourage horizontal growth in both forward and lateral dimensions. This would suggest that we should encourage our patients to keep their mouths closed, eat hard foods and perhaps chew hard gum.“-http://www.tmj.ro/article.php?art=524124766124496
Treating the Cause Not the Symptoms, By training kids proper tongue posture, may reduce Orthodontics obsolete?
New treatment method for kids and adults to straighten teeth without braces.
Myobrace: http://www.myobrace.com/how_myobrace_works_about_the_myobrace_system/section/myobrace_option
It is simply a mouth piece worn at night that prevents mouth breathing so the patient learns to keep mouth closed during sleep.(it has a mouth guard that blocks air from going through the mouth so the kid will learn to breathe through nose) Also has a tag for where the tip of tongue should be. And bumper for lips to prevent lip activity during swallowing.
The goals of Myobrace system:
- Correct nasal breathing Lips together at rest.
- Correct tongue position.
- No lip activity when swallowing.
- Good facial development
- No braces, retainers, or extractions (if possible)
- Straight teeth
Kids & Adults are getting changes and straightening teeth just by training the tongue and to make it a habit to keep mouth closed during rest and sleep.
Orthotropics does the same thing, biobloc has fangs that come out that hits the bottom palate whenever the kid tries to open their mouth, which makes it very uncomfortable to open the mouth. So the kid learns subconsciously over time to keep their mouths closed. This becomes the new habit & proper posture pattern is established, and with closed mouth, the tongue has very good chances of naturally rising up and resting on the top palate.
By retraining the closed mouth and tongue on upper palate posture with proper swallowing pattern, over time the maxilla comes forward and you get the drastic positive changes you see from many before & afters of biobloc treatment cases.
It is the force of the correct muscles of tongue working in concert with cheeks, lips, and jaw muscles and also just as important is which incorrect muscles aren’t being used that will begin to remodel the whole face.
This mouth piece either myobrace or biobloc is a great strategy for kids who are not all that invested in correcting their postures, these appliances force them to change, & to create new positive habits, and once it becomes habit the appliance can come off and the kid will still retain proper facial form throughout life. Since the properly functioning muscles becomes the lifetime retainer.
If you are an adult and you have great needs/desire to correct this, then you may find that you are habitually trying to correct these habits all the time and overtime you notice that you are naturally keeping your mouth shut or your tongue is naturally rising and resting on the roof of mouth. You may find that these appliance aren’t necessary. Remember that oral myofunctional therapists accomplish the same facial changes for the better without the use of these appliances. However this does take some dedication & effort from the patient.
Once you begin to notice positive habits are becoming your new norm, then you will most likely begin seeing seeing subtle positive changes taking place in the face if you have not seen them already.
What I have noticed, really aids in this process of adopting the habit of keeping mouth shut, teeth together, and tongue on roof of mouth is to strengthen jaw muscles by increasing masticating effort throughout the day, increase lip closure strength with something like Patakara lip trainer, and working your tongue throughout day to continuously remember to keep that tongue raised to the roof of mouth.
To train proper swallowing it is best to practice with meals, but often times I forget to be conscious of proper swallowing during meals let alone pay attention to how I’m swallowing normally, however just whenever I can remember to practice it and to do proper swallowing randomly throughout day when you take sips of water or what I have been doing is to just practice with saliva.
During a proper swallow, The teeth should come together and the tongue should naturally rise to the roof of mouth to create a seal. As the swallowing pattern commences the tongue automatically should press against the roof of mouth and spread / flatten out towards the arch of the upper teeth. I presume this force has a lot to do with creating wide dental arches in people that never needed orthodontics because they were swallowing properly.
What I noticed was that for a while it was uncomfortable or felt unnatural to swallowing with teeth together. This tells me I was swallowing with teeth apart most of the time, this is the suckle way of swallowing where the cheeks or lips are used to create the negative pressure to suckle food down, or suck food down. With Teeth apart the cheeks and lips have to squeeze inward to create the suction for the swallow, this is said to be one of main causes of narrow palate and dental crowding.
In a proper swallow there should be no visible activity in the lips or cheeks from outside view. Basically no one should be able to tell that you swallowed.
Dr. Mew estimates 85{ae022d2295c0485893c83c8425b5bfafafba893c2d19b1bb9bc4c7c9bf3eeba6} of people are still carrying some form of infantile suckle way of swallowing. Pretty high numbers and just from what I can try best to observe in myself I wouldn’t be surprised if I was one of them.
With strengthening of jaw muscles, I am noticing my teeth are in contact with each other through day more often then before. And teeth are more likely to come in contact when swallowing as well which aids in developing the proper swallow. Along with strengthening lip muscles, I feel has tremendously helped my ability to keep lip sealed throughout the day. Whereas before I felt my lips would unconsciously fall open slightly during the day, or especially when I drift off into sleep, Since I have been extra sensitive in these things I would be conscious enough to feel this occurring. Or when coming back to consciousness from sleep I notice that my mouth had flung open during sleep. Before my lips felt sort of flabby (best way I can describe way) after lip training, my lip feels more firm and the upper lip and bottom lip meeting together to create the lip seal feels more secure and stronger.
(It is this proper lip seal that keeps teeth straight and aligned, preventing teeth from tipping forward. Keeps everything nicely in, it is like nature’s natural braces…in my opinion, you can visualize how the tongue and lips can form the dental arch naturally if they are in position)
Before training these facial muscles I was noticing my mouth falling open during sleep however by training jaw muscles and lip strength I am starting to notice to opposite, that my mouth is closed, teeth touching when coming back awake. It is interesting to observe these changes. However it is hard say at this point if I have for sure completely fixed these habits, unless I tape a video of myself during sleep lol, best I can do is to keep training my muscles. And I used to use tape to keep lip closed during sleep but this was before I learned about importance of muscles and before I was training lip and jaw muscles. Tape may be a decent temporary solution for you, however once I started strengthening the mouth closing muscles I felt I no longer needed the tape.
Some of the evidences that people notice of mouth closed during sleep is more restful sleep and less tossing in bed, and no more snoring. If you sleep with your significant another they should be able to tell you right away something changed by the increase in their quality of sleep due to the fact you are no longer snoring lol but since I am single no for sure way to tell lol. However I do recall that I used to wake up to drool marks on pillow. I never see that anymore…which is like my for sure way of finding out that my posture during sleep is changing. Also my mouth feels perfectly normal and moist upon waking…but I can’t remember if I had dry mouth before? I think maybe because I tend to drink water right away upon waking? also I think I notice I am tossing less in bed and my quality of sleep seemed to be better these days, although these aren’t night and day changes, it may be that changes are happening gradually that I’m just not aware of the differences.
That Jaw Muscle though is important and this is only my most recent findings, I’ve been training jaw muscles maybe 2 weeks. Dr. Mike Mew said that sleeping on his back was his favorite position but there’s many teachers and doctors out there who advise against that because that’s the position that the mouth is most prone to falling open during sleep and the tongue falling back into the airway causing snoring and sleep apnea. But Dr. Mike Mew says he experiences none of those things because he has good “muscle tone” which basically means he has good jaw muscle strength because he chews his food thoroughly and does a bit more chewing than the average person eating soft modern diet.
-CP
great article
I have gotten extractions of 4 teeth, will correct tongue posture still be useful, I feel like my palate is high, please help should I get dental implants? what exactly is the proper tongue posture?
If you find a solution please tell me I am currently on orthodontic treatment and i got 4 extractions as well and they tell me that I will have to get all of my wisdom teeth extracted as well. 🙁 I hope this exercises help
Excellent. Helpful.
I have not read all your blog posts. I wonder, though, have you looked into the importance of diet and specifically what foods and vitamins/minerals best support building new healthy strong muscles and even in some cases, new teeth, as well as overall oral health including healthy gums and tongue, etc. Conceivably, I think the importance of an adequate amount of protein, vitamins and minerals, and beneficial fats needs to be consciously included for anyone who is in the midst of working through all these issues–as I am. [Trying to grow four wisdom teeth right now along with completely changing my swallowing and doing 4+ hours of P.T. a day on my bite.] It seems to me that it is surprisingly difficult to get the amount of protein one needs. I would be interested in any knowledge you have on the subject–or what you are able to learn. Also, it seems that one can easily not eat a varied enough diet. Not eat enough dairy, say. To have the energy needed to do the work involved, one needs to have one’s nutritional status in tip top shape, it seems. And what popular culture rewards is actually malnutrition. Angelina Jolie does not have enough muscle mass on her to adequately support her skeleton. And she is everyone’s idea of the most beautiful woman in the world. Underweight is not equivalent to healthy–even though that is what is rewarded. And you will find a generalized lack of knowledge about this truth, and in the U.S., an absurd amount of positive reinforcement for female patients who are actually malnourished without knowing it. Wanted to put the importance of nutrition as a piece of this puzzle on your “radar” if it is not already there. Thank you. I experience your blog as comforting, encouraging, and motivating. And some days, like today, I do need a boost. Gotta go start my P.T. now.
Thanks for commenting, yes I do indeed have passion in nutrition but I generally stayed away from this topic because there is a lot of other good resources out there if one really looks, at the same time I do believe the nutrition industry is one of the most corrupt and filled with propaganda and lies to keep the masses sick and ill informed so that the pharmaceutical companies can keep running their drug business. This will take couple of articles on its own to discuss.
But generally the things to follow is to eat wholesome foods and cutting out processed foods. I am not perfect by any means, but I put forth the effort.
There’s some foods out there that are quite top of the list for me from the research I have done. Ordered from most important, The ideal diet as taught by my nutrition mentor Robert Von. You can google him he has couple of radio interview, his knowledge is vast.
1. Properly Cooked Vegetables with salt pepper & butter (White Onion + Yellow Squash, cooked in boiling water for 10 min only.)
2. Beef Liver (World’s most nutrient dense food)
3. Fruits and Vegetables (Apparently orange is the most important fruit), also Tomato and lettuce
I try to incorporate the above into my diet as much as I can, I’m pretty good at keeping #1 up but not so much the salads and beef liver consistently enough…
For the purpose of this site though to me, whats most important for jaw development and remodeling is not necessarily the vitamins and minerals but the toughness of the diet. We get crooked teeth now in the modern world because our diet has become soft. So I want to focus on that aspect as the most important. See the Eskimo’s have larger jaws and perfect teeth development but they eat a heavy meat diet, but the meat they are eating is much tougher. Also there’s a theory that Danish women are more attractive than the British because Danish people eat a tougher diet, particularly their bread. While British diet is softer
Also I would generally stay away from diary. Pretty much all dairy in the stores is useless because they have all be pasteurize and actually known to cause calcium deposits on your bone, actually make bones more rigid and harder to remodel. I heard it as fossilization of the bone and actually causes arthritis imagine that.. Which is the opposite of what you want when trying to move & remodel bones.
Your body doesn’t actually use calcium from diary for bones I guess that was a big lie, what actually helps all the building material necessary for bone is found in celery and kiwi. Kiwi for the potassium which goes together with something in Celery I forgot. See nature gave us clues because a celery looks like our bones.
You mention Angelina Jolie, although I’m not sure about the weight issue, what I can say is she has few characteristics of good facial development that gives her that “powerful” panther like look that most people admire. She is a horizontal grown face, with high cheekbones, hollow cheeks, wide dental arches, and her most important feature her horizontal lower jaw. And only way she was able to develop them was through good use of her jaws like a panther would. So not sure about rest of her body but as far as her jaw muscles are concerned she has good muscle tone there.
Chew on carrot daily for masseters and stick your tongue out and down hold it there and then try to pull it in and up you will strength the tongue muscle that lift and pull back the tongue.
If you have room in your mouth it will stay up, the way it was designed to be.
Tested.
Hello where I can find one section of your teachings (all that have to do with facial reconstruction, defined jaw line, stronger muscles in jaw) …do you have one area That encompasses all information and exercises?
no i do not, can’t fit it all in 1 place. I made the membership area as a means to condense most of what you need to know.
What are the chances you think this can occur in someone in their early 20s. E.g. I’ve been doing your tongue on roof exercises for the last 3.5 months (I’m 21) and my mouth posture is good now – I will continue to do them forever but what is your opinion on bone remodelling and the maxilla coming forward in someone in their early 20s and beyond?
I continue to see changes along with other readers. check out this post as well http://claimingpower.com/tongueposturefacechanges/
it is possible to change at late age
Great article. Thank you!
Just a question on doing the swallowing exercises when you have an overbite: When you say swallow with “teeth together” do you mean my normal overbite position where all the back teeth are together but not the front OR the front teeth together (where the jaw has swung forward, but there is no connection in the back teeth)?
Thanks!
Vishal
Where your jaws naturally close. Practice proper posture and swallow and you should see improvement in your overbite
I have problems with this too @vishal because if my back teeth are together my toungue doesn’t fit in the roof of my mouth. (There’s just not enough room). And my upper front teeth completely cover my lower front teeth… So, I’ve been holding my toungue up, with my front teeth together. Hard to do! The back of my toungue still doesn’t hit the roof of my mouth but I can get more toungue up than if it’s just my back teeth closed! The second problem then though it’s that swallowing becomes much harder to do correctly. Aahhgg. It’s tough!
What I’ve realised is how set back my lower jaw is! By pushing forward my lower jaw so that my front teeth meet, my chin line looks immidiately better, and if I push it out even more, past my upper teeth, it improves further and I can see what it should look like! So my lower jaw needs to come forward by about an inch! I don’t know how I achieve this! Especially as I can’t properly get my toungue on the roof of my mouth! But I’m going to try!
I’m going to start chewing gum. Not sure what constitutes ‘hard’ food? Raw vegetables? Beefjerky? Crustybread? (And don’t forget that these stars like Jolie rely so much on surgery is difficult to know what is real bone structure and what has been created by talented plastic surgeons. I’m sure over the years her jaw line has become more pronounced from Jaw surgery). But I’m really keen to do everything I can to improve my jaw naturally because I’m starting to have really bad sleep apnea. I’m eating a high nutrition diet and I’m trying to improve my general posture and muscle tightness because I’m extremely tight in the chin/chest and shoulders. There’s a lot to do, and I don’t know if it’ll work but I have to do it. I’m also going to look at dentist options for expanding my jaws. Ideally I think this is the best first solution to make room for my tongue, THEN once I can get my tongue up I can focus on that and swallowing correctly.
This is a great site. Thanks for all the information and impetus, it’s certainly prompting me to try this. So thank you!
I actually have a problem with the swallow.
If I freeze the sensation of toungue up after the cheesy smile preactice for holding the posture my mouth starts becoming wet and wet.. and salive stays just behind the lips, if I suck I involve my cheeks somehow (wrong), if I don’t suck salive stays there and I swallow nothing but air.
trying swallowing with teeth together
Hi, I have a small underbite so when I would try to swallow according to your instructions my front teeth touch, should I swallow without them touching as I am doing now? My tongue position is the same as you described it since I’ve got some training a few months ago. Also, an orthodontist told me I needed surgery for the underbite, is it possible it will be corrected by maintaining correct tongue position? My lower jaw should be about 2-3 further back than it is now.
Looking forward to your reply!
Not your lower jaw, but your upper jaw should be further forwards. It is difficult to say if tongue posture alone will do it, theoretically it should over time if you succeed in correcting the resting posture, however expansion of the upper and lower palate may help you using some sort of appliance like the biobloc or ALF, I would keep looking for different doctors that carry these sorts of treatments. Correcting tongue posture and lip seal is the most important for you. also check out http://claimingpower.com/properswallowing/
Hi,
Thanks so much for your great articles! I know you’ve touched on this before and say to avoid teeth extractions if you can but I’m wondering what your thoughts are on getting dental implants to replace wisdom teeth? I already have pretty good facial growth/structure and chew gum/rest tongue on roof of mouth, but I still feel I’ve lost some of the fullness from my face since getting my wisdom teeth removed. And I’m thinking dental implants would restore fullness, support to cheekbones, and possibly regenerate the jawbone through stimulation. What are your thoughts on this?
Some people have had wisdom teeth pulled on one side of the face yet have not noted any effect on that side while other side serving as control. So it is not too clear if wisdom teeth implants will make a difference, Although having the wisdom teeth there indicate the maxilla is that much further forward and wider than general population which gives good facial form, but at the end of the day, it is maxilla position and shape changes we are after for optimal facial form and Posterior Tongue posture has the biggest effect, then it may be teeth forces. Most people do not have space for the wisdom teeth implant so there in lies the primary issue.
We must ask the question if wisdom teeth extraction was the primary cause of loss of fullness of face or was it poor oral posture that failed to hold everything up and wisdom teeth extraction allowed for faster dystrophy. If tongue posture was good, could one overcome wisdom teeth extractions? I think its possible.
So to answer your question in long winded way, it is not clear if wisdom teeth implants will make a difference. If it has an effect it is only secondary to tongue posture & muscle tone at the same time if one has the space for it, I would imagine it will have an effect overtime though to what degree is not certain. For example the fullness and support for cheekbones you talk of may mostly be tongue posture not wisdom teeth.
Hi again,
Thanks so much for your reply. Luckily I still have the correct tongue posture, so I think that helps. I recently had my x-rays looked at by an oral surgeon who said I have more space for wisdom teeth implants on the bottom jaw than the top, where bone grafting may be necessary. He suggested possibly doing implants on the bottom first and seeing what esthetic results I get from that, before deciding to do the top as well. But do you imagine I’d see more pronounced results (appearance-wise)in the maxilla as opposed to the mandible? Optimally, I think I’d opt to do top and bottom but I think he may be right in thinking I should do two at a time and see what difference that makes first. Thanks so much again!
this is beyond my experience for my opinions to hold any validity, but I would imagine if difference is to be seen then you need top and bottom so the forces of mastication actually is stimulating bone when top and bottom wisdom teeth meet both during chewing and long term force when jaw is closed. this is purely speculation
What if the front teeth are edge to edge like in my case? should I keep the teeth gently together whilst keeping the tongue on the roof and lips closed or should I keep my teeth slightly apart from eachother. At the moment I am trying to keep them closed but it doesn’t really feel that good and I’m afraid I might wear them down this way.
Looking forward to your reply!
So it makes sense this would work when you’re still growing but what about as an adult? I’m 22 and have recently gotten Damon braces. If I Couple this with the tongue pressure is it still not too late to bring my face and cheek bones forward?
Having trouble keeping tongue on roof when sleeping. Any tips?
I’ve been trying to learn to keep my mouth closed while sleeping but I often get allergies so it’s hard to breathe through my nose. Also, if I adopt this new proper tongue posture, would it change the shape of my jaw, or is it too late? I’m 15 and I think I’ve already stopped growing.
Hey Claiming Power, I am 15 years old and had an overbite. I had twin block appliancias which force the lower jaw to meet just behind the maxilla. I have now finished using the appliances but now have fixed braces on for a bit. I have always had a square jaw and a good jawline. But I didn’t like my overbite at that time even though it wasn’t that bad. I fear that I have mucked up my facial development as my mid face is shallow and my cheekbones aren’t as frontally prominent as I would like them to be. Do you think I could fix this through pushing up the maxilla with the whole toungue even though I have braces on. Also for future reference what is the name of the jaw surgery where the maxilla is pushed forward and lifted up?
I am in my 40’s with several molars missing in upper back jaw, which have been missing for number of years. Planning to get dental implants soonvto help support my cheeks etc. Should I be concerned that my dental arch may have narrowed from lack of teeth over the years? If I have implants done now, does it lock me into having a more narrow arch? I would like to try something to widen palate like biobloc, but I don’t think there’s enough teeth in upper back jaw for a device to push against.
Please
Can you give me some guidance. There is a lot of conflicting information on Internet, and the closest orthotropic dentist is a full days drive from me.
Caroline,
I would definitely look into palatel expansion and myofunctional therapy first. Like jaw surgery, it might lock you in to that narrow palate. If you get a light wire system it can be attached to teeth towards the front of the palette.
I have the ALF wire and am missing teeth in the back of the upper jaw. I am waiting on implants until I am expanded.
Hope this helps,
Eva