Airway-Focused Orthodontic Treatment

Did you know that obstructive sleep apnea and sleep-disordered breathing in kids is tied to mouth breathing, restless sleep, poor school performance, behavioral problems and even ADHD? Or that mouth breathing can cause major changes in your child’s dental and facial development? Foundations Orthodontics can help! Our board-certified orthodontists and bite correction experts, Dr. Renee Moran and Dr. Caitlin White, offer airway treatment in Denver, Centennial, Granby and Winter Park, CO for patients of all ages. When children, teenagers and adults can breathe properly and sleep soundly, it greatly improves their quality of life.

young boy sleeping

The Importance of Holistic Orthodontics for Airway Problems

Unlike traditional orthodontics, which centers mainly on straightening the teeth, holistic orthodontics looks at the entire dental and facial system, including the airway. When there is harmony between the teeth, bite, jaw joints, tongue position and facial structure, the airway is generally unobstructed, which encourages nasal breathing. Nasal breathing is essential for good health in all ages and critical for proper craniofacial development, head posture and temporomandibular joint (TMJ) function in kids.

How We Treat Airway Problems

At Foundations Orthodontics, we treat children, teenagers and adults with a variety of breathing and airway problems, including nasal obstruction and sleep apnea in Denver. We do this through what’s known as maxillary expansion, which means expanding, or widening, the upper jaw and palate.

Maxillary expansion can often:

  • Widen the floor of the nose (the palate, or roof of your mouth, is the floor of your nose)

  • Create more space for the tongue

  • Create more space for the permanent teeth to erupt centered in bone

  • Secondarily, open the posterior pharyngeal airway space, as the tongue has more room to come forward

The specific appliance or technique our doctors use will depend on your age. To learn more or to have your airway evaluated by a holistic orthodontist, schedule a consultation for yourself or your child at Foundations Orthodontics today!

Frequently Asked Questions About Airway Treatment

 
 

  • Breathing correctly through the nose adds moisture and warmth to the air, enhances oxygen absorption by the lungs, filters out impurities and more. In kids, nasal breathing plays a critical role in their growth and development.

    When children can’t breathe adequately through their nose and resort to mouth breathing, it can interfere with the development of their facial structures, impacting their appearance and health as an adult. In people of all ages, a lack of nasal breathing forces the body to adapt to get enough oxygen in the blood, leading to a number of potential consequences.

    One of the most well known consequences of mouth breathing is sleep-disordered breathing (SDB), such as obstructive sleep apnea and upper-airway resistance syndrome. SDB doesn’t just affect adults either. It’s become a pervasive problem in children and has a negative impact on their development, growth, behavior, academic performance and overall well-being.

  • Did you know… 15% of children have sleep disordered breathing including obstructive sleep apnea but 90% go undiagnosed.

    Signs of an airway problem in kids include:

    Snoring

    Mouth breathing

    Choking or gasping for air while sleeping

    Pauses in breathing while sleeping

    Fatigue

    Bedwetting

    Waking up frequently during the night

    Other sleep problems, including night terrors and sleepwalking

    Teeth grinding (bruxism)

    Headaches

    Tension in the neck and shoulders

    Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain

    Forward head posture

    Behavioral and social problems (can mimic ADHD symptoms)

    Academic issues, including difficulty paying attention

    Asymmetrical facial appearance

  • Early intervention while a child is still growing and has some of their baby teeth is ideal. It will allow us to correct the underlying cause of airway problems and prevent issues with development and breathing in the least invasive way possible. Early treatment can change oral posture and breathing patterns that will positively influence growth, skeletal and dental development and overall health for years to come. However, it’s never too late for treatment and our doctors can treat teenagers and adults too. With her holistic approach, she aims to strike the perfect balance of health, function and cosmetics.

  • In young children, the maxilla (the bone that forms the upper jaw) consists of two pieces that meet in the middle at what’s known as the midline suture. Until around puberty, the suture is not fused and it responds to pressure and tension with a fixed expander. The appliance attaches to the upper molars and sits against the roof of the mouth.

    As you activate the palatal expander using a special key, it gently separates the two halves of the upper jaw and causes them to grow outwards. New bone forms in the middle, stabilizing the skeletal expansion. Not only does this widen the palate to open the airway, treatment also helps create a healthy, aligned bite and encourages your child’s permanent teeth to erupt into their proper positions.

  • From the mid-to-late teen years into the early 20s, the midline suture is too tight to expand with a traditional palatal expander. However, our doctors can often still achieve skeletal expansion by using a mini-implant-supported expander. Since it’s a bone-borne appliance instead of a tooth-supported one, it can exert enough force to safely widen the upper jaw.

    It might sound intimidating, but we promise, getting the mini implants is minimally invasive and you won’t feel a thing during the procedure. Just like with a regular expander, once the appliance is in place, you’ll use a key to activate it. This will gently separate the maxilla and help expand the upper jaw. Once expansion is complete, our doctors will leave the appliance in for a little longer while new bone develops and locks the expansion in place.

  • Yes! In more mature adults, there are options that can achieve the same results, though they do involve some form of surgical intervention. The two techniques Dr. Moran and Dr. White use for maxillary expansion in adults are Distraction Osteogenesis Maxillary Expansion (DOME) and Surgically Assisted Rapid Palatal Expansion (SARPE).

    Both options are multi-step procedures. First, our doctors place a palatal expander, sometimes along with mini-implants. Then, your oral surgeon surgically opens the midline suture where the maxilla meet. Once the suture separates, you’ll turn the expander to gradually widen the upper jaw and expand the nasal floor. When expansion is complete, our doctors will close the space between your front teeth that develops during the process and re-establish a healthy bite with orthodontic treatment, such as braces or Invisalign®.

    Since SARPE relies on an expander that is attached to the teeth, the surgical aspect of treatment is more invasive. DOME uses a bone-borne appliance that exerts more force, reducing the amount of surgical intervention needed. Once our doctors have a diagnosis and understanding of your needs, she’ll be able to help you decide on the best treatment for your case.