Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark - How to Avoid Braces, Fix Tongue Ties, and Stop Mouth Breathing | Dr. Kalli Hale, DDS

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

You’ve been told your kid just needs braces… but what if the real issue is their airway?Today I’m joined by Dr. Kalli Hale—pediatric airway dentist, founder of Toothpillow, and total game-changer in kids’ health. She’s exposing the shocking link between jaw development, sleep, and your child’s lifelong health. If your child breathes through their mouth, snores, struggles to focus, or has been told they’ll "grow out of it"—this is the video every parent needs to see.🚨 Don’t wait until it’s too late. Your child's future health starts right now.TOOTHPILLOW: Use code "ALEXCLARK" for a FREE video assessment!Thank you to our sponsors!ZEBRA: Use code "ALEX" for 10% off any orderCOWBOY COLOSTRUM: Use code "ALEX" for 25% OFFBRANCH BASICS: Use code "ALEX15" for 15% OFFCOZY EARTH: Use code "ALEX" for 40% offGEVITI: Use code "ALEX" for 20% off your first purchaseOur guest: Dr. Kalli Hale, DDSKalli's Links:Toothpillow WebsiteToothpillow InstagramDr. Kalli Hale's InstagramDr. Kalli Hale on TikTokSleep Well Journey Website🌿 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Culture Apothecary WEBSITE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠👗 Get Alex’s freshest fashion picks and exclusive guest recommendations—delivered straight to your inbox!Sign up for the newsletter HERE:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠WEEKLY NEWSLETTER SIGNUP⁠⁠⁠⁠FOLLOW ALEX:Instagram |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @realalexclark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @cultureapothecary⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @realalexclark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @yoalexrapz⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @RealAlexClark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcast |⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join the Cuteservatives Facebook group to connect with likeminded friends who love America and all things health and wellness!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join the CUTEservative Facebook Group!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Subscribe to ‘Culture Apothecary’ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. New episodes drop 6pm PST/ 9pm EST every Monday and Thursday.#CultureApothecary #mouthbreathing #parentingtips #braces

What are some of the most shocking health and behavior problems that mouth breathing can create in a child? ADHD, bedwetting, alters the entire shape of your face. Our traditional brace is the best way to straighten teeth. They are a temporary solution for straight teeth. They need to go jaw development and breathing route. I personally feel like this platform and what you're able to do with how you reach people with what we're talking about today is going to change the face of dentistry. Because everybody needs to know about this. And dentists really need to pay attention.

Everything you thought you knew about your child's health might be missing a vital clue, their airway. Today, I'm thrilled to welcome Dr. Callie Hale, a leading pediatric airway dentist, founder and chief dental officer of tooth pillow, and a trailblazer in early orthodonic intervention. With a doctor of dental surgery from the University of Texas School of Dentistry, a master of public health from Texas A&M, and advanced training in dental sleep medicine, Dr. Hale has revolutionized pediatric care by creating tooth pillow. a device transforming how we address jaw development and breathing issues in kids. Dr. Hale's expertise and obstructive sleep apnea and passion for holistic health shine through as she lectures nationwide

helping families prevent lifelong health challenges. We get into tongue ties, ADHD, bedwetting, all of this could be because your kid is a mouth breather. Watch this episode on the Real Alex Clark YouTube channel or Culture Apothecary on Spotify, which has video as well. Find like-minded women who love the show in the cute servitude's Facebook group and make new friends in your area. Follow the show on Instagram at Culture Apothecary and me at Real Alex Clark. Pause before we get started here. Leave us a

five-star review, please. It's free, takes two seconds and helps our show be more discoverable, attractive to potential guests and climb the podcast charts. Also, just helps encourage my team that they're doing a great job. Please welcome Airway Dentist and co-founder of Toothpillow, Dr. Callie Hale, to Culture Apothecary. What are some of the most shocking health and behavior problems that mouth breathing can create in a child? Alteres the entire shape of your face. It can lead to behavior disorders like ADHD, bedwetting, things that you would never think to associate with your face or dentistry or mouth breathing. Is this why you're seeing these kids today that like have virtually no jaw? Absolutely.

So the mouth breathing look that people have. I mean, it's a real thing. Absolutely it is. In terminology and medicine. medicines called adenoid facies. Nobody know what that means, but they knew that if your adenoids were swollen and you couldn't breathe well through your nose, that you would look a certain way. So it's so important to make sure that your child is breathing with their nose, because if not, the shape of their face will literally change as they grow. How does mouth breathing do all of that? It's all muscles. Muscles drive bone growth, right? So if you think about it, if your tongue is where it's supposed to be in your mouth, which is up.

We're all sitting in here right now when your lips are closed, your tongue should be resting at the roof of your mouth. If it's not, your lower jaw is going to grow in the direction that it's stimulated. You don't want a vertical lower jaw. You don't want a mouth that's open where your jaw is literally hanging low because it will be back. If your mouth is closed and your tongue is up, your jaw is going to grow forward and your upper jaw is going to widen, which is going to give you that full, beautiful, wide smile. See, I feel like I have a leg up in life because I was a chronic thumb sucker as a kid. So my tongue is behind my front teeth.

Oh, my gosh. You know what? The crazy thing is it's actually the opposite. And I was a thumb sucker too, but you don't want anything blocking the roof of their mouth. So a thumb and a pacifier, don't even get me started on pacifiers, will literally alter the shape of the upper jaw to be more narrow, not wide. Are pacifiers really that bad if only just for a couple months when they're a baby? When they're babies, it's totally fine a little bit. But when I'm seeing your child in my office and they're two, three, four, five, and they still have a pacifier in their mouth, they call it the greatest orthodonic appliance that exists.

Because it will literally mold to the shape of that pacifier. So they've got to go. When you talk about people needing their tongue to naturally sit on the roof of their mouth, how do you get it to then go up if it's naturally on the bottom? Exercises. So, myofunctional therapy is one of those things. But here's the key. If your jaws are not white enough, your tongue can't fit.

So if your orthodontics isn't done right the first time to where your palate is nice and wide and broad, you're going to be told your tongue's too big and it doesn't fit, which is not true, Alex. Your jaws are too small. You are a dentist who believes that mouth breathing is a hidden epidemic in kids. this seems so innocuous to me. Like, if this goes ignored, what should parents be aware of for their kids' future in their health? They're not going to age well. This is such a critical decision.

I truly firmly believe that the decision parents are making what their child is growing. This is a critical component to their health. I know how mouth-breathing ages and it turns into obstructive sleep apnea, hypertension, coronary artery disease. This is very serious. And when we miss it in children while they're growing because we in dental school were not taught to identify those science. and symptoms, we are setting the kids up for failure. I think what's interesting is when I talk to my friends who are parents, who do have kids that are mouth breathers, they'll say, you know, well, our dentist told us they'll grow out of it. Just give it time. Why is that bad advice? Yeah, I got that advice, actually. So one of my biggest regrets being a dentist early on is telling a parent that their child snoring was normal and they'd grow out of it. Because that's what I was taught in my peed's rotation. That's what you say. You say their tooth grinding, don't worry, they'll grow out of it. They're snoring. Don't worry, they'll grow out of it. That's preposterous.

We actually have no evidence of that at all. A snoring child turns into a snoring adult. A tooth grinding child turns into a tooth grinding adult. And when we have a solution that literally cures it from the root cause, but the vast majority of dentists don't know about it, it's really sad. What was the moment in your career where you realized that traditional dentistry was really missing the connection between jaw development, airway health, and kids' overall well-being? Well, I started screening for sleep apnea.

I knew that it was this buzzword like 10 years ago. And I just, I was like, okay, if what they're saying, these people are right that your tooth grinding, your crown falls off, you break a veneer, maybe your implant actually comes loose. Like, that might not just be, oh, you needed a night guard, which is what we were taught. If you grind your teeth, you get a night guard. And yeah, that might protect the one arch that you're covering, but it's not treating the root cause. So for me, as I started screening for it, I started catching it. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, like, what? you stop breathing 15 times per hour. And like your doctor never caught that. Nobody's looking for that. It's

huge wait lists to get sleep studies. You have to actually have a physician that knows about it and would recognize that maybe something that you're dealing with like tooth grinding or headaches could be sleep apnea. And if your dentist isn't trained in it, you're totally screwed because there's glaring signs in our mouth that we struggle to breathe at night. And if they don't know, not that they're doing harm intentionally, they're just not going to talk to you about it. So as I started hearing about it, I started screening for it and I was catching it and catching it. And at the time, I had no idea what to do. do about it. I would just send you to physician for a CPAP. And a lot of people don't want a CPAP. That is like the gold standard in medicine right now is you get a CPAP if you're diagnosed with sleep apnea. And the understanding of oral appliances is pretty low, generally speaking.

Everybody does with CPAP as you've seen it on Hollywood. You've seen in movies. People are strapping it to their face for oxygen at night. But when there are other options that are way more convenient, way more comfortable and equally effective, the public deserves to know about it. So I just dove in head first. I was like, I'm going to learn everything there is about this because there are not enough dentists that are trained in it. They're not enough catching it. And then people started healing. I have crazy stories. Women go missed the most. Okay, you're young, you're healthy, you're thin. You've been sleeping a certain way your entire life. Maybe you had braces like I did too late when you were 13 or 14. I have crazy orthodontic story. And you just sleep that

way and you get used to your dysfunction. You really do. You don't know that you're tired because maybe your sleep quality is really poor or you stop breathing at night. Because why would you think that if nobody had ever asked you about it, or if it wasn't normal to have a sleep study done. That's not in our physicals, which I wish we could change, that every child in America at school would have a sleep screening done. Really? We look at vision. We look at scoliosis.

How do we know that they're actually rested so that they can be good learners at school? That is such a heart for me in the background of tooth pillow of how do we increase the access to this care? Because I started treating it and I started getting kids off medication and I started having kids go from C students to A students. I had kids that were bedwetters way too late in life. Suddenly they're able to go to church camp or they can go to a sleepover or whatever. And I was just sitting there like, what did I just figure out all by myself?

I had a couple of mentors. I mean, this was a huge target on my back. Huge target of back 10 years ago for this. And it's just gotten so much better now because more people are opening their eyes to it and because we created a giant company that was going to bring it to mom's doorsteps. What is the cutoff age where like if your kid is still wetting the bed, this is a huge red flag. So I usually tell parents that if they can hold it during the day, they should be able to hold it at night.

So, I mean, if you're a two or three-year-old in your potty training, there's going to be accidents sometimes at night and stuff. I've got three kids. That's very common. But once you're getting closer to four, five, six, my oldest bedward was actually 19. That is a problem. Wetting the bed at 19 years old? Yes. And totally because they were a mouth breather.

And nobody could figure everything was normal. The bladder function was normal. All the ultrasounds. they could not figure out what's going on, and this person had severe obstructive sleep apnea at 19 years old. How does mouth breathing connect to your bladder? It's crazy. Nobody thinks to go to the dentist if their child is bedwetting. But the kind of inflammation and taxing nature of the body when you lack oxygen is huge. So your brain senses a lack of oxygen, which can pull from the bladder and cause children to void.

There's so much that obstructive sleep apnea causes that I do think more people are paying. attention to now with various influencers and various people talking about it. But at the heart of it, you are not a healthy individual if you stop breathing at night. At the heart of it. No organ in your body can survive without oxygen, right? That is literally the lifeblood driving us every day breathing. And when you go to bed and you get data on these kids and adults that show that their oxygen levels drop to the low 80s, I saw a patient last week in my office, had full braces on the parents are like, she sleeps terribly. This is a problem. We need to come see you for a second opinion. I didn't do the braces, right?

And this beautiful little girl's 13-year-old sitting across from me, and she's telling her mom every day, I wake up tired. I feel miserable. And there's some measurements we do in dentistry to see how wide your mouth is. It's a very basic one. It's one of the first ones I do if you come see me. And I'm just like, okay, let's see how much your mouth grew when you were younger. She was the size of a four-year-old. Her palate width was the size of a four-year-old.

And her mom had spent thousands of dollars on orthodontics at that point. I did a sleep study, and she stops breathing 10 times an hour. That's massively severe. It's dangerous. They're even saying that some of the hypoxies. Some of the brain damage that's happening while these kids are growing and developing is not reversible. Holy crap from mouth breathing? Yes.

Brain damage. Brain damage. Our traditional brace is the best way to straighten teeth. They are a temporary solution for straight teeth. Temporary solution? Yes. I thought it was like you get braces once your teeth are straight for life. Maybe you need to wear a retainer.

Oh yeah. See, that's where we get you. We tell you that your teeth are going to shift if you don't wear your retainer. And we blame it on you. That's what happened to me. Me too. Okay, hold on a minute. So wait.

It's not your fault. If your kid has totally jacked teeth, maybe they don't necessarily need to go the braces route. They need to go jaw development and breathing route. Explain all of this. Okay, so you go in and you get braces when you're 13. Let me tell you something. A girl is 94% developed in her head and neck by 12. Okay, so we wait.

The narrative in dentistry, Alex, is you wait until the baby teeth fall out before you would ever do anything. Like, why would you ever worry about your kid's baby teeth? Like, that's literally up there with negligence, they say, to treat early. Okay, and I'm telling, I'm here to say the negligence is in seeing a child that is suffering from sleep disorder breathing and not catching it. That's the negligence because that's going to follow them forever. So you go in, you get braces. They line them up, which is what they did for me. I also had headgear the wrong direction.

Like, I was really cute. There's pictures of me. Nobody will ever see. Okay. Raps around the back of my head to bring things back. Braces by nature, if you do not have a properly trained airway provider are retractive. They're going to take things and squeeze it this way and make it nice and tight and pretty. They're not focusing on your tongue.

They don't know about your lip posture, you're swallowing. Are your muscles where they're supposed to be? Are you tongue-tied? They don't look at any of that stuff. Your muscles dictate the position of your teeth. People don't realize that. Like, your tongue position in your lips are going to dictate the position of your teeth. So if that's never addressed and identified, they're going to line them all up.

You're going to pay thousands of dollars to have your kids' teeth straight. And they're going to look beautiful when they take them off. But that's not stable. And then they're going to have to go back into braces when they're older. So you shouldn't have to wear a retainer for the rest of your life? You shouldn't have to if you start early enough. I have no way. Thousands of kids who have done nothing.

but a guided growth appliance like what we do at tooth pillow. And their teeth are gorgeous. You would not even believe it. And they'll never see retainers for the rest of the life. What is your opinion on Envisaline versus braces? So I'm one of the largest Invisaline providers in Texas. Okay. So you like Invisaline. Yes. When you need Phase 2 orthodonics, which is the tooth movement part, huge fan. We can do pretty much anything that you could do with Brock and Marr, you can do with inviseline now. Because I got Invisaline a couple years ago. It's like the best thing ever. Fabulous. Yeah. I love it. And I have a lot of opinions on a lot of things in Nendistry. But one is physically being able to take them out and giving the ligaments of your teeth a break is good.

Oh, really? Yes. Take it out. You eat. You put it back in. Versus. And I had bracket wire braces two times. And they sanded in between my teeth. They call it interproximal reduction because they said my mouth was too small, which it was. I had to fix that later after I learned all of this stuff. But having braces done twice, second time in dental school, they lined everything up. And I was like, okay, everything looks great. But I didn't realize that my grade four tip to end tongue tie that I'd had my entire life had changed the way. that my palate didn't actually widen. Do you like Envisaline for kids?

Yeah, I have my daughter in it. How old is she? Yeah, she's eight, actually. So she's did beautiful with all of her expanders and stuff, but you just have to do tooth movements second. You have to do the jaw development and muscle first. Does that make sense? So what does that mean?

Who does that? I don't even know what you're saying. And that's what we started with tooth pillow. Yeah, so you have to have jaws that are wide enough to accommodate all your teeth. Okay. So even wisdom teeth, right? Like, what if we just had room for those teeth?

Instead of, they were all crowded, they came in sideways, I had mine out, I was the product of that. Mine were like horizontal impacted, crazy. So they had to come out. But maybe had my parents known something about early interceptive orthodontics, basically phase one orthodontics, I would have root for them. And I wouldn't have had to have surgery to have them taken out. What is your hot take as an airway dentist on wisdom teeth? Make room for them and keep them. Keep them?

If you can keep them clean, you can keep them. Okay. So ideally, when does all this jaw moving and all of that? stuff happen? Like, what age? Birth? Explain. You need to breast feed longer. We need to be talking about hard food diets with our kiddos. We have all this melts in your

mouth, applesau. I did all this with my kids too, like in the beginning, because you don't know any different. So food squeeze pouches, like yogurt melts. Like your child's lip and tongue need to work while they're chewing. It's like working up. You know? You got to do squats. You got to do weightlifting. You've got to build that muscle. And you need to be

inducing that early on with your kiddos as well. So with tooth pillow, we start at three. So if your child is showing us signs of sleep disorder breathing, we can already see crowding in their baby teeth. Baby teeth that are lined up perfectly and straight is a huge red flag. What? Huge red flag. You need gaps between all of them because the permanent teeth counterparts are huge. They're twice to three times the size. So if they're all touching and they look cute and we're doing all these selfies with our babies and they look like they've got, you know, they've had braces already or something. That's a red flag. In the old days, they would take a nickel

and a nickel should fit in between every single baby tooth, even the molars. That's how they knew if they were developing right or not. So my personal trainer recently told me that she's ready to make the switch to non-toxic deodorant. Yay! And I was like, okay, girl, well, welcome to the club. But buckle up because it is a process switching to non-toxic deodorant if you're used to conventional. If you've been using conventional deodorants for years, your armpits need a little time to detox. So you might try three or four brands before you find your match. What works for one person might totally flop for someone else.

the thing that most people don't realize. When you clean up your diet and eliminate toxins, your body odor naturally improves too. So for me, the one deodorant that's stuck, I've tried a lot, the one that really worked, was zebra. It is aluminum-free, it's baking soda-free, toxin-free, and still keeps me fresh through tough workouts and long summer days in Phoenix. And, of course, cleaning up my diet, also huge plus. So if you're ready to make the switch, start with an armpit detox. So a clay mask works wonders. I would do that first. I would drink tons and tons of good, healthy water and electrolytes. I would give yourself some time to adjust and just remember that not every deodorant totally works for everybody. It's going to be a process. I really like

Zebra. That really made the transition smooth for me. And I'm really confident that you're going to like it to and you're not going to want to go to something else. You can try it at yayzebber.com. Use code Alex for a discount. That's yayzebber.com code Alex. Do you have a baby shower coming up? Want to nail your baby shower gift? Gift them branch basics. cleaning products, yes, because every single surface of their home, every single dish that's going in the dishwasher, all of their laundry, it's all ending up in baby's mouth or on baby's skin. That is why I love to recommend branch basics. I keep their concentrate on display. Just add water and oxygen boost if it's needed. It works on counters, laundry, toys, high chairs, you can wash with it. You can remove your eye makeup with it. You can even wash your produce with it. It is fragrance-free. It is human safe. No endocrine disruptors. No synthetic fragrance. I cannot even tell you. Like, nobody is thinking to give this at a baby shower. It needs to be you. And every ingredient is EWG rated one. And as a parent, you can feel so much safer knowing that everything that what your child touches is non-toxic. And it genuinely works. Handles tough messes without

harsh chemicals saving me from juggling multiple cleaners. One concentrate bottle equals about 12 refill bottles and 64 laundry loads, which makes it a smart, sustainable swap. If you want to upgrade your home, use code Alex 15 for 15% off your premium starter kit at branch basis. com. That's code Alex 15 at branchbasics.com for 15% off. So as a dentist, when you see a parent hand in their one-year-old baby, like a huge slab of steak or a rack of lamb or something, you love it. Oh, I love it. I'm like, chew that baby, chew it. Yes. Like, give them the best that they can because we are so many generations in now that the odds of every child needing a tooth pillow or expanders or whatever, that phase one orthodontics

is very, very high anyway. So do whatever you can to give them the best boost in their muscles and their jaw growth and development. Basically, when I'm talking about phase one, I'm talking about making sure that the bony skull changes happen in kids to where we're getting them back to normal. You do that with an airway dentist. Yes. Yeah, yeah.

So we make sure that we assess them and we realize, okay, you have a low-lying tug posture, your mouth breathing. We've got to get in there with nasal spray. We need to make sure you can breathe well through your nose at night. It's critical. I don't care if you're 100 years old or you're 2 years old. You need to be breathing through your nose at night. And there are many ways to track that and many ways to figure that.

out, easy for the public. But you've got to know whether or not you are mouth breathing because it is very detrimental to your health. The older you get, the more your health is going to decline. And everything for me and my family and my husband is just someone longevity. Let's take care of ourselves. Let's eat healthy. Let's make sure that we age as good as we can because the medical care in the medical system right now leaves a lot to be desired. And I don't want to end up in the wrong hand somewhere and I'm not healthy, right? For my kids, I feel like knowing what I know and truly understanding how my children are going to age means I have this. little window between three and 12 to get it right. Because it's much harder after that. I treat kids that are

older. I treat adults with expansion and do what we need to do to help them with their sleep disorder breathing. But why wait until that time? We know that they're not going to age well at that point. When they're little and they're growing, that's when you get in and start taking care of it. Are we seeing an increase in the amount of kids that are needing braces? Like comparatively to decades past, are kids today needing them more? Is it about the same? And are there specific modern driving a rise in crooked teeth and weak jobs? Yes, absolutely. I would say in the last 50 years, we've gone from, you know, some kids have braces to

everybody has crowded and crooked teeth. And we blame Western culture and diet on that for sure. When you look at other countries that have better food systems and tougher things, we were talking earlier about making sure that they're using their muscles, when you're processed and everything's soft and easy and convenient and on the go, we've seen generational changes in the shape of the skulls. So our skulls are shrinking. That is what we've been able to tell with time. And it has created just an absolute epidemic of crowded crooked teeth where everybody needs braces. And that's one of the largest expenses parents will have with their children as they're

growing. Are traditional dentists taught any of this airway stuff in school? No. Why? Probably politics. So as I've dug in to figure out, I spent a ton of money. My husband and I both on dental school. Like we sacrificed our 20s to learn and be the best providers that we're we could. And as I learned all of this, I was really upset. Like one of the biggest pioneers in the space that taught me pediatric orthodonics is, I don't know, 20 years older than me and been doing it forever. And I'm like, I'm sorry. Like, why did I never learn this? I'm really upset. I'm upset that I pulled permanent teeth on children so that the orthodontist could straighten their teeth up. You never do that anymore. You do not need to do that. We need to make room. Things that I just didn't

know. And I just got really upset about it. And I started researching and reading and finding myofunction therapy and orthopedic appliances a long time ago in books. And I'm like, where did it go? Like, why was it suddenly taken out of the literature? And why was it taken out of the orthodontic residences? That's the biggest question I have. But I am not an orthodontist. Thankfully, I finished as a general dentist and went and did as much training on airway as I could, because I do not think I would be sitting here today with the opinions and the knowledge and the kids that I have helped had I gone that route. For the parents listening that have children three to 12 years old. Can they just ask their holistic dentist these types of things and to help

with airway and all of that? Or do they have to switch over to an airway dentist? I would tell you probably the highest likelihood of a general dentist knowing about airweight would be in biological holistic dentistry, 100%. Because that was my training prior to even starting with airway dentistry. And that makes you question the narrative. And it's the best thing because we're not a healthy society. Our kids are not healthy. They're medicated like crazy for sleep deprivation and sleep quality issues that were treating as neurological disorders. The more you dig and the more you start seeing, the more questions you have. And it's been really in the beginning, I was very nervous about it.

In my town, I had a lot of orthodontas that would, you know, refer me patients and all that stopped. And I didn't care because I realized that what they were missing, I was saving that kid's life and that's all that mattered to that point. In the beginning, it was a little bit difficult, but now I'm just like bring the target as big as you want. So if somebody's listening and they're like, oh, I have a child three to 12 years old, We love our holistic dentist.

You're saying it might be okay. Ask them if they can help with Airway and if they're familiar with all that. So if they had a dentist that was holistic that said that they acknowledged and then they sought after a myo functional therapist, those two things they should be in a good combo or just completely switched to an airway dentist in the meantime. Right. Either way, my biggest urge for the community would be when you look up tooth pillow, what I have created is I found the best airway dentists across. the United States. We all band together because we were having these results in our practices that we were like, the parents need to know about this. And we need to go straight to the source because it's going to take dentistry decades to catch up and these kids are going to grow up at that point. Right.

And we do free assessments online. You can literally go to toothbill.com. I have a series of pictures. I want you to take of your child. I have a medical history questionnaire, a sleep questionnaire. I need to know what's happening that you're suffering from. We screen over 2,000 children every single month, Alex. These parents are so desperate for help and they are not getting the right. answers and they somehow will stumble across tooth pillow and they will connect the dots between sleep disorder breathing and ADHD, bedwetting, mouth breathing, headaches, tooth grinding. I mean, whatever tossing and turning all over the bed at night, night sweats. Like, that's another huge one. And by that point, sometimes the kids are already on multiple medications and it breaks your

heart. And I'm looking at these faces and I'm looking at teeth. They're so crowded. So the best thing in my opinion would be if your holistic dentist doesn't know anything about airway, submit to tooth pillow regardless, because you're going to get our opinion on where they need to go. Hyde's crooked teeth, what are some other signs that parents might notice to let them know that their child's jaw isn't developing properly? One would be dark circles under the eyes. We call it Venus pooling. But if you're waking up and you have dark circles under your eyes, especially your child, like that should not be happening in a child. You need to ask some more questions. And paying attention, you know, once your kids get a little bit older, they're not sleeping with you anymore necessarily. So some moms would be like, I don't actually know. Like, I don't know. They go to bed. 10 hours later, they wake up. Like, to me, they sleep great. Like, we don't know what's happening in that 10 hours. if we're not paying attention. And that's where sleep studies come in. And for me, before a child has ever put on mood altering medications, I would pray that somebody would do a sleep study on them first because that misdiagnosis rate is upwards of 50%. Did you know that your gut health is the

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cowboy colostrum tastes great, no chalky aftertaste, no natural flavors, no hidden additives, it's grass fed, it's also full fat. These other popular colostrum brands are not full fat. Just clean, powerful colostrum that your body can actually. actually use and the benefits go beyond the gut because it also supports immune function, skin, health, and overall vitality. So if you're ready to unlock the key to better health, head to cowboy colostrum.com, use code Alex for 25% off. That's cowboy colostrum.com, code Alex. So I'm moving into a bigger place soon, which is super exciting,

but it also means I officially have a guest room now. And listen, if there's one thing that can make or break your guest room, it is the sheets. You do not want your friends or family waking up sweaty, tingled, or just miserable. The other thing that can really make or break a guest room is if you have a little Laboooo living under the bed. I don't have that, so it's a really great place to stay. That is why I'm stalking up on extra sheets from cozy Earth. Their viscos from bamboo sheets are temperature regulating, so they keep you cool in the summer and cozy in the winter. They literally wick away heat and moisture from your body while you sleep. It's like climate control, but for your bed. And I have been sleeping personally on Cozy Earth's sheets for a while now, and I promise

you they are worth it. It is the kind of sleep that you actually look forward to at the end of the day. And now my guests are going to experience that same level of luxury without a little aboo-boo-boo living under the bed. They also give you a 100-night-sleep trial. So if you don't fall in love with Cozy Earth, you can return them hassle-free, but you're not going to want to. upgrade your summer and your guest room by heading to cozyearth.com and using code alex for 40% off best selling sheets apparel and more sleep cooler lounge lighter stay cozy cozy earth.com code alex for 40% off how does underdeveloped jaws and mouth breathing contribute to ADHD symptoms so think brain health when you're thinking neurology oxygen deprivation and then total sleep deprivation when you're not sleeping well i equated to being on maternity leave when I had a baby. Like I'm up multiple times a night. I'm so exhausted. I was not the friendliest person to be around. And it was just life was hard. And during that period of time, I could verbalize

that. I could be, I need help. I need a nap. Like I need somebody to come hold the baby. Like I, whatever. Kids can't do that. They're, they're stopping breathing. They're having these issues. Their brain is not recovering. Your deep sleep is so critical for recovery and health all the way through aging. Like even for dementia and Alzheimer's prevention, you've got to have enough deep sleep. So that's not happening. Things are not working well for them. But They were expected to wake up and go to school and sit still in class all day and be quiet. And it's a really, those are big shoes to fill if that kid has sleep quality issues and chronic sleep nutrition. What exactly is myofunctional therapy?

It's like PT for your tongue and lips. It's like a workout for your mouth. Things that you would never think that you should be doing in your mouth to exercise your tongue muscle. Like we don't think about exercising our tongue, but I tell you what, all these younger generations are talking about mewing and jaw lines and all that stuff. They're doing myofunctional therapy. They just don't even realize it. So the Rizzler is going to be the new mascot for two-killer. A hundred percent.

Yes. Dude is that. And it's crazy. Like I didn't know a lot about mewing per se, but I did have the pleasure of knowing Dr. John Mew. And I don't, anyways, what he has developed in making faces beautiful and the whole tongue thing caught on with younger generations. But they're not talking about it. Like even their parents would be like, mewing, what do you mean? And I would say it.

And they would just look at it. He's like, 12-year-old boy. And he starts laughing. He's like, how do you know what that is? I was like, bro, I got you. This is, I'm going to give you a good jaw and your tongue's going to function like it's supposed to. And then they're really motivated to wear their appliance and do the things that they say if they think they're going to have a chiseled jawline.

You're going to be mute out. It's going to be great. You're going to have all the Riz, skibbitty toilet, Ohio, whatever. Yes. Oh, my gosh. And I say that stuff because I don't have a clue what it means. And they just laugh at me and their mom's like, I'm sorry. Like, are you professional?

Like what? How can undiagnosed tongue ties in a child silently sabotage their sleep, their behavior, and why is that often overlooked by parents and doctors? Unfortunately, the narrative around tongue ties is really, really wrong. It stems from pediatricians, unfortunately. What are they getting wrong? They believe that they're not a problem, and they are often dismissive to the families,

the mom that's having trouble nursing or whatever else. Why do they say it's not a problem? They were taught it wasn't. And they're not qualified to make growth and development decisions. in jaw development, in my professional opinion. Because for you to miss that, for you to miss that and think it's okay, means you don't understand that your tongue is your now natural palate expander. So if you don't realize that your tongue is your natural palate expander

and that its ability to sit at the palate and stimulate width, if you don't understand that, then you will miss tongue ties and think that they're a fad and they shouldn't be done. So why is there all this obsession with this generation about tongue ties and all this, but nobody cared about it with us? So interesting story. So personally for me, on the day that I was going to go get my tongue tie fixed by an incredible pediatric dentist friend of mine, I called my parents. I'm driving there.

I'm like, couldn't you have just done this when I was a baby? And my dad goes, you know, honey, they told us not to clip those because they just grow back. Oh, weird. So my dad's been practicing 45 years. Yeah. Well, in what they didn't have any understanding of, he's been practicing 45 years, which means 45 years of this being told to people, right? Yeah. like generations that if they just grow back because they didn't know anything about

myofunction therapy, which that is how you prevent it from reattaching. That's how you prevent having a scar tissue under there potentially making it worse. You have to, I won't even do a pharynctomy on a patient if they have not had myofunctional therapy, period. So I had a little bit more grace for him when he said that. I was like, okay, you didn't know any better you know, and then I got it done. So it's really important to understand that, you know, Obviously, my parents weren't trying to do any harm to me or didn't realize that there could be impacts on my face development and my palate and my breathing as an adult because of a tongue tie. Like that just those dots weren't connected and we are massively trying to change that narrative. How does it affect a kid's speech?

Some children really struggle with speech when they have tongue ties. I personally did not. So I think it's easier to get dismissed if you don't have any issues, especially at your pediatrician appointment. So like I would go and I could talk my dad was like, you came out of the womb talking. I had no issues. I could eat fine. Like my mom was able to nurse me. So there was just no reason in their mind to do something invasive. Like it's really not invasive. But to do anything about it because she's fine. Like why would you? Because the orthodonic growth and development part of this was like completely unknown in the 80s. If you have a kid that is a mouth breather, how do you teach them to start breathing through their nose? Well, one, you need to get them in a tooth pillow. First and foremost, they need to wear something that will help them instigate nasal breathing. breathing. So the appliance looks like a little football mouth guard. That's what I tell to dads especially. Like, you look at it and you're like, okay, sure. And I'm like, this will be the greatest decision you ever make for your child in their growth and development. Because they're like, couldn't I just go to academy and buy something like this? And this stimulates your tongue to go up and you to breathe through your nose. You are not going to naturally breathe your nose if you haven't been breathing through your nose. And now your jaws are kind of small. Maybe your tonsils are inflamed. Maybe your adenoids are a little bit irritated. now. So getting air in through your nose is a little more difficult. So your body is naturally

going to go back to breathing through your mouth, especially at night once you fall asleep. So we have to give them something that's going to instigate nasal breathing. They put this in. The best way to get air in is through your nose at that point. And you start retraining those muscles. Do you wear this only at night? We ask for some daytime wear, an hour or two, they're reading, watching a movie or whatever, just to get used to it, swallowing with it, a little bit of active wear is great. But this is for sleep. How does tooth pillows approach differ from? from traditional orthodontics. And why is this more than just a cosmetic fix for teeth?

It couldn't differ more from traditional orthodontics. I personally feel like this platform and what you're able to do with and how you reach people with what we're talking about today is going to change the face of dentistry. Because everybody needs to know about this. And dentists really need to pay attention. So when you're talking about phase one versus braces, braces are tooth movement. Okay. Braces are a temporary solution for straight teeth like I like to say. So you're going to go in with braces with a child that has jaw underdevelopment issues.

Like that doesn't make sense. You're missing the entire point of what we need to correct before they're done growing. Really, really critical. What we're posting with tooth pillow and what we're talking about is to make sure that the muscles are addressed and the nasal breathing is dressed. The biggest thing this tooth pillow does is redirects breathing through the nose and redirects musculature to make sure that the lips are off the teeth and the tongue is up. The side effects of what we do are cosmetic. The kids, when you look at before and after pictures and it looks like we put braces on these kids because their teeth are straight, literally that's what they were wearing. Wow.

Because when you're breathing right and your muscles are where they're supposed to be, your teeth line up. And it's like natural what was supposed to happen to us. But we've lost that generations in with our diet and all the other things we talked about. So they couldn't be more different. And that's what I hope the public understands. We want you before anybody touches your kid, before any, before you give anybody thousands of dollars for braces that you have checked the list. more than once to make sure that they don't have any of the symptoms that we talk about on our website. Think of your health as a building. Your blood work is the blueprint, but most doctors only check the bare minimum.

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If you care about owning your health, had to go jevity.com, use code Alex for $12. 20% off your first purchase to take control of your blueprint today. That's gojavity.com code Alex. What is the process for a parent to find out if their child is a candidate for tooth pillow? So you'll go to the website and click as my child a candidate. And from there, I have a lot of questions for you. And your child needs to be present because I need pictures. I need to see what they look like.

Mostly profile and their bite. I need to see, do they have a cross bite, meaning is the upper so small that the upper teeth don't even overlap on the outside? We see that all the time. Do they have an open bite? Like they bite down and their front teeth don't even touch because maybe they were sucking their thumb for a long time or whatever else. So I have a series of things that I need to know. Medical history, surgery history, or the on medications, like all the obvious stuff. But I can take photos and bite analysis of your child and tell you whether or not they need early interceptive

phase one orthodontic treatment. Do you ever say they don't? Yes. So what is the criteria sadder thing is the amount of kids we have to deny because they're too severe. And I think that's a really important thing for people to understand about tooth pillow. I am not a direct to consumer. Click here, buy it. You're going to get the same thing. Everybody gets the same thing. Our age, we let you submit your child from the ages of three up to 12. Our denial rate on three is very, very low, obviously, because if there's symptoms and you're telling us they're snoring or, you know, waiting the bed or night sweats or whatever, like, we're going to help you and we want to be a part of that. The nine to 12 year olds can be so horrifically severe that they do need to go in office for upper and lower

expanders. And that is a huge difference versus traditional braces and traditional orthodonics in our generation where most of your friends had a pallet expander, an upper expander only, which we have known and seen now to fail. So we do a very thorough vetting process on all the doctors. Like I said, I found the best ones in the world to help us with this because I needed doctors that had already been doing this in their private practices that knew exactly what these kids would need. And I needed a home to send them when I deny them. And it's really hard if you're in the middle of Ohio or in the middle of Kentucky and you have nobody. You've got to drive six hours for your child to go see an airway dentist. It's crazy. So it is really sad to know, and I want everybody to understand that these are

very unique treatment plans. And we don't want your child to end up in the wrong hands. But if we have to deny you, we will work like crazy to help you get connected with the right provider. Does somebody wanting to go into dental school and do airway dentistry go to a special airway dentist school? Is that like a special course you tack on? It's like residencies after. Yeah. So it's continue education after. And I will, I'm proud to say I went to the University of Texas dental school in Houston. And they are starting to teach airway. They've asked me to come in and teach their process department. I'm like, I'm so sorry. I'm really busy. I don't, you know, but it is, it's important to understand that it's not enough and it won't be enough

for years and years and years. So the CE after is highly coveted for airway dentistry. I mean, it's a buzzword now. And it was not when I started this. Let me tell you. It was like, you had your couple of people and a couple of mentors that you could talk to about it. And now it's like there's an airway course all over that you can go learn from because they've realized how impactful it is. So it is changing in dental schools. It is. They're at least talking about adults more than kids. That's good. Yeah. It's they're talking about it, which I can appreciate. What is the cost difference between traditional braces and tooth pillow? It's pretty substantially less money. It depends on where you go. That's a harder question to answer. You know, you're five,

five to seven thousand dollars for braces, roughly, you know, in America. And when you do your phase ones, they're, you know, between two and four thousand. Teledinistry allows for us to make this cheaper. So in my heart in building tooth pillow was we need to increase the access to care. I want to bring this beautiful box to the doorsteps of these families. So they're kids. can start breathing better on night one. And that allows us cost savings that we can then pass to the family because you're not taking up chair time in my practice and all of that. And I'm still practicing. I'm still seeing patients and handling virtual cases at the same time. So it's important. It is less expensive, which I think is really wonderful if you have three or four kids and they all need it

and they're all suffering. Any cost savings like that is really wonderful. Do you have like an approximate of how much it is per month or anything? We have that working down on our website, actually. You can get it over 100 a month. It could be a little bit under 100 a month. I think we're around 1,500 to 2,000 depending on the case. And that's for 24 months of treatment. If a child is not approved for tooth pillow, how do you help families ensure that they still get the care that their child needs? It keeps me up at night sometimes because I know that if they go to the guy on the corner or the person who's maybe in network with their insurance, that they're not going to get the care that they need. So we have an entire team of people at Toothpillow that will get on the phone with these moms. And we're talking thousands per month

we're screening. And I'm like, you need to get on the phone with that mom and you need to express urgency for what I see and exactly how the treatment needs to be done because it's going to determine the rest of their life. So is it you that is looking at every single one of these things that come in? Dr. Ben Moralia and myself are screening 2,000 plus kids a month right now. How many hours a day do you spend doing that? Well, he helps me a ton. So he probably does it more than me. But every single week, it is a it is a all-consuming job. And I have five dental offices in Houston. I have three kiddos. I also train dentists in what I do. So I have a private mentorship group to make sure that they can help their patients the way that they need to. So women business owner

to Minnesota girl is a full-time job. That is wild. I just commend you. That's so impressive. What is one piece of advice that you would give parents to start advocating for their child's jaw in airway health today, whether through tooth pillow or other means? If your child is struggling with a symptom and you're being told, don't worry, they'll grow out of it. challenge the narrative. Please get a second opinion. It is the most critical time in their life for their growth and development and will literally determine how healthy they are as an adult. I cannot reiterate that enough. It is the most important decision I think a parent will make is who does their child's orthodontics and what their approach is going to be. And if you're just going to whoever is the cheapest in your town, I can promise you there's going to be consequences for that. Do you agree that cash pay, doctors, Dennis, the like, are always the better option? Yeah, I've been out of network with dental insurance for a decade. I won't play the games anymore. I won't take whatever pittance of little fee they need.

I need to make sure that the materials that I'm using in the fillings, in our cleanings, the lasers, the stuff that we have to really make sure that your mouth is as healthy as possible. Because it's the gateway to the rest of your body. So when people say, like, well, I understand that. I wish I could go to a holistic dentist. I wish that I could go to a naturopathic doctor, et cetera. But they're not covered in my insurance. I wish they were. Do you wish that you were covered by insurance?

Or you like, no, that's a huge mistake. You don't want these doctors and dentists covered by insurance. Yeah, I mean, I would have to go with the ladder for sure, just because I've been in practices like that. I've seen practices like that. The materials, it's like whatever the cheapest thing we can find. Obviously, fluoride is now finally getting banned in multiple states. You're going to get what you pay for. And you're also going to get how much that dentist has educated them after school.

And so I want to go to the person who's on the top of their game. They've been to all this extra CE. They're learning everything they can because they know how important their job is. This goes with any physician I see. For me, women's health, like anything, I want to make sure that I'm getting the most up-to-date information. You should be interviewing your dentist. You should be interviewing your physician because they're going to be making decisions for you that could literally impact the rest of your life. If you could offer one remedy to heal a sick culture, physically, emotionally or spiritually, what would it be?

Make sure you're a nasal breather. I think that alone has been proven to drop blood pressure. and make sure that you don't have obstructive sleep apnea. Those are the two that I absolutely have to say. Where can people find out more about tooth pillow? I want you to go to tooth pillow.com. You're going to be able to find symptoms on there connecting the dots for your child and maybe what you're concerned about seeing.

When you click as my child a candidate, you're going to be able to answer a ton of questions and give us some pictures. The really unique part about tooth pillow is that you can also request a personalized video consultation, something that your dentist in your state will take your pictures and your documents and make you a custom Zoom video. in their spare time. And all of my amazing airway dentists are full-time practicing doctors. So they're finding the time in the week to pull up the pictures of your child and express the need for what they see and what you need to do. And those videos are what sets us apart from any sort of tele-dentistry orthodontic

company that you've maybe heard of in the past. And they can actually get this free video assessment by using code Alex Clark, so make sure that you do that. And where can they follow you on social media? You can find us on Toothpillow underscore official. And then my professional account is the Airway centered dentist, all spelled out. Cool. Dr. Hale, thank you for coming on Culture Apothecary. Alex, thank you so much. Finally did the tongue tie episode and address that.

I don't think I've addressed that quite yet. I also haven't really talked about braces before. So I thought that conversation was fascinating. She was telling me, if you can help the jaw sizing or whatever it's called early on, you probably don't actually need your wisdom teeth removed, which really blew my mind. I had a terrible wisdom teeth experience. So if I would have known Dr. Hale back then, my life would be so different. But I didn't.

And you have the opportunity, potentially, with your own child, to make different choices when it comes to their teeth and their airway health that could really set them up for success for the rest of their lives. So I hope you take her up on it. Tooth Pillow has been a great friend of the show. And they're a fantastic company. Honestly, I discovered them through my friend, Dr. Lauren Johnson, who a lot of you guys love Natural Nurse Mama on Instagram.

She's been on the show, did a phenomenal episode. She's also the co-host of Red Pill Your Healthcast. And anyway, I learned about Toothpillow through her and I trust her with my life. So if she says a company is like A plus amazing 10 out of 10, then I tend to believe her. And obviously I don't have my own kids to do Tooth Pillow on, but I know you guys do. And so I just love partnering with people that I think are going to be really beneficial for your life. So if you love this episode, please leave a five-star review. We do new episodes every Monday and Thursday at 6 p.m. Pacific, 9 p.m. Eastern.

Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and Real Alex Clark on your show. YouTube. You can find the show on Instagram at Culture Apothecary and me at Real Alex Clark. I'm Alex Clark and this is Culture Apothecary.