Dhru Purohit Show - Snoring Is a Major Red Flag: A Dentist’s Dire Warning About the Signs Women Should Never Ignore for Better Sleep & Longevity with Dr. Leedia Riman

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

This episode is brought to you by LMNT, Puori, and Birch Living. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, I sit down with Dr. Leedia Riman to explore why many women begin snoring after pregnancy or during hormonal transitions and how it can affect their overall health. Dr. Leedia reveals the key signs of airway dysfunction, explains why teeth grinding is a critical warning sign that shouldn’t be ignored, and shares the five pillars of optimal oral and dental health. She also offers practical guidance for protecting your oral health throughout perimenopause and menopause. Dr. Leedia is a board-certified biological dentist and co-founder of ELEV8 Beverly Hills Biological Dentistry with a passion for prenatal and infant dental care. She created Koracare, a lifestyle brand dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of oral health during pregnancy and beyond for both mom and baby. She also created Little Jules, a unique candy line designed to bring children and adults joy and healthy smiles without contributing to cavities.  In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Leedia dive into: (00:00) Why Snoring After Pregnancy Is a Huge Red Flag (3:21) How a Missing Tooth Led to Breathing Problems (6:52) Dental Expansion Explained (9:27) Understanding Upper Airway Issues (12:48) Warning Signs of Airway Dysfunction (14:53) Teeth Grinding Shouldn’t Be Ignored (20:32) Myofunctional Therapy (23:01) The Five Pillars of Oral and Dental Health (27:56) Dr. Leedia’s Personal Story (34:24) How GLP-1s May Affect Your Airway (40:03) What Your Dry Mouth May Be Telling You (48:51) What Women Aren’t Told About Menopause (54:26) Why Flossing Matters More Than You Think (55:38) Choosing the Right Toothpaste (1:00:01) Do Air Purifiers and Humidifiers Really Help? (1:03:54) Why It’s Time to Take Oral Health Seriously Also mentioned in this episode: Videos of Myofunctional Exercises  Angie Bimat, Myofunctional Therapist  Heart & Soil Organ Supplements Risewell Pro Toothpaste The Forgotten Power of Breath and How to Use It to Radically Transform Your Health with James Nestor Millions Have This Sleep Disorder Without Knowing It—Here Are the Signs | Dr. Oliver Zolman WeNatal For more on Dr. Riman, follow her on Instagram, Threads, YouTube, Substack, or visit her Website.  This episode is brought to you by LMNT, Puori, and Birch Living. Right now, LMNT is offering my listeners a free 8-count sample pack with any purchase. Head over to drinkLMNT.com/dhru today. Quality protein matters. Get 32% off Puori Grass-Fed Whey Protein and a free shaker when you start a subscription at puori.com/DHRU and use code DHRU at checkout. Birch’s Labor Day sale continues! My community can get an exclusive 27% off a Birch Living mattress —just head to birchliving.com/dhru today.   Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter *Nothing discussed in this podcast should be construed as medical advice; always consult a qualified healthcare professional regarding your individual health needs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Lydia, welcome to the podcast. So you have a crazy story. All right. So these are important facts that are there. Follow along, everybody. So genetically, you're missing a tooth. We'll get to why that's important in a second. And then you have three kids.

After your third pregnancy, you noticed something a little bit weird start to happen. And you're a dentist, a functional and biological dentist. You notice that you started snoring in. Anytime you see a patient, especially a female, that starts snoring all of a sudden, that's kind of like a canary in the coal mine for you. That's a sign. That's a smoke alarm going off that, hey, I don't know where there's fire, but there's definitely something burning.

Take it from there. Like, what the heck happened and why is this important for the audience that's listening? Snoring is a huge red flag anytime you see it. And there's the statistics that over 35% of pregnant women start snoring after pregnancy. So after, not just during. After, mostly after, because that's when the progesterone drops, okay? So it was my third pregnancy. It was actually a twin pregnancy, and I lost one of the babies.

I'm so sorry, I didn't know that. Thank you. It was, God has, you know, God works in mysterious ways, but I had to be on bed rest because my nausea was so severe. I couldn't leave the house. Like, it was a very tough pregnancy. So towards the end of my pregnancy, something happens called pregnancy rhinitis as the progesterone rises, and women get really. congested. It's like very typical pregnancy for night, so that's why I tell my woman to always clear their mouth,

that's clear their nose, and just practice as much nasal breathing as possible. And then I started snoring significantly, my husband would tell me, and it really bothered me when he told me that. But after I had the baby, my snoring did not go away. It stayed and it actually got worse. And other than him telling me that, I was waking up feeling like a bus hit me. I was so fatigued in Like almost debilitating fatigue. It wasn't, and I have a newborn.

I have two other kids. I'm nursing on demand. So, like, night and days. That's why I was tired. But this was a different level of fatigue. You're like, something else is going on. And were you asking people where they're like, hey, it's normal. This is like your third kid.

Yeah, everybody, it's like, oh, it's normal. You're a mom of fear. You're going to be tired. Yeah. But just because it's common doesn't mean we should accept. So important. And I am an integrative dentist and I work with women. I've been working for women for so many years.

but it really hit me this pregnancy. So I was like, I need to dig in. And my thing is I want to get to the root cause. I don't want like quick fixes. Like I love mouth tape. I love nasal clearing. I do it. I do all of that.

There was one afternoon I was sitting with my husband in our living room and I was seeing my kids and I just felt so tired. I couldn't enjoy them. And I was like, if I'm like this, I'm 41 years old, imagine when I'm like 80. Wow. Like I'm seeing the menopausal woman in my eye.

office. I'm seeing the paramedopause. Like, I am seeing the future. It was like kind of like an out of body experience. I saw my three little kids as adults with their own children. How do I want to interact with their children? So I needed to make a shift for my health. So right away, I made the decision. I need to look further. And I knew I needed to expand because I was born narrow. You knew that you needed to expand. Let's start there. And then you said that your jaw and your bite is narrow. So break those two things down. What are you talking about? I was born congenitally missing an upper anterior tooth. So one of my front teeth is missing. I'm very open about it. Like, I was born that way.

Sure. And it never really impacted me until I got pregnant. I noticed a change in my airway in my first pregnancy, but I was younger and I was able to compensate better and I bounced back a little better. So when you're missing an upper front tooth, a lot of times what doctors want to do when they put braces on or in Vis-Line, they want to close the space. Naturally, because it's the quickest fix. That's the most aesthetic treatment right away. And they presented that to me,

and I started in dental school, meaning. I was missing a front tooth. We were like, what are we going to do to replace it? Are we going to make space for an implant or a flipper or a bridge? Or are we going to close this space? A lot of dentists close the space, it's quicker. And just one thing I want to add to that,

for those that are listening, you might be thinking, well, I'm not missing a tooth or I don't know anybody that's missing a tooth, but also, if you're probably above the age of, let's say, 40, 45, somewhere around there, if you ever had braces or bad orthodontics, there was also this habit back in the day where people used to just pull teeth. Pre-mullers. I actually have that.

Yeah. They pulled one or two of my teeth. I forgot. Yeah. And it caused a narrow bite from me, which is partially how we ended up connecting. So even if you've had bad dental health, other stuff, teeth pulled, this applies to you as well too.

And even if you've had no teeth pulled, it can still apply to you. 100%. Because a lot of people do have airway issues, and a lot of them are compensating beautifully, and they don't need expansion. Not everybody needs to. There's also a little trend happening right now where everyone wants to get expansion. You need to go to somebody who really understands how it works. So I knew I needed it because I was born missing that tooth.

My upper jaw didn't develop to completion. So the roof of your mouth is the floor of your nose. So if you are narrow, if your palate is narrow, there is narrowing in your nose most of the time. I am not an ENT, so that's why we work with a team of doctors. It's not just your dentist. It's an airway-centric orthodontist. It can be an oral surgeon also, an ENT. It's a team approach to properly do this.

And in my case, an amazing aesthetic dentist because I need to restore that missing tooth. I can't walk around with a missing tooth for us. missing tooth, I went and I seeked out someone that I trusted, and we took a CT scan. And long and bold, I was narrow. So he did the measurements, and based on the measurements that he did, he's like, Lydia, for sure. You're narrow. You would really benefit from expansion. Yeah.

So just so everybody's following, you're missing a tooth genetically. You had narrowing that was there. That means that your jaw is narrower, which also means then your tongue, which is normal size. And then usually after pregnancy or even for men, they get. gain weight in life, women gain weight in life. Now your tongue, in a way, is quite large for your mouth, but it's really your mouth is too narrow. So fast forward a little bit. Just, you know, you'll expand on this. But now you have breathing issues, which are connected to fatigue, which are connected to all sorts of stuff, which, by the way, increases your risk of Alzheimer's

disease, a whole host of things. So just giving a little preview for people, and I'll hand it back over to you to continue the story. Did the CT scan, Dr. Tim U, who's our, my Rwaycentric orthodontist, he's like, for sure you'll benefit from expansion. And I asked him a million questions because I was concerned about facial aesthetics. Some people are like, oh, your nose is going to get wider, or your face is going to change. And my face has changed, and my face has changed in a very good way. I'm very happy with the results, because I can send you before.

I still don't have the full afters because we're at towards the end of my treatment. We're like, okay, we're going to go full force. We're going to do this. So I decided to do the expansion, specifically the Marpee, which is a mini-screw-assisted rapid palatal expansion. It's where they take six mini-screws. It can be more or less, I'm not sure. For me, I needed six. They put the six mini-screws in your palette.

Which sounds crazy. It is crazy. But if you want true expansion, true skeletal expansion, from my research and from my experience, that's the only true way to get true skeletal expansion. What does that mean? There's two types of expansion that can happen in your mouth, dental, and that can happen with invisaliner braces. They can tip your teeth and move your teeth around, right?

And then there's skeletal, which is bone, like putting your bone where it's like expanding the bone and actually growing new bone to create that space. So I'm getting my follow-up set in a couple weeks, and we're going to see how much bone I've grown during the point. past nine months. So after he puts six mini screws, he puts the Marpi on. And we literally have screwdrivers like wrenches that you use in your garage to fix things. They're really small. And every three days, or for me it was every three days, three to five days, you actually

screw your dog. Yeah, you're literally widening your palate by turning a wrench. Yes. And slowly, even though it's, I forgot that acronym, what's Marpee stand for? Mini screw rapid palatal. Yeah, but it's not- Assisted rapid palatal expansion. Yeah, but it's like a slow expansion that's there, but much faster than other options. Yes, exactly. That's what I wanted to say.

And you're widening your mouth, which now allows more room for your tongue. I mean, you literally told me, like, you came in today and you were like, I, even though I didn't sleep that well because I have like, you know, three kids and other stuff and busy mom and practice and business, I got such deep restorative sleep. My sleep has never been this restorative. It's incredible. Anybody who's followed any of this airway stuff for the last few years, James Nestor, we've had him on the podcast. He had the best-selling book. And inside of that, he talked about how we just as species, men and women, kids, because our food has gotten softer

over a period of time, because we're not chewing as much, because our nutrient, potentially are playing a role and maybe some other things, are jaws comparatively to even, you know, a few thousand years ago, even a few hundred years ago, and even comparing the jaws of Western people to individuals that are more nomadic tribes, you know, from Africa or other places who have perfect teeth if they're living this sort of nomadic life, unless they have an injury or, you know, lose a tooth in an accident,

their jaws are wide, their teeth are perfect. They don't have sleeping issues. They don't have airway issues. And so we've seen this trend that is at the root of so many issues, which is people don't know it. Their jaws are narrowing. They're breathing through their mouth more often. And it's causing a cascade of things. We just had a longevity researcher from Cambridge University on the podcast a few weeks ago.

And he opened up and shared, and he had never talked about this publicly before, Dr. Oliver Zalman. He was kind of the lead architect of the longevity guy, Brian Johnson, his whole world. He kind of put a lot of that together, and he said, I finally figured out that the root cause of my chronic fatigue. This is a longevity researcher. For years has been this undiagnosed, essentially upper airway respiratory issues, which is a modified version of like a sleep apnea. And it's causing all these problems in particular for him, just chronic fatigue. Going back to your story. So you put in these screws.

You did this expansion. You're on the tail end of it now. You're sleeping better. You're saying that your face looks better. Like what specifically? Like, what did you notice in your face that changed? You eat a lot less when you have all the smell in your mouth. So you're on an oral g-lp version.

Yes, totally. Yeah. I call it Nature's Ozzympic, where I had to be very mindful. every single time I ate, it helped me lose a lot of my postpartum weight. So that was a really nice perk. So, of course, that's going to create some changes in your face. And like, you know, the double chin that was forming, et cetera. But also, something you just said, which I want to sum it up, Airway is King.

Airways King. If you are not breathing, you are not thriving. You're living, but you're not thriving. There's a lot of people that are here that are wondering, like, how would I know that I have an airway issue? one thing you mentioned is snoring. Are there any other science, especially for women? Because you know, you're here to like champion for women. You are like, you know, really the one that's out there like talking the most about like

how much your body changes after pregnancy, these hormonal changes that happen in life. We're in this meno revolution where everybody's talking about that. And they're talking about protein and muscle mass and osteopino and osteoporosis, all important things. I've done many episodes on those for years before it was a trend. but nobody's talking about dental health and how that plays a role. And we're going to talk about that on today's podcast. But what are science that you have an airweight issue for somebody listening today? Mouth breathing.

If you're breathing with your mouth open, sudden bad breath, all of a sudden, your partner or your friend or you feel like you have bad breath, dry mouth out of the blue. If you have sudden cavities, like, oh my God, I've never had a cavity in my life. And I go to a dentist and I have four cavities. Like what's going on? Almost 95% of the time, the underlying cause is a microbiome issue. A lot of root causes for microbiome issues is airway issues. So we're always doing airway assessments on everybody.

We are looking at body compositions of our patients to look at fat and muscle, not just to look at fat and muscle, but inflammation. When you have more fat, you have more inflammation. When we're looking at your airway, we're saying, how are you breathing? I ask you all the questions. We do that we take the CT scan. we see from your history what brought you into the office today.

And a lot of people are like, okay, I thought I was just going to come and fix it. But to truly fix it, I can drill and fill, and I can be the best dentist I can, and I am. And we have a thriving practice. But I pride myself in not just only being the technician in restoring decay or failed dental work, etc., but also finding out why the decay happened. Why do you have the bad breath? Why is your microbiome shifting? And specifically, you talked about women, your mouth is a hormonally regulated organ.

We have hormones receptors all over our mouth, all over our salivary glands, mucosal lining, the bones surrounding your teeth. So as a woman goes through seasons from puberty to postmenopause, and the hormones are rising and falling and rising and falling, and we're not even talking about birth control and IVF and fertility treatments because that all does play a role. Our mouth is responsive to these hormonal shifts. And it's a very, very significant aspect of women's health that needs to be shed light on. Talk to me about grinding. When somebody's grinding at night and they go into their dentist and the dentist's like, hey, you got wear and tear, you need a retainer.

What's actually maybe going on? You know, I was thinking recently that I think we underestimate just how much he, Heat alone can take out of you. And you don't have to be crushing a workout or running five miles to be sweating. Just being outside, running errands, walking around, or spending time in the sun can mean losing more fluids and electrolytes than you actually realize. And sometimes your body feels it before your brain makes the connection. You're tired. Your energy is dragging. You feel a little foggy or just off. And your first instinct might be to grab another coffee when what your body actually might need is better hydration. And hydration isn't just about drinking more water. Electrolites matter. too, especially sodium. That's where Element comes in. Element gives you electrolytes your body uses, including sodium, potassium, and magnesium, without sugar, without artificial sweeteners,

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And with Peory, I can actually verify it for myself. If you want protein that you can verify, not just trust or blindly trust, so to speak, go to pure.com slash drew and use the code Drew for 32% off your first subscription order. In addition, you'll get a free premium shaker bottle on your first subscription order. Just go to Puri, P-U-O-R-I dot com slash Drew, D-H-R-U, and use the code Drew D-D-H-R-U at checkout for this limited time offer. When you're grinding, the way I like to explain it to patients is that you're drowning in a pool and you're coming up, taking deep breath, and then you go underwater,

and you're going back up. So when you're grinding, your jaw is trying to find the right location to come up for air. I want everybody to take that really seriously, especially for children, but everyone. A lot of kids grind. I have a lot of moms like, hey, my son is grinding. Or, hey, I started grinding after my pregnancy.

Or, hey, I'm going through parimenopause or menopause. I'm grinding so much. so many layers to what a woman goes through during these seasons. Yeah, there's a pregnancy component. You get bigger, you gain some weight, you have major hormonal changes. You have estrogen progesterone that are literally congesting up your nose because they cause vasodilation. And that gets even more serious towards the end of your pregnancy. Then after your pregnancy in the fourth trimester, after you have your baby, there's a huge drop. And that also causes more stressors on your body. Where's that stress going? Add a crying.

baby, trying to breastfeed, waking up all night, and a lot of women are not replenishing properly as well. The orophacial and oropharyngeal muscles, so our airway is like a straw. It's like a tube. It's a straw. What's holding it up? It's muscles. It's your muscles that are your oropharyngeal and orophacial muscles. And what these muscles do as they weaken, because they're hormonally receptive as well. These muscles that are hormonally receptive as your hormones increase and decline, they also start to weaken. So that's why myofunctional therapy for postpartum, perimenopause and menopause to support these orophacial muscles, research-backedus,

it's been found to really increase your level of sleep quality and lower the number of AHA, which is the disruptions if you have sleep apnea. That term might be new to some people. Can you explain myo functional therapy? It's like you go to the gym and you work out. I worked out yesterday. I did three exercises and I'm trying to lift heavy because I need to lift heavy so I can create more muscle because the muscle supports my bones and my joints, etc.

We forget about our orophacial muscles. We have muscles in our head and neck and these muscles are holding up our airway. So myofunctional therapy is actually exercise for these muscles. It's something that I also want to give, not everybody, has the ability or the access to get expansion, should they need expansion. My functional therapy is something they can do online with therapists. I have a bunch of therapists that I can recommend. And it's literally exercising your orophacial and oropharyngeal muscles. Making the muscles holding up your airway stronger, tighter so that your tongue is in the right position in your mouth,

so that the muscles have better tone. And when these muscles have better tone, your tongue is in the right place, you're breathing better. Our ancestors who had better jaws, they were just regularly working out their jaws, those muscles, their tongue by not eating soft food all the time, right? You hinted to that. We also aren't breastfeeding our children as long. So breastfeeding is the first orthodonic treatment

and the first airway treatment. Because when a baby is breastfeeding, they have to breathe through their nose. Their jaws are working really hard. I don't know. I'm you've seen your baby breastfeed or a baby breastfeed. They're working. It's hard work, especially at the beginning. It's very hard work to get that lot. I believe in baby lead waning, so whatever I'm eating, I give my babies. So we eat liver, broth, organ meats. That just has part of, I try to stick to an ancestral diet as much as possible. Of course, I'm nowhere near perfect, But my baby's first food are foods that I would have eaten if I were alive like 100 or 200 years ago, like liver.

Broth is like king in our home. We don't do anything processed. No sugar and very little fruit the first couple years because I want them to get used to these nutrient dense, nutrient rich foods filled with vitamin A, D, E, K. So the way I organize all of this in my head, and this is, I feel very important. There are five pillars to oral and gentle health. Yeah. And I want to go over them because it breaks it down really nicely. First pillar is having a dental home.

I think everybody needs a dentist that they trust and feel good in, where they feel safe and at ease because dental phobia and dental anxiety is at an all-time high. And I think it goes far beyond dentistry, but that's not what we're covering here. having somebody that you trust that you can be like, hey, I have a problem, how are we going to solve it, and this dentist is going to go to bat for you, and find the team. And a dentist who's a jack of all trades, I'd run away from that dentist. I cannot do it all, and I don't want to do it all, because you can't be good at it all. Number two, habits, hidden habits. Habits like, how frequent are you snacking? We live in a very snack-heavy culture, especially for kids, but even for adults, every time you're snacking and eating, the acidity in your mouth rises and it changes and it shifts.

How are you breathing? James Nestor, I mean, summed it up so beautifully in his book. And he like, you know, he did, he, he, I read his book and when he plugged up his nose and he forced himself to breathe through his mouth for X amount of days, that's incredible. Imagine you're doing that for your, like. Yeah, and he felt like crap. He felt like crap. So imagine how babies are feeling. And then it starts habitually, like they get their first sickness, they get their first cold.

It's really cute with their mouth propped open. So a lot of mouth breathing and a lot of airway-centric issues start at infancy. So looking at these habits and what's going on at home and teaching moms and dads and caretakers is very essential. And then you have supplementation and nutrition. Those are two pillars, two separate pillars. Like you said, Weston Price, Dr. Weston Price, he looked at all the average. and he saw that people who were eating the ancestral diet, they had beautiful wide jaws with teeth that have no decay and beautiful airways. Why? They were eating meat. They were eating

crunchy vegetables. They weren't eating anything soft. They were having to work. They were having to chew. When you're chewing, you're using it. So when you give your child a pouch, which I do too. So no shame here. I give my children pouches, especially when we're flying and out of the house. It's a lot different than giving them a celery stick or a cucumber where they have to chew. They have to use their steak. It's different than them just sucking on a pouch. Let's talk about supplementation.

One of the main supplements I give my children early on, and I even take it's called liver oil. When you have adequate amounts of the fat soluble vitamins that build your teeth and support your mucosa and your oral health, you got to think healing is from the inside and the outside. So how we breathe is a huge component of that. Huge component of that. If you're not breathing well, yeah, you're grinding, but what else are you also doing? You're drying out your saliva. Saliva's king. It's a golden elixir that has so much minerals and nutrients and your immunity to fight against things. It's like you cannot shower your teeth every night if you're breathing through your mouth. Yeah, such an important thing. It's crazy how often, because people don't have the awareness, even though it's starting to, you know, unfold a little bit, but it tends to be more like New York, L.A., you know, some of these cities.

There's a lot more information sharing, but it's crazy how many people, even I think, like, my sister's got told this, you know, you're grinding, and then you go to your dentist and they maybe notice it first, or you sort of get TMJ or other things, and you bring it up. And then your provider just tells you, like, yeah, you're stressed. Just work on the stress in your life. And it's like, yeah, your body's stress because you're not breathing. You're not getting oxygen. You're not getting, so not only are you not breathing and getting oxygen when you are mouth breathing or severely grinding, you're not creating a molecule called nitric oxide. And that's created in your sinuses.

And it's created by the good bacteria in a healthy microbiome in your mouth. And nitric oxide is a vasodilator, meaning. it allows the lining in your body to expand so that you can bring in more oxygen to your body. And that is extremely important because that's been linked to things in children like anxiety, depression, ADHD, ADD. And what they're doing is they put our children on these pharmaceutical drugs, which I'm not against if that's what's right, if all the root cause ordeals have been taken care of. But no child should go on any of these medications until they get a sleep assessment, until they make sure that they're sleeping well at night and they're properly oxygenated and they're properly breathing through their nose.

Let's pause for a moment and just chat a little bit about origin story because you have a crazy one. You were taking care of all these executives in the Middle East and you started to notice some wild stuff taking place. Can you take us through that? Yeah. So after school, I was hired by Saudi Aramco, which is the biggest oil company. in the world to this day. One of the biggest companies in the world too, right?

In the world, yeah, yeah. When they hired me, they wanted a U.S. board-certified dentist who spoke Arabic so I can also talk to the wives of these executives and because they felt more comfortable with a female practitioner. That's when the seed was planted because I was seeing so many women out there and their mouths were a wreck. And when I was in America, it was like, oh, it's due to socioeconomic status that a lot of these children or a lot of these families have decay.

In Saudi, it wasn't a socioeconomic status. Money was not an issue. So it kind of was like, hmm, money's not an issue here. They have access to care because Aramco has an actual hospital for its employees. And they hire dentists and doctors to treat the expats and the employees. So I'm like, why do I see this much decay, this much snoring? Because they report or this much bad breath and this much gum disease. I did not connect the dots back then, but I remember like, hmm, you know, using a little bit of critical thinking and asking, like, why is this happening?

I was fixing all the problems, but I knew they were going to recur because I wasn't getting to the root cause. And it wasn't until I moved back to L.A. I worked for a rampco for about three years, and I moved back to L.A. And I opened up an office of my brothers in Beverly Hills. And then I got married and pregnant. And then I had my first aha moment because I had something called hyperamist. this Graviterum, I was vomiting seven to 14 times a day every day for seven months during my first pregnancy. And my implant, but I had a dental implant where my missing tooth was got very infected.

So we had to remove the crown. And then I was like, why am I going through this? And I was like, oh my God, you know, pregnancy. Like that's like one of the biggest hormonal shifts a woman goes through. And I started digging and I started asking. And over 65% of pregnant women go through some sort of dental disease, dis-ease during or soon after their pregnancy. So that's why I doubled down on that world because I found such a great opportunity to help so many just because I needed that help.

And as a dentist, I didn't have it, and I had to figure it out for myself. So if I'm hearing from you correctly, and please correct me where I'm wrong, part of the issue is just the massive changes in hormones that are happening, right? but that's built on top of already some of the challenges that we have in our society as a whole for a lot of people, soft food, lack of nutrition, lack of supplementation families, etc.

But what seems to be the additional piece, if I'm hearing correctly, like why it might have showed up more in your third pregnancy, not in your first two, is that you had, you know, you're older, right? your third pregnancy is older. Your body's not as resilient. You told me privately, you weren't as active. I wasn't. Yeah.

So the weight gain was more. And we know that, you know, one of the first things that gains weight in your body, when you gain weight, is actually your tongue. Uh-huh. And so your tongue now is larger. So now all this stuff that was there, maybe on a small level that your body could manage before because you were more active, you weight a little bit less, other stuff. now it's all kind of combined and it's a much bigger issue that's causing fatigue and other aspects.

It's not just one thing causing something. You nailed it on the head. At 30, having a child at 30 is a lot different than having a child at 40. I can attest to that. You know, I had a lot more muscle tone when I first got pregnant. I weighed a lot less at the very beginning.

My hormones were a lot more balanced, you know, going through multiple pregnancies. And I think as we're growing and learning and as a practitioner, I help so many people in my office and I'm getting more and more into the hormone world. And I hope and I pray for more research in this world because most of the research is done on men. But very little research is done on, for example, HRT and how it improves serestomia, dry mouth, and parimenopausal and paramedopausal women, and how it improves TMD, temperamandibular disorder, and orophacial pain. we need more research because as we're going through multiple pregnancies, and it's not just the

pregnancy, there's so much more egg freezing happening right now. There's so much more IVF happening right now. And then we have perimenopause and then the big hurrah menopause and how that shifts. So a woman goes through many insults throughout her life, whether she's gone through pregnancies or not. and underlying as you go through more pregnancies, you are more prone for these repercussions. It wasn't until my third pregnancy that my husband was like, oh my God, you're snoring so much. He'd never told me that before.

And he would tell me. We're brutally honest with each other. And rightfully so, you're living with the person. You need to be able to coexist in a very authentic manner. When he told me that, because he's not a complainer, I'm like, hmm, he's like, oh, my God, you woke me up. I'm like, if I'm waking you up, and I'm waking up, and I feel like a train just hit me, and I feel I can barely hold my baby properly.

Like, I needed help with me 24-7 the first year after Thomas was born. And like you said, I was not active. I really wish I was an athlete all my life, and then boom, I need to become sedentary because of this debilitating nausea and my miscarriage and all the things that a woman's body goes through, I mean, it's pretty magical what our bodies do, but it's pretty impactful on our body and our mind and our spirit. So put on that not being able to breathe properly and not be able to oxygenate properly, I bet you anything. If I did not have good expansion in, I would have needed to cancel this podcast today. Like I got such great sleep the few hours that I slept, so I feel good.

I'm fine. But two years ago, I wouldn't have been able to do this. on a related item, you know, you're in Beverly Hills, your practice, beautiful practice, by the way. Thank you. You know, it's the center of sort of all the things that were there, probably some of the first people that were doing GLP's and things like that in Beverly Hills. Have you been noticing for some of your early patients that went on GLPs that just simply because they were losing weight, that some of their airway stuff improved? There aren't many products in your home that you come in direct contact with for seven or eight hours every single night.

Your mattress is actually one of those products. So for me, what that mattress is exactly made of matters just as how comfortable it is. That's one of the reasons I've been sleeping on and recommending the Birch mattress for years now. Birch makes a fiberglass-free mattress using natural and organic materials without polyurethane foams. Their mattress can use materials like organic, fair trade cotton, organic wool and natural latex. And beyond the materials, it's honestly just a super comfortable mattress. Birch focuses on breathability, which helps keep you cool at night.

And for me, creating a cool, comfortable sleeping environment is one of those simple things that can make it easier to get the deep restorative sleep your body needs. I also appreciate that Birch owns its own manufacturing facility and ships the mattress directly to your door for free. If buying a mattress online feels like a big commitment, Birch makes it easier with 120-night risk-free trial. So you can actually sleep on it in your own home and see how your body adjust.

Every mattress also comes with a limited lifetime warranty. So right now, if you're curious, Birch is having its Labor Day sale, and it's exclusively offering my community 27% off. Just head over to birch living.com slash Drew, D.HRU to save 27% off. And give your body the gift of upgraded sleep. I have noticed correlations in the loss of weight with airway. that's one positive thing, and it's allowing them to breathe more through their nose. And as people are learning about mouth breathing versus nasal breathing, I think we're all catching on.

But there is one repercussion that I'm seeing is that because it impacts your stomach acidity and the way the digestive system works, our mouth is the first portal of our digestive system. It's one tube. So we're seeing more dry mouth, and we're seeing more dysbiosis. When you say dysbiosis and obviously they're connected, are you guys looking at the oral microbiome, like are you using tests? Yes. Got it.

Yes. Yeah. So we test for the oral microbiome. And of course, we do the clinical tests, like our dental clinical tests, where we measure pockets, et cetera, look at bleeding, recession, all that. But we also look at salivary flow. We test the salivary pH. And we're noticing with people on chronic TLPs, their pH is more on the acidity.

side and their oral microbiomes have more dysbiosis. Interesting. Yeah. So we say when your gums bleed, you have leaky gums, and when you have leaky gums, you have leaky guts, and everybody talks about gut health and your gut microbiome. But one of the missing pieces is your oral microbiome and your gums and the quality of your gums and how tight and protective. Your gums are protective to the rest of your body. So there's pros and cons to everything. My patients on GLP's are loving the results, whether it's a aesthetic result, but also how they're feeling in their infamatory markers. But we need to keep a close eye on their mouth

so that they don't come out with a bunch of cavities or chronic bad breath or let's see how we can restore some of that dry mouth because saliva is king. So many people's nutrition. Yeah. Even here in Los Angeles is not great. Yeah.

And then they're not eating as much. And we already know in particular for women, you know, you can get in this very sort of place where you feel like you like to be trim. Men, men want to be, you know, then to, I mean, they want to be buff, but they don't want to be fat either. Yeah, 100%. Right. Nobody wants to be fat. So I don't want to make a women issue. But in particular, there's this already this issue of frailty that's there, which we've done many episodes on, you know, talking about some of the cons, about, you know, especially when people are on these large or even normal doses of GLPs instead of

Even the micro. Even micro, potentially. We did a whole episode on that, you know, just a little bit ago and making sure you look at like body composition, muscle mass, prioritizing all the food, if that's something that you're going to be including as part of your routine. Also, let's go back to what holds up your airway. It's muscle.

So you need to be very mindful of muscle tone and muscle loss. And hormones impact your muscle tone and things like GLPs can impact muscle loss. So that's why for all my GLP patients, most of them are pretty conscientious and they're working with an incredible doctor that, you know, so I take care of the dental component. Their doctor takes care of like the physical component. And I just, when you educate people learn and when you learn, you can't unlearn. So the biggest thing, the biggest takeaway thing for any, there's something called a GLP mouth where they are having severe dry mouth, especially higher dosages of the drug. So just be mindful of that. If you are on them, make sure your dentists look, evaluates your gums, and looks at your microbiome and your salivary pH to make sure that's in line because the last thing you want is recession and decay.

And the last thing you want is an airway issue to come out because of poor muscle tongue. If somebody's listening and they're like, oh, man, that's happening to me. Like, I have dry mouth because of GOPs or I just have dry mouth in general. What would be the first few steps that you would say? At home, I want baking soda to be your best friend. Baking soda. Baking soda. Okay, let's talk about that.

Alumin free baking soda. It's the easiest mouthwash, mouth rinse. It's very cheap and it will neutralize. You got to think that you've got to keep neutralizing the acidity in your mouth. Your mouth is not meant to be acidic. Your stomach is meant to be acidic. Because when it's acidic, that's when cavities start to happen. That's when there is a higher breakdown of your dental.

tissue, your tooth. So baking soda water swish for 30 to 60 seconds, especially at night before you go to bed. So just do it one time a day? If you are very dry, like for me, when I was vomiting a lot during pregnancy, or if I have a patient, she has severe rheumatoid arthritis, so she has an autoimmune condition. And 80% of autoimmune conditions are in women. I have them rinse with baking soda water morning, afternoon, and nighttime, or after each vomiting spell, like I was going through to just neutralize the acid. A lot of times when you vomit or you're nauseous, you want to go brush your teeth so that you can feel fresh. Please don't do that because you can abrade your teeth, your dental structure. Let's neutralize first your mouth, then brush our teeth.

Prioritizing proper hydration, good amount of minerals, electrolytes, but the electrolytes, please don't sip on them all day. Yeah, this actually happened to a friend of mine. Okay. During her pregnancy. Okay. Yeah. So, More people are becoming aware how important it is. And even my friends, O.B., said, hey, listen, you know, I want you to be taking electrolytes, especially while you're pregnant, let's make sure. When you're breastfeeding in particular, right, because your body's going through so much. So this individual was pumping at night and was drinking electrolytes.

Wouldn't go through their normal sort of like brushing of their teeth, you know, like in the morning and in the evening. but overnight when they would wake up to pump was drinking electrolytes and then would go back to sleep. So now you have all this electrolyte that's in your mouth kind of coating your teeth and then what's the problem with that? Man, that is a perfect storm.

That is like, because first of all, you're not getting adequate sleep. When we sleep, we detox and we're able to heal. That's number one when you're pumping and waking up a lot at night. Then I'm sure she's not brushing her teeth right after. And you shouldn't, I don't want her to, but a lot of women, they snack a lot at night or drink their electrolytes, especially as you're breastfeeding. So you have this biofilm on your teeth and you're not adequately disrupting it. So the microbiome shifts because you're not properly cleaning your teeth. So what we do in our practice, we stain everybody's biofilm. Your biofilm's different than mine, different than everyone that we know. We all have different patterns on our teeth that show us where we're doing a good job, where we're doing a poor job. So you're drinking electrolytes, you're feeding. the bad bacteria. A lot of time in the postpartum phase, that's when snoring and mouth breathing

really starts. So you're adding another layer. You're drying out whatever protective saliva that you already have. So do you see how it can be such a perfect storm? And you're constantly snacking. Every time you snack, pH in your mouth drops. And every time it drops, the remineralization, de mineralization, that there's a little balance between the two, you get more de mineralization

than remineralization. What happened to this friend, just to kind of add to the story, is that they texted me because they're asking like, who's the best dentist and everything? Because they went into their normal dentist and they found out that they not only have

four cavities and they have no history of cavities, and on top of that, crazy teeth sensitivity. Like, teeth so sensitive, They couldn't even get through. Breastfeeding. Yeah. Where's all the nutrients coming from? Totally.

The bones and the teeth. And thank God she's replenishing with some electrolytes, but it shouldn't be chronic replenishment day and night. That is a very, very frequent. That is like that. That's what I see day in and day out in my practice. So what we do,

we actually have two integrative nutritionists on our staff that work with our patients because nutrition needs to be really, really, really dialed in because we want to replenish. more than the rate of replenishment needs to be faster than the rate of depletion when you're pregnant and nursing, specifically nursing. When you're pregnant, you can't control. You're in survival mode a lot of times, but afterwards you have a little more control. And then looking at the habits, how is the quality of sleep while you're sleeping? If you're not sleeping well,

and during the time that you're sleeping, you're grinding and you're breathing, and you're breathing through your mouth and you're not getting restorative sleep, that, your teeth are the last thing I'm worried about. I'm worried about so much more. I'm worried about your brain health. I'm worried about postpartum depression, anxiety. I see and I help and guide a lot of my patients that are in that realm. I'm like, I'm going to keep your teeth stable right now.

We're not going to fix everything right now. We need to fix this. We need to, like, get more protein into our diet. We need to do this and this and that. once they make the necessary hydration shifts, nutritional shift, habitual shifts, then we go back and do more dental work because dentistry is a pretty intimate and intrusive profession. And your dentist needs to understand that whole body picture. Rush and aggressive dentistry are just something that I think are a detriment to so many people

in society, but especially postpartum and pregnant women because we're in a very vulnerable state in our life. So true. And we need so much care. and attention. Obviously, it's multifactorial, but postpartum depression, which we've done some episodes on on this podcast. And, you know, the piece that people weren't talking about for years was obviously the nutritional piece. And especially after multiple pregnancies, it's like restoring. This is why so many traditions and cultures around the world have such a very specific process

around what women, you know, shouldn't, shouldn't eat and prioritizing, you know, not too much activity. Obviously, we don't live in that world where we have that culture and sort of that component, but that doesn't mean that the bodies don't need some of those same things. Yeah, we need to replenish the first 40 days. First 40 days, other stuff. We're not doing that. Yeah. But the piece that I still don't hear people talking about as much is, okay, you have poor

nutrition after giving birth. That's a whole other thing. You know, your brain needs certain fats and your body and other stuff. Now on top of that, you have extra weight, which your body's working on getting rid of. And so you're more likely to develop, like, you know, an airway issue. And then you're not sleeping well. Now you can understand how somebody can literally, like, that can be the perfect recipe to drive somebody crazy. 100%.

I had a patient about a year and a half ago, postpartum, just had her baby, her second baby. And she came in in heavy distress. So when I'm doing an oral exam, I'm looking at like vagal nerve tone. and I look at how the nervous system's working through the mouth. Her tongue was shaking so much. I had to stop my exam and put her up. And I just asked her, are you okay? Like, how are you doing?

Teeth aside. Because whatever else is happening, I see it on your teeth. Each mouth tells a story. I can tell so much about what's going on in a person's body and life just by looking at the wear patterns, how the teeth look, et cetera. and she just started bawling. It became like a therapy session.

We had to actually reschedule to look at her teeth because I had to get other people in line to help this woman. I wasn't the priority as a dentist right there. And I had to put myself to the side and tell her, hey, I needed to go see this person. I need to go see this person and she did. And I'm so grateful. And then she came back and now we're done restoring everything.

And she's doing fabulous and she's breathing well again. And not only is she breathing well again. And not only is she breathing well and her microbiome, like we retested her microbiome and we did all that, her kids are reaping the benefits of that because when a mom learns, it passes on to the whole family. And then finally a year and a half later, she brings her husband in as well because it takes two to tango. But what I'm saying is that it's really multifactorial. And when we're looking at all the breathing changes that happen in the postpartum phase and perimenopause and even menopause, we need to honor the body as a whole.

What do you think is missing from the conversation of women's health when it comes to the perimenopause and menopause conversation at the intersection of oral health? The mouth is a hormonally receptive organ, and we need to be talking about that. That's all I see in my practice. It's so integral to women's health to bring in the piece of women's dental health, how hormonally receptive the mouth is, and also how the oral microbiome in the mouth impacts the entire body. So important. And can you just remind the audience because we covered it, but we were going back and forth between both pregnancy and also like perimenopause, menopause, you know, top signs that something is going on when a woman is going through perimenopause, menopause, that something is going on with their oral health. A lot of oral symptoms happen. Like I said before, dry mouth, but also burning mouth starts to happen, perimenopause.

I haven't heard about that one. You haven't heard about that. Literally a woman. starts feeling a tingling sensation or burning in her mouth. So as soon as somebody tells me that, I want to see their B vitamin levels. Sometimes they're abnormally high and sometimes they're abnormally low. And then I want to look at the airway. I want to look at the muscle tone. I want to look at how things are functioning.

And recently I had a woman flying out from New York. No one could help her with her in burning mouth. She stried every supplement, this, this, that. I'm like, stop. Let's get you on some myofunctional therapy. Let's get your muscles stronger. Let's get your oral facial muscle. Let's get your tongue stronger.

She did six months of myo functional therapy, and it's gone by 90%. And it was a nuisance to her day-to-day life. tonsil stones, sudden, like, oh, my God, I have tonsil stones or bad breath. That tells me there's some sort of dysbiosis going on. And what you just said, like, oh, my God, I'm not breathing properly,

or I'm grinding a lot, or I'm clenching a lot. Obstructive sleep apnea in women rises by 4x between perimenopause and menopause. And then we wonder why cardiovascular disease kills is the number one killer of women. It's all linked. And then when we look at dysbiotic bacteria in the oral microbiome, they all produce LPS, lipopolysaccharides, which are endothelial toxins, which actually loosen your endothelial lining. So the way I like to explain it, let me explain it in a way that I'd explain it to my 10-year-old

because I tell all this to my 10-year-olds because I want her to learn. When you are jumping on a trampoline, you want that trampoline to be real tight, right? You don't want it to be flimsy. That's the junctions of your gums that you want. That's the junctions of your gut that you want. You want tight junctions and around your heart and in your whole body. But when you have oral dysbiosis in your mouth, these bacteria, the bad bacteria, there are four bad bacteria called T-forcythia, T-Fercythia, T-Denitis.

to cola, actinomyces, and ph. And javelis. What these four do, they actually go, and they loosen the junctions in that trampoline, making it a lot more flimsy. Which can lead to leaky gums. Exactly. Leaky gut, higher plaque buildup in the heart.

So they are not causing the disease. There's a lot of correlational because they increase the inflammation, and the structural integrity is compromised when there's high inflammation. Yeah. It used to be the narrative around dental health was don't eat too much sugar because sugar's going to create cavities. False.

False. False. Break it down. Eat your sugar. Like, I mean, please don't eat too much sugar. But like enjoy. Like live. You know, like we need to let like everything is so stressful already.

If you want to have your sugar, eat it. Eat it responsibly. Don't eat a ton. It's bad for other things. But sugar does not cause cavities. Sugar is consumed by the bacteria. that causes cavities and it's acidity that breaks the hard tissue down in your teeth. Which causes cavities.

Which causes cavities, which causes gum disease, which causes all the oral issues that we have. And the top ways to address the acidity are? Eat less sugar, but eat less pretzels, eat less snacks, less processed foods. Don't give the substructure to the bad bacteria also. So there's a nutritional component. if you eat a meat stick, the bad bacteria is going to die. Versus if you eat sugar. Okay?

But where did the bad bacteria come from in the first place? We got to think about that. There is a genetic component, but I think it's more of a familial component. So if I have oral dysbiosis and I'm kissing my son all over like I do every day, I'm giving him all that. Streptococcus mutants, that's a bacteria that causes cavity. If you're making out with your partner and they have these bad bacteria, it's contagious. you're getting all of that. So we've got to heal our oral microbiomes and balance them.

We're not trying to get rid of all the bad bacteria, but we are trying to live in harmony and getting rid of the worst ones. So things like the baking soda, making sure that the biofilm is properly disrupted in your mouth, that you're breathing through your nose, that you're eating a nutrient-dense diet that doesn't feed the bad guys, all that. And also oral probiotics, prebiotic food, tongue scraping. There's so much that goes into balancing your microbiome,

but I think the two biggest things are how we're breathing and what we're eating, less how we're brushing and flossing. The first two are more important than the latter. On the topic, just because you brought them up. Flossing, obviously important, especially with people having super narrow jaws and food getting stuck all the time. Yeah. I remember asking one of my friends, could have been Dr. Mark Berhanna,

who was a buddy of mine, asked the dentist, been on the podcast before. I was like, hey, you know, what do you think about these ancestral groups? They were never really flossing. He was like, you know, their jaws were not as tight as ours. And they also were using these brushing sticks, which in a way had these fibers that were kind of like flossing. Yeah, Ms.

Yeah, which they, you know, they use in, you know, Africa, other different. I grew up with, I mean, I grew up in Saudi. Yeah. And, like, at the bazaars, everyone was selling the swag. It was like, actually the first thing. I'm like, oh my God. It's like a twig. The twig, and it has antibacteriocidal properties within it.

So they did research on Middle Eastern studies, and they found that anterior teeth in the skulls were cavity-free and fully intact because the missouac was able to properly clean it, versus the back teeth were decayed because the missouac couldn't get there. So there's bacteriocidal properties to the misquick, and now they actually have Ms. Swack toothpaste. Wow. I haven't tried that one yet.

Favorite toothpaste? The toothpaste that you're going to use. Okay. Yeah. How do you feel about hydroxyapatite? I love hydroxyaptite. I haven't read enough compelling research to turn me onto the other side. I'm always open-minded, but it really helped me in my postpartum phase because I had a lot of

dental sensitivity. So what I did for my dental sensitivity, I doubled down on my heart and soil organ meat supplements. So I'd have liver and the eggs and all the organ meat stuff that my family would make me to eat. it's a lot of food to eat all those nutrients. So I love heart and soil and paleo valley. I'm not sponsored or anything by them, but they actually really do work when you take the right amount. And then hydroxyapitite toothpaste.

So I brush with the Risewell Pro also. I'm not sponsored. That's actually what I use. And I'd brush for two minutes. And I'd use a soft toothbrush, soft bristles toothbrush. And I change my toothbrush every month. Let's talk about that. So why is so bad that people are using?

hard bristle toothbrushes and do you see signs of people brushing too hard in your practice? 100%. What I tell my patients is your mouth isn't the bathroom floor. You can scrub that well. I want you to scrub your mouth well in a different way. It's not about how hard the bristles. It's about the time that you take to brush and how you brush and how you angle your brush. Those are the most important things. So you got to put it 45 degree angle towards your gun. You got to scrub your your gums, but your gums are, yeah, they should be tight and healthy, right? But you don't need medium or hard bristle toothbrushes. If you're scrubbing 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 30 seconds, 30 seconds in a proper way. And then what I do, I'd spit out the toothpaste,

but I didn't rinse. So I kept the hydroxyaptide goodness on my teeth. I cleared my nose, and I taped my mouth. And I'd wake up in the morning with a lot less sensitivity after. It was like three months postpartum, like Q4, like the, end of Q4. So I call it the fourth trimester, Q4. Yeah, he was born in April. I remember my sensitivity dropped and it got so much better in like July because I was just consistent in that. My supplements, so I was replenishing from inside out and also what I was doing externally. Talk about clearing your nose. Why is that so key? And why are people's noses so clogged up in the first place? Absolutely. Okay, first give us the why. If your nose is clogged, you can't breathe

through your nose at night. It's just that simple. How do you know your nose is clogged? I know that sounds like a very basic thing. Oh, yeah. But there's some people that walk around with clog noses forever and they're like just used to it. So how do you know? Close your lips and take a deep breath through your nose. Is it comfortable? Are you able to breathe? Number one. And I tell people to try mouth taping one night. And a lot of people with clog nose, they rip the mouth tape. Or when somebody tells me, oh, I had a night guard or a retainer and I always popped it out. that tells me they're not sleeping at ease and they're not sleeping with their lips beautifully sealed

where they can properly breathe through their nose. Also for a lot of people, and I found this out recently, so certain ethnicities have bumps on their, on their nose. So that's been found that it's because of higher levels of mouth breathing. It starts to impact the the way your bone is formed in your nose. But I am not an ENT. So the protocol I give my patients is I bring it down to basics. Every single day almost, I do nasal spray for me and all my kids, especially the baby. What is that product or what kind of spray?

So for the kids, it's saline. I keep it simple. Like I... You're making it at home or you're buying it? I buy it. It's like you can get the Beapropolis. I use XClear for me. I don't use XClear for the kids.

X clear. has xylitol in it. Yeah, I use Xclair. Yeah, I like it. I like it. It's a little sweet. It's fine. But with the kids, just normal saline.

Like, I forgot, the boogie way. You know, there's a lot of brands with just basic saline. One of my posts this week is just me doing that for my son in the shower. Sick or not sick? Because you got to get them used to it because that little bit of saline breaks up any gunk that's forming. Then I have air purifier and humidifier in every single room where anybody sleep. Oh, so important. Talk a little bit more about that.

It's so important because, I mean, we live in LA, Drew. Like, you know, I do live in a hilly area, so I have a lot more nature around me. The air is cleaner. But even though statistics show that air inside the home is more polluted than air outside. Yeah, like up to like 300 times. It's nuts. Hear that? It's your money calling. It wants a promotion. Elevate your savings with the Scotia high-interest savings account.

Always earn high regular interest rates that grow the more you save and invest. Conditions apply. Visit scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. That's insane. And I mean, we just recently had fires, all that. So I saw a lot of airway issues increase after the L.A. fires. Air purifier, humidifier. I love it. And my favorite humidifier, also, I'm not endorsed by them, but I really genuinely love them because it's all stainless steel. It's a care pod. I love that humidifier, and I've tried a lot of them.

air purif. So you're getting humidified air and you're getting purified air while you're sleeping. So if you're spending six to eight hours, the seven hours sleeping, at least you're getting that quality air versus what you're getting while you're out and about doing your day-to-day activities. So that's on a non-sick day. I do that two to three times a week for me and my kids. So I rotate between my kids because I can't deal with all three of them complaining about it. And now my son actually doesn't complain about it. Like you got to let, you know, it's like mom life. They get used to it, right? Like anything else. And like everything else. And so you clear your nose and I always get some essential oils. I breathe it out. It's just kind of like do some guasha, some emphatic drainage for my

face. And then I tape my mouth shut. If you are severely congested and you cannot breathe at all your nose, I like the netty pot or the nail med sinus rinse where you make it at home saline. They have like little packets or in the netty pot. And I don't know. Have you seen. seeing these videos, these little kids with so much congestion, all these boogers coming out. Yeah. Like, imagine that's what's, yeah, it's disgusting. But what's more disgusting is what happens to the body should that stay inside the face, literally. It's like you're plugging.

It's like you're doing what, not you, one is doing what Mr. Nestor did for himself. And then he felt like crap after 10 days of plugging his nose. We're letting our kids run around and ourselves. it's become normal. That's pretty much it. And then I have a list of a couple of A&Ts that I guide my patients to because if there's something structural,

adenoids, tonsils, we need to take a look at that, what my protocol, that's not going to help. But nasal hygiene is just as if not more important than oral hygiene. So key, so key. I've also heard people say that if you've gotten used to your nose being stuffy

and you're not sure is it stuffy or not, also just press one nostril down. Yes. Right. Try to breathe in through that side. So I'm plugging my right nostril and then you do the same on the left. Usually one is a little bit better than the other, but both should be able to be the same. Yeah. You should breathe in through one and breathe out through the other very comfortably. Very comfortably. And even for me, like I don't have a deviation. I don't have anything else. I don't have a history of mouth breathing. I still get noticed my nose getting stuffy. And you know, I have an air filter in this office. And I have an air filter. You know, it's just life. Life, right? Life can be there. So whatever you can do to assist that. Yes. Yeah, I use X clear every night before I sleep. Perfect. You know, I use X clear every night.

Like, blow your nose. Pick your note. Like, do that in your, in your bathroom, after you brush first, yeah, take care of your nose. Make sure you can breathe through your nose. And also, when you're doing that, there's a batako breathing. It's really good where you breathe through your nose and then out the other. And then you shake your, it opens up your sinuses.

Shake. My my functional therapist goes through it. I don't do it with my patients. But also, when you're breathing properly, you stimulate salivary flow, which is a really good thing. This has been, I think, going to be so eye-opening for a lot of people who haven't made that connection that you traditionally think of sleep or airweight issues being an issue for overweight older men. And yeah, it is an issue for them. But there are also, because we have this trend of narrowing jaws for a lot of people,

but also women, right? That these key moments in life where either you gain some weight, you have a pregnancy, your hormones shift, perimenopause, menopause, there's something going on. You could be at risk for something because everything's stacking on each other. And all of a sudden, you start to wonder, why am I so tired? Why do not feel good? What's going on? And it's so challenging.

I have so much empathy because every, field in this space wants you to feel that this thing is the one thing for it, right? If you hear a mold expert talking, you're gonna think that every one of your issues is mold related, right? If you hear somebody saying, you know,

corner replacement therapy, you're gonna think everything is there, right? So why I think episodes like this and where clinicians like yourself share their story is if you start to see very, specific things and very specific patterns, you can become the CEO of your own health because you kind of have to be and you can say, wow, this is very similar to what I've experienced. I shared recently on a few podcast episodes that I've been going to my own version of this, even though we've been friends and friendly and we met through the wee natal girls.

Yes, Ronnie and Nita. Who are great. Amazing. Shout out to them. If you need a prenatal. That's the best one that's out there. We natal. We met through them.

And I was aware of your work. And then I started going down the pathway of looking at, what's going on? Like, I know I have a narrow jaw and I know that I've had teeth pulled. And I even like two years ago, I got one of the cone beam scans done. And I was told I had narrowing that was going on in my airways. But I didn't know how bad it was until, Probably after my son was born, even I, you know, there is some data that even men put on a little bit of weight. No, yes.

Yeah. Men go through a postpartum. But men put on a little bit of weight. And I'm already like super skinny and I'm putting on weight. My jaw's narrow. And so my breathing issues that were there that were handled largely by being on like an expander, an Alf appliance that my dentist at the time had put me on. Now all of a sudden is not working on itself. in my sleep just tinked.

And I had seen a few people and I was told that the only real option for me was jaw surgery, which sounded like so intense. And it wasn't until I chatted with Dr. Oliver who told me about the Marpe and then connecting to a bunch of different people in this space, yourself, Audrey, and a few other, you know, clinicians that were out there that I realized like, wow, this actually could be a good thing that I could look at. I'm in the early stages of, you know, starting that journey for myself. But I had no idea what was going on. I thought it was a few different things. But just doing some pattern recognition, I thought, okay, let me just explore this a little bit. And I got clear

that, yes, my area is being obstructed. My sleep is not great. I had no history of sleep issues. I would sleep like a baby. You know, there's that funny joke that women always say, like, I don't I want to sleep like a baby because babies don't sleep great. I want to sleep like my husband because he doesn't even wake up when the baby's crying. So I slept great. I had no history of any issues, but then the grinding got worse. I was noticing it was harder to floss. My jaw was kind of getting narrow again.

And I thought, okay, I need to like figure this out. And you've been very helpful as part of that journey. So I want to thank you for that. I honor you for actually taking that because the Marpee isn't for the feints of heart, you're going to go through initially some physical changes in the sense that you're going to feel a little tight. You have screws in your jaws to, you're taking your wrench to open up your skull. But stick with it. And I'm happy to be there as well for that because sticking with it was the best thing that I've done for my health, I feel. Yeah. Yeah. And just so everybody's

clear, like, you know, you've been a great educator on this. And yes, you have, like, practice with your brothers in Beverly Hills, but like you guys don't do marpees. This is something that you went down the journey on. You're not here to advocate for people to come and do this procedure with you. You're sharing your own experience. Yeah. That's there. Yeah.

And then separately for all this women's health stuff, great. If you're looking for an amazing dentist, people can come to you, people fly from out of town to come and see you. You're a great storyteller educator on social media. So I highly encourage people to follow you. Can you shout out your handle? Thank you. Dr. Lydia, DR, LE.

We'll link to it in the show notes. as well. Yeah. Dr. Lydia, what else? Any final thoughts here that you want to leave people with as we're concluding today's episode? Take it really seriously that your mouth is a hormonally triggered organ. And as your hormones change, you may see things in your mouth.

And it's not just in your head and you're not going crazy. So honor that and give yourself grace and take breathing extremely seriously. So the more that you can breathe through your nose and whatever you can do to support that, do that and your microbiome. It's just like we have a gut microbiome, we have a vaginal microbiome, we have an oral microbiome, and when all the microbiomes are in balance, disease cannot thrive.

Well said. Thank you again for being so open about your story. I'm sure there's other people that are out there that are like, you know, they would have been, you know, not sure, do they want to share this? Do they want to not share this? But it just shows like how much of an advocate you are. you don't care what people think.

You're just putting your story out there. No. And that's my story. And the mark you may not be the right fit for you. And that's why I say you have to work with a team that really knows what they're doing and can assess. And this isn't a trend. I didn't hop on the airway trend.

There's a trend component to biological dentistry and airway. And a lot of the wellness world, there's a lot of trends. And I'm very, very careful about these trends. I actually genuinely needed the expansion. And I didn't want to, And I looked at all my other options as well. So I'm talking about what I did. But I did a lot of research just like you.

And I talked to a lot of specialists. And here I am. I'm a dentist in the biological dental world going through something. And it wasn't clear to me at the beginning. So you have to do your research and see what's right for you and for your family as well. So. Moulson. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for having me. Hi, everyone. Drew here. Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend.

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