5 Signs A Restricted Airway May Be Affecting Your Child's Health
For most people, breathing is automatic – the air goes in, the air goes out, and we don’t even think about it. But for those who have airway problems, it is never that simple – especially for children.
“Children who suffer from air-passage problems never get enough oxygen to the brain, which causes them to never get enough sleep,” says Dr. Stuart Frost, an orthodontist and author of The Artist Orthodontist: Creating An Artistic Smile is More Than Just Straightening Teeth (www.drstuartfrost.com). “They typically do poorly in school and seem inattentive and lethargic.”
Sleep apnea occurs when the airway becomes blocked during sleep, causing a pause in breathing. Those pauses in breathing, known as apneic events, often lead to a diagnosis of obstructive sleep apnea, Dr. Frost says.
He says signs a child may be impacted by airway blockage include:
Snoring. Snoring is caused by the vibrations of excess tissue blocking the airway. When children snore, orthodontists look for a blockage of their airway, from the tip of the nose down to the throat.
Mouth breathing. When there is no room for the tongue to reach the roof of the mouth (the palate), it can rest in the back of the throat and block the airway. Also, when a child’s tonsils and adenoids are enlarged, they can reduce the size of the airway at the back of the throat. “Either situation can make it too hard for children to get enough air when breathing through their nose,” Dr. Frost says, “causing them to open their mouth and jut their lower jaw forward during sleep.”
Clenching or grinding teeth. “If children who are 7 or 8 have baby teeth that are worn from grinding, we know it’s because they’re not getting enough air,” Dr. Frost says. During sleep – and sometimes even when they are awake – their lower jaw is constantly repositioning either side to side or forward to back to open their airway so they can breathe, he says. An expander appliance can widen the nasal passages to help the child take in more air when breathing through the nose.
Diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Some children who have been diagnosed as ADD may actually just have breathing problems during sleep Dr. Frost says. “ If a child is continually not getting enough oxygen during sleep, the brain will eventually kick in a hyper-alert state to stay alive,” he says. “A child whose brain is hyper-alert tends to bounce off the walls.”
Bedwetting: A brain that is starving for oxygen can’t wake a child when the urge to go to the bathroom strikes during sleep. The child will sleep right through any warning sign the brain sends.
Depending on what’s found during an examination, the solutions for a restricted airway could include braces with an expander appliance, along with surgical removal of adenoids or tonsils.
“When sleep apnea is not addressed in childhood, over time it can lead to health issues in adulthood,” Dr. Frost says. “By taking care of it when the person is younger, it can save years of restless nights and half-awake days.”
About Dr. Stuart Frost
Dr. Stuart Frost, author of The Artist Orthodontist: Creating An Artistic Smile is More Than Just Straightening Teeth (www.drstuartfrost.com), is an orthodontist and sought-after speaker who has given seminars, lectures, and speeches throughout the world to dentists and the general public on groundbreaking dentistry. He graduated from the University of the Pacific School of Dentistry and has continued his education at the University of Rochester, where he accomplished a one-year fellowship in Temporomandibular Joint Disorder and a two-year certificate in orthodontics.
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HOLD CLOSE
SHARE NEW SINGLE "TROPICAL DEPRESSION"
NEW ALBUM TIME OUT JANUARY 18
JANUARY 14 - Missouri pop rock band Hold Close have shared a new single, "Tropical Depression", off their upcoming album Time, out January 18 on Hopeless Records. Fans can check it out here: smarturl.it/TropDepressVideo
Speaking to the new single, guitarist Jessee Everett said,
"Tropical Depression is a song about being depressed in a relationship and how that affects it. It's about how it's not always the other partner's fault, because depression is a mental illness that can leech onto anyone. It's about dealing with that depression together. If you have a loved one that is depressed, you can't just give up on them or allow it to swallow you. You've got to embrace it and help them through it. Or vice versa. The song can be taken a lot of different ways but it's definitely not a break up song."
Time is the follow-up to 2017's EP I'll Never Go Back. After working with Seth Henderson (Knuckle Puck, State Champs) on Time, Hold Close put together an extremely personal, introspective, heartbreaking album centered around growth, love, sorrow, death, and friendship. Late last year, they shared the single "Cloud9".
Made up of vocalist Braxton Smiley, guitarists Jessee Everett and Charlie Edel, and drummer Marshall Martin, the group have known each other since high school. Originally all playing in different bands, they got to know each other through the local scene.
When asked what he'd like fans to take away from the record, Smiley is decisive. "Definitely the very first line on the record: 'Time will always heal,'" he says. "Just give it time, everything is better. We all go through the same shit, you know. Whether it be everyday struggle stuff or family stuff or relationship or friendship or money or anything, it's all good. Be positive. In time, it'll just become how you want it to be."
Time is the band's first full-length record, and is out January 18, 2019 on Hopeless Records. Fans can pre-order it here :smarturl.it/HoldCloseTime. For more information, please visit: https://www.hopelessrecords.com/
Follow Hold Close:
http://www.holdcloseofficial.com/
https://www.instagram.com/holdcloseofficial/
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The Wall Already Exists — In Our Hearts and Minds
By Matthew Johnson
501 words
My favorite album of all time is Pink Floyd’s The Wall. It should be re-released given the current (manufactured) crisis. I’m not surprised that Roger Waters is planning a show on the border to protest Trump’s continued government shutdown over funding for an ill-defined barrier that has come to represent everything wrong with his presidency: lies, false promises, fear, racism, and simplistic solutions.
It’s important to emphasize that the wall is more symbol than reality. Setting aside the fact that the nearly-2,000-mile border is already teeming with armed men and barriers of various kinds, a Trumpian “wall” already exists: the (abstract) wall that blocks many Americans from seeing migrants from Central America and Mexico as people just like them.
While Trump was rightly condemned for misappropriating the Game of Thrones slogan “Winter Is Coming” by taking the font and changing it to “The Wall Is Coming,” the underlying analogy is eerily correct. Although — spoiler alert — the (mythical) wall is destroyed by undead invaders (who only advance during winter) at the end of the show’s last season, for thousands of years it served to separate the living not only from the undead but also from each other. In a reversal of reality, those living south of the wall disparaged the northerners as “wildlings,” portraying them as amoral, violent, and uncivilized, while the northerners denounced their southern brethren for their cloistered arrogance. Sound familiar?
The silver lining from Game of Thrones is that the north and south eventually (sort of) united against the undead, and, in return for their help in the war to come, the “wildlings” were permitted to settle south of the wall for safety. It remains to be seen (in season 8) whether this united force will prevail, but the mythical universe has nevertheless solved a timeless problem that those of us stuck here in reality are still struggling with: xenophobic nativism.
Somehow it remains lost to millions of (especially) white Americans — even in the 21st century with all its forward-thinking innovations and popular culture — that their southern neighbors are not dangerous invaders but people with largely the same feelings, needs, and aspirations that they themselves possess. Meanwhile, it remains lost on many Israelis and American supporters of Israel (not to mention Trump) that the so-called “security fence” that illegally snakes through Palestinian land is not only hideous (I’ve seen it up close) but far more of a barrier to peace than to terrorism.
Walls have been built for millennia, most notably the Great Wall of China and the Berlin Wall, with discouraging results. To conclude that this (still) nonexistent wall that Mexico will surely not pay for will be any different is just as absurd as concluding that the ascension of an unqualified, hate- and fear-mongering narcissist to the highest office in the land would be a reason to celebrate. It is as if we have learned nothing from history and have forgotten how to think critically.
If a television show can get it right, then why can’t we?
–end–
Matt Johnson, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is co-author of Trumpism.
