Orthodontics Makes Breathing Easier
Capps & Woods Orthodontics offers airway treatments. Aligning your teeth and jaw is important. But we also want to improve your life by helping you breathe deeper.
Respiration & Orthodontic Health
Breathing is fundamental to life, and at Capps & Woods Orthodontics, we understand its significance in orthodontic health. Our modern approach integrates the latest medical knowledge, emphasizing the vital link between a healthy airway and overall wellness.
In Greenville, Dr. Capps and Dr. Woods focus on airway health as a critical component of your orthodontic treatment, ensuring comprehensive care that benefits your overall well-being.
Understanding Your Airway
Your airway comprises two main parts, each playing a crucial role in breathing:
- The nasal airway: This pathway allows air to flow through your nose, surrounded by rigid structures like nasal cartilage, bones, and the nose floor.
- The pharyngeal airway: This channel leads air from your throat to your lungs, lined with soft tissues, including the back of your tongue and throat.
How Are Sleep & Breathing Connected?
The connection between sleep quality and breathing is vital. When you sleep, reduced muscle tone can lead to airway closure, disrupting rest and rejuvenation.
Healthy sleep breathing patterns are a reliable indicator of your daytime breathing, highlighting the importance of a well-functioning airway.
What About Snoring?
Snoring is often misunderstood, but it's a sign you may have airway issues. It occurs when your airway collapses during sleep, hindering proper oxygen flow to your brain and affecting your rest quality.
Addressing your breathing concerns is crucial for overall health, and at Capps & Woods Orthodontics, we're committed to providing treatments that consider these essential aspects.
How to Breathe
Breathing through your nose is the preferred way to live, as it brings several health advantages.
Nasal breathing naturally positions your tongue against the roof of your mouth, supporting healthy oral and nasal development. This proper tongue placement contributes to a well-shaped palate and nasal floor.
Nasal breathing also promotes more profound, more effective breaths, enhancing oxygen intake and distribution throughout your body. The nasal hairs act as a natural filter, ensuring the air reaching your lungs is cleaner than mouth breathing.
Moreover, nasal breathing increases the mix of nitric oxide in the air, significantly improving your lungs' ability to absorb oxygen. This process underscores the importance of nasal breathing for overall health and well-being, a key focus at Capps & Woods Orthodontics.
What’s So Bad About Mouth Breathing?
Breathing through your mouth instead of your nose can lead to various health challenges. Mouth breathing bypasses the natural filtration of nasal breathing, leading to reduced oxygen absorption.
This can result in shallower breaths, decreasing the amount of oxygen your body receives and potentially affecting the development of your upper jaw.
Moreover, chronic mouth breathing can adversely affect brain oxygenation, leading to various issues.
These may include persistent tiredness, symptoms resembling ADD or ADHD, difficulty in maintaining focus, an increased risk of dental problems, irritability, non-restorative sleep, and underperformance in academic or professional settings.
Orthodontic Treatment for Your Airway
At Capps & Woods Orthodontics, Dr. Capps and Dr. Woods offer specialized orthodontic treatments to improve your airway health. Let's delve into some of these treatments.
Rapid Palatal Expander (RPE)
The Rapid Palatal Expander (RPE) widens a narrow upper jaw. It is attached to your upper molars and gradually expanded by adjusting a central screw.
After achieving the necessary expansion, the RPE is left in place for several months to stabilize your new bone formation. This treatment is most effective in children under 12, before the fusion of the mid-palatal suture.
Microimplant-Assisted Rapid Palatal Expander (MARPE)
Dr. Capps and Dr. Woods use the Microimplant-Assisted Rapid Palatal Expander (MARPE) at our Greenville office for older children, adolescents, and adults.
This technique involves securing the expander to your palate with microimplants, offering a more stable and effective way to widen your upper jaw.
MARPE mainly benefits patients with less flexible palatal sutures, addressing crossbites and crowding.
Oral Surgery
In some cases, oral surgery may be necessary to address your airway issues.
Dr. Capps and Dr. Woods may recommend surgical procedures to correct structural problems that impede breathing. These surgeries are tailored to each patient's needs, ensuring improved airway function and overall health.