By: Steve Carstensen DDS
This Topic Originally Appeared on PankeyGram.Org. Dr. Carstensen granted permission for igniteDDS to share with our readers.
I want to share a clear example of how bad sleep directly affects the anatomical structures dentists pay a lot of attention to—the mandibular condyles. 
Sleep Disruption Disrupts Jaw Bone Regeneration
We’ve all seen on X-rays condyles that do not look healthy. We wonder what causes so much degeneration. There are shelves of books and whole courses about what goes wrong but one of the things that affects condyles is circadian rhythm disruption. Recent research done with rats has demonstrated that sleep disruption disrupts bone regeneration, causing thinning of the condyles.Â
Rats were interrupted from their sleep cycles so they could not get through a normal night’s sleep. After eight weeks, they took the disruptions away. During the first four weeks, the cartilage layer over the condyles thinned, became really thin at six weeks, and stayed that way across eight weeks. After they returned the rats to undisrupted sleep for four weeks, the breaks in the normal covering of the condyles were still there.
What do we take from that? The earlier in life that we establish healthy physiology that supports healthy sleep, the greater the chance children have of growing human condyles to withstand TMJ problems later.
Disrupted Sleep Contributes to Multiple Systemic Health Issues
There’s a lot of research that points to poor breathing contributing to pediatric and adolescent health issues. Among these issues are neurological deficits, behavioral problems, poor school performance, and pulmonary hypertension. A primary cause of poor-quality sleep among our youngest patients is enlarged tonsils and adenoids that obstruct their airway.
Pediatric Dentistry: Helping Children and Teens Breathe and Sleep Better
What can pediatric dentists do with children and teens to help them breathe better and sleep better early in life?
- Educate our adult patients who are parents of children to be aware of signs and symptoms. Â
- Develop a culture within our practice of being a health consultant, so our adult patients feel welcome to easily engage in conversations about health issues that commonly affect children and teens. Â
- Introduce the parents to their own need for an open airway for healthy sleep to raise awareness. Â
- Assess all our patients for breathing issues and examine their airways for signs of obstruction. Â
- Provide guidance to our adult patients and to the parents of the young people in our care so they can choose appropriate care. Â
Responsibility of Pediatric Dentistry in Raising Early Airway Awareness
We need to start paying attention to these things as much as we do for the health of the teeth and periodontium. As dentists, we are responsible for the entire craniofacial respiratory complex. My colleague, Dr. Kevin Boyd in Chicago, is a pediatric dentist who came up with that label a few years ago. I love that term, because it helps us focus on the whole person, structure and function! We can be proud when we help our patients with the respiratory part of the complex.
As we take our place in medicine as overseeing the craniofacial respiratory complex, we get to affect growth and development. We get to help train the body to swallow properly and grow good bone and good airway support. And that’s the major role I think dentists are going to have going forward in healthcare–identifying those children who have an underdeveloped cranial facial respiratory complex and influencing their care. Like other folks in medicine, an ENT doctor, a myofunctional therapist, a speech therapist, we help correct the things that we recognize are going wrong.
Read more series of blogs for breathing and airway support at the Pankey Institute website, and visit other advanced educational courses they offer, starting from the Essentials continuum to Integrative Dental Medicine to advance your skills in airway dentistry and deliver truly comprehensive care in your practice.
