#397 Navigating Airway and Biologic Dentistry with Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez, DDS

This week on The Less Stressed Life Podcast, we’re diving into the world of holistic and airway dentistry with Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez—a biological dentist turned virtual consultant who's helping families decode the wild world of oral development, mouth breathing, and pediatric dental treatment options.

After moving from Chicago to Portugal (yes, really!), Dr. Julia shifted from traditional dentistry to guiding parents through finding the right solutions for their kids’ sleep, airway, and oral health challenges. From picky eating to tongue ties, teeth grinding, and sleep apnea—this episode uncovers what might really be going on under the surface.

In this episode, Dr. Julia shares what most parents (and adults!) don’t realize about early signs of dysfunction—and what to do when the advice you're getting from different providers feels totally conflicting. We also break down her signature “three-stage” approach to airway-focused care and why you always have options.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Why “you should save for braces” might be a red flag 🚩
• The connection between mouth breathing, poor sleep, and behavior issues
• How feeding issues, reflux, or gag reflex may point to oral dysfunction
• Dr. Julia’s 3 stages of treatment: Natural Nurturers, Guided Growers & Foundation Fixers
• What’s really behind grinding, crowding, and chronic dental issues
• Why timing, symptoms, and lifestyle all factor into choosing the right treatment
• How adults and kids both benefit from airway evaluation
• The power of parental intuition in the treatment decision process

ABOUT GUEST:
Dr. Julia is the founder of Oris Wellness, a consulting company dedicated to empowering parents with the knowledge and confidence to make informed decisions about their child’s oral and airway health. Through one-on-one sessions, she provides objective guidance on treatment options and helps families connect with qualified airway-focused providers. Her mission is to bridge the gap between professional expertise and parental intuition. Originally trained in Biological and Airway Dentistry in Chicago, she now calls Portugal home.

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://www.oriswellness.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/oris.wellness/
Dr. Julia's FREE e-Book: https://oriswellnessnewletter.ck.page/

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife

SPONSOR:
Thanks to Jigsaw Health for sponsoring this episode! Struggling with dry, cracked hands? Try their Alaska Cod Liver Oil for omega-3s + vitamins A & D to support skin and immune health. Use code LESSSTRESSED10 at JigsawHealth.com for 10% off—unlimited use!

WORK WITH CHRISTA:
I've streamlined my proven method to help you get to the REAL root of eczema and food sensitivities—without the overwhelm. Join the program at christabiegler.com before doors close!

Transcript

[00:00:00] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: if you're chronically mouth breathing or otherwise, there are adults who they're gonna be in a compromised situation from how they grew, such that. Some of the patients who are more likely to suffer from obstructive sleep apnea or otherwise, it may be because of the way that their bones didn't develop to the full optimal potential that they could have.

[00:00:22] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm your host, Christa Biegler, and I'm going to guess we have at least one thing in common that we're both in pursuit of a less stress life. On the show, I'll be interviewing experts and sharing clinical pearls from my years of practice to support high performing health savvy women in pursuit of abundance and a less stressed life.

[00:00:52] One of my beliefs is that we always have options for getting the results we want. So let's see what's out there together.

[00:01:10] all right. Today on the less stressed life I have Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez, who is the founder of Aris Wellness, a consulting company dedicated to empowering parents with the knowledge and confidence to make informed decisions about their child's oral and airway health. Through one-on-one sessions, she provides objective guidance on treatment options and helps families connect with qualified.

[00:01:31] Airway focused providers. Her mission is to bridge the gap between professional expertise and parental intuition. She's originally trained in biological and airway dentistry in Chicago, but now calls Portugal home. Welcome, Dr. Julia. 

[00:01:46] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Thank you, Christa. 

[00:01:48] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, so Julia is one of the several practitioners I met with different networking opportunities this year.

[00:01:55] So we've had Dr. Kristen Geist on the show and I met her in similar networking circles. And so now we have Dr. Julia and offering different perspectives. So Dr. Geist, we talked about this young fit female syndrome where she was very exhausted and her cardiologist said, what if you made yourself un.

[00:02:11] Airway piece and she said, I don't even know what that is. And we had Dr. Dye come on talking about function. And Julia mentioned also Patrick Mccuen's episode talked a lot about airway health foundationally and how that develops. So today, Dr. Julia is gonna provide even a different.

[00:02:24] Perspective for us, which is figuring out the right dentistry solutions, finding the best dental treatment for kids, which is really her expertise. So I'm excited for you to come on, but before we jump into all that stuff, we need to understand how you decided to move to Portugal. Because that is gonna apply into the whole conversation.

[00:02:43] What was the reason that you went there? I was in Portugal a couple of years ago, so I have some feeling like warm feelings about this. I wanted to just hear about this move and I wanna hear about what happened. Here's the other part of it. How did that impact your career and license? I'm guessing this was not a lightly taken thing, right?

[00:03:02] You went to school for years and years to become a doctor and it's can you do practice when you go to Portugal? So tell us all about it. 

[00:03:10] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Happy to share. Yeah, so my husband, my dog and I relocated from Chicago to Portugal at the tail end of 2021. It was really for us. A lot of people were in the post covid timeframe, reevaluating a lot of life matters and just trying to figure out really how to live our life most intentionally.

[00:03:33] And I was really fortunate that I graduated from dental school in 2014 from Indiana. I practiced in a conventional general dentistry practice for a few years and. Already was starting to there's a lot of dentists who see some disenchantment early on with. The way that dentistry is practiced and the way that we're expected to be like tooth mechanics to a certain extent.

[00:04:01] But I didn't know any differently, so I didn't know how to pivot necessarily. Fast forward to, I relocated to Chicago and there in Chicago, I found my way first into a broader category of dentistry called biological dentistry. Which was my first foray into understanding a more holistic perspective of dentistry.

[00:04:22] So I was seeing all ages general dentist. Broad, all ages coming in, but the focus in biological dentistry is a lot of revision dentistry. So patients who either had metal fillings and were coming to have questions about how that might be affecting their health or other. Questions about more systemic and oral health connections was what was coming into my practice.

[00:04:49] And it was really a tumble down a rabbit hole for me that I wasn't anticipating. And as I was in that network, I started to connect with more professionals who called themselves airway dentists. And a lot of them that I connected with were working with pediatric patients because. There's so much I adults need help too, don't get me wrong.

[00:05:13] But there's such an impact you can make when you start early and take an intervention with a growing child. So for me, there was a lot that I started to discover that I was more passionate about and really understood that there were different ways to make an impact and my. Joy started to come more from educating more parents about these topics and I joked that I became like a professional referral source.

[00:05:44] So even though these families were coming into our dental office, I would often be telling them where else to go see this provider for, to evaluate. Maybe they're tongue tied or see this evaluator or see this provider to evaluate whether maybe a certain dental appliance might be able to help them grow differently.

[00:06:03] So I started, it's something that you laugh about because obviously you're working in a business, it's still a business and you're supposed to keep business in the practice setting. But it's one of those things I couldn't help. I was getting so excited about connecting the dots and having this amazing community there to.

[00:06:20] Help guide all. And then in the post covid shut down and things were giving us a moment to reflect. I really started to realize that perhaps that was a direction I really wanted to spend more of my time and energy. And at the same time, my husband had just left a job shortly before everything shut down.

[00:06:43] And so we were in a moment of reflection of what comes next? And we had visited Portugal twice before for a long time. It's that manifestation situation of joking, we're gonna move to Portugal in 30, 40 years. That was a regular conversation we were having, but all of a sudden we weren't seeing our friends and family in person anymore.

[00:07:04] One of us was down a job and we were really. Taking that step back to say what we might have an opportunity to redesign, how life is gonna look going forward. And we just took the leap of faith that we could rebuild in a direction with greater intention. And Portugal has always been magical and magnetic to us because the people here are incredibly kind.

[00:07:29] Christa Biegler, RD: The land is just stunningly gorgeous. The ocean. It's hard not to love it here. We've been very happy with our decision. 

[00:07:37] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: We could just have a podcast about how you moved to Portugal, but when you moved to Portugal, how did that affect practicing dentistry? 

[00:07:44] Yeah, absolutely. That's a great question. There are some things I would do differently if I could hop back in a time machine. It has been harder than I anticipated to get my dental license transferred, so that has been something that I intentionally waited at first because you do have to pass a Portuguese language exam, and so I took the opportunity to dive into studying when we first moved here and really made that my focus. And then I actually was for a brief period of time working in a dental clinic in Lisbon and helping to support the dental clinic here, which was a biological clinic. So it was really fun to bridge that gap.

[00:08:20] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: But in the meantime, I started to think more and more about how I could use. What was in my brain and what my passion was to also still help a lot of families. I understood from helping my own brother who didn't live in Chicago. How difficult it could be sometimes to actually piece together that network that I was so fortunate to have ready made for me in Chicago.

[00:08:44] Yeah. And so by little I met with families. I originally had an offer actually that I tried out and over time realized that wasn't what families were looking for in terms of the support I was originally trying to help. More parents understand the root causes and the red flags and things to look for, but the reality was the parents who were finding me, they already knew there was a problem.

[00:09:06] So that wasn't necessarily what. Kind of support they were looking for. And gradually over time, just talking to more parents and understanding the problems they were up against, I was able to pivot and actually land more in the direction that I always joked about being a professional referral resource and helping these parents instead find their way.

[00:09:28] Either to the right provider, the right care team, or just choosing the right type of treatment. Because a lot of times parents come to me, they've already seen a few different providers, they've gotten a few different opinions, and it's just not consistent what they're hearing. And that can be really overwhelming.

[00:09:45] It can create a lot of decision fatigue. So I try to make myself available as a resource, and that's really my primary focus now, is this virtual consulting component. 

[00:09:55] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, there's sometimes the zone of genius happens and I always, one of my colleagues one time said you collect and connect people and you're doing that as well in your industry.

[00:10:06] And I would say industries have so much similarity and so it's pretty common for. Me to talk to people. In fact, yesterday I was talking to someone and it was just she was making such intention. She'd seen someone who was like a holistic concierge provider and done a lot of labs and you just get x, y, Z outcome.

[00:10:24] And she's I think I'm ready to do this, or this. And so you have this other situation also where I keep the word triage, keeps coming up for me. As you described this, it's like dental and airway triage specifically with pediatrics. And so really just reducing overwhelm. And this is the challenge in general is like when you work with people from all over, what does that network look like?

[00:10:44] How do you get them into the right people more quickly? Because I had that experience too. I sent my husband to someone. Who there was like, it definitely, we just hit like a wall. It was like, is there progress? Is there results? What is the plan? Also, and I do think that is a thing for people.

[00:11:01] It's like we all need to understand the big picture plan and what type of results we might get. And so I wanna start there. We always starting with the end in mind is always nice, right? So in some way we can talk about this from both sides. Maybe. We will cover it from front to back, which is what are issues, what are root causes where parents come in and they're looking for airway or holistic dentistry.

[00:11:23] Just thinking about the tooth mechanic conversation too. 'cause you're, I wanted to mention dentistry goes beyond cleaning and well checks, but when do people decide they need something additional? Yes. That's the question, right? What are the symptoms that are causing them to pursue additional support?

[00:11:37] Maybe they've gone, and maybe they've gone to other types of practitioners as well, not dentists before realizing that this is an area, so what are the symptoms that they pursue? And then I wanna talk about some other results that they see as they get it just we can bridge that because that's how you really, it's like it's a bit of a wild west.

[00:11:51] We have this in different industries. There's not really like a clear path necessarily. It's interviewing and dating provider and like finding the right one to match what you need. And that's where you come in. So what are some of the reasons people seek out this someone to bring this all together for them?

[00:12:08] What are the symptoms that are presenting. 

[00:12:11] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Absolutely. So I would say first and foremost, like my number one gut punch is the dentist that, and I used to be the dentist, so I, again, I understand it's a continuum of learning, but my gut punch is when a dentist says You should start saving money for braces.

[00:12:28] That's. Gonna be like the number one red flag of let's get another opinion here. Let's continue that matchmaking effort and see where else we can get another perspective. Really the symptoms that we're looking for or the signs and symptoms that be a broad range. I used to provide ectomies for infants, so things could be as early as trouble with latching, a lot of reflux tor, a lot of different symptoms that babies are having are early warning signs of maybe some functional issues going on in the mouth, and that might still end up with an airway dentist or somebody who's more attuned to these things. But as we grow up and develop, there can be a different range of things.

[00:13:15] We're looking for. Mouth breathing at any age is probably the number one thing. That can be day or night, obviously at night if we're mouth breathing or noisy breathing or snoring, that's a whole category of issue that we're concerned about how sleep quality might be affected as a result, and that I.

[00:13:34] On its own can be a whole topic of where we start looking for answers is if your child's not sleeping well, then we just wanna make sure that they are breathing well at night and that's not what is causing disruptions to sleep, which then can cascade into behavior issues during the day and issues with learning.

[00:13:56] So that's a whole kind of sequence of events there as well. But during kind of. Oral development, you might have also people who are picky eaters because they tend to, if they're breathing through their mouth more than breathing through their nose, that mouth is going to be the default space.

[00:14:15] And so anytime that food is in that area, instead of if they're, unable to breathe through their nose, then they're gonna be a little more anxious and have some aversions with feeding, potentially. So some feeding issues, more drooling, dry mouth. It can go in both directions actually on that one.

[00:14:35] That both issues can be warning signs for us that something might need some attention. 

[00:14:41] Christa Biegler, RD: Even though you primarily see more pediatrics because it's easier to influence when they're really growing, what are some symptoms in adults as well? 'cause I would imagine that some are similar, but some are quite different.

[00:14:52] Feeding issues may not apply. 

[00:14:53] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Yeah. I 

[00:14:54] actually, no, I appreciate you asking that question because I do think that's, again, because I was seeing all ages, I was seeing a lot of adults who were really struggling, and this might just be something that in dental exams. For example, if there's always gonna be patients who have a terrible time taking x-rays, right?

[00:15:16] It's just like a simple thing that doesn't seem like it's necessarily a warning sign of a bigger issue, but a lot of times it's, it. Comes down to the fact that like we're putting something in the tongue and the tongue's not ready for that, and it's gonna trigger that gag reflex, and that all can be a sign that something's maybe needing some attention.

[00:15:36] So it can be as simple as just like you go into the dentist and you're always dreading going into the dentist because you feel like you're the difficult patient. For a lot of other things for adults. Grinding their teeth, that can be all ages, but we start to see more damage taking place in adults.

[00:15:54] That becomes more of a problem in kids. They can grind their teeth down pretty significantly and maybe be asymptomatic. But in adults we start to see things breaking. So if someone needs to go in and get crowns regularly, there's, for example, even I, we always have kind of reminders of the patients we didn't catch or didn't see early, but like I had a patient who just was having a really hard time.

[00:16:20] She was like, my toothpaste like it makes me wanna gag. Like when she was brushing her teeth, it just, and I. Suggested trying to find. At that time, I didn't really know what I was up against. This was very early in my first general dentistry stage of things. But I was like maybe finding a toothpaste that foam less.

[00:16:37] But like for her, that was a sensitivity that I. Was bothersome to her. And perhaps if she had somebody who could intervene and do some sort of retraining with her myofunctional therapist or some, or otherwise, then that could have been something that was addressed. Large tonsils and adenoids, that's gonna be more for kids.

[00:16:57] But the reality is. As things develop, if those situations aren't addressed, the growth trajectory actually changes. And if you're chronically mouth breathing or otherwise, there are adults who they're gonna be in a compromised situation from how they grew, such that. Some of the patients who are more likely to suffer from obstructive sleep apnea or otherwise, it may be because of the way that their bones didn't develop to the full optimal potential that they could have.

[00:17:31] So a lot of patients who are adults with hypertension, sleep apnea even mood disorders, depression, anxiety, those types of situations. One that kind of I think is interesting to a lot of other healthcare providers is really looking at anyone who's dealing with the wide variety of hormone health issues.

[00:17:51] If you are, clients aren't sleeping well. Perhaps because of a breathing issue, then so much of our hormone health comes into play with proper sleep and all of. So I think that. Again, can go from a wide variety. In adults, there are different hormones affected, but in children growth hormone, so a lot of kids who are smaller on the growth curve might not be getting enough growth hormone to help them because they're not getting that restorative sleep.

[00:18:19] Christa Biegler, RD: Feels like with adult symptoms, it would be easy to miss or avoid even pursuing any dentistry. If you're a person who doesn't even like going to the dentist, I would imagine you would not be pursuing more dentistry. And so you mentioned this a couple times, and so I just wanna clarify, is a sensitive gag, reflux in general, a red flag where a further workup might be needed?

[00:18:43] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Yes, 

[00:18:43] I would say yes and that as far as what to do about that, I think that depends on how much it affects you. Again, if you're an adult, you know you have a sensitive G reflex and it's only bothering you when you go to the dentist, then maybe you choose to carry on and not pursue any sort of interventions or therapies.

[00:19:04] I think the reality is if that may be the only time you're noticing it, but it might have other effects. And in most cases that is gonna be a therapeutic approach. And when you have an adult, you're really more, I. It's gotta be a myofunctional therapist. Typically that's gonna be working through that.

[00:19:23] That could be a physical therapist, could be a hygienist, a speech therapist that, that is trained in myofunctional therapy. But if we catch it younger, I know. True myofunctional therapy, you'll hear starts around age four because you need to have compliance for being able to be a willing participant in the activities and the exercises.

[00:19:45] But one of the things that most people don't realize is that younger than that, perhaps a pediatric physical therapists or pediatric occupational therapists, there are other providers who are attuned to work with that population and kind of use more play-based. Therapies to try and make some progress.

[00:20:04] So I do think a gag reflex is one of the areas that is gonna make just function of in and around the mouth more difficult. And the unfortunate reality is most dentists just say, oh, it's a sensitive gag reflex. And that's where that's. 

[00:20:21] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, I'm thinking through some of this and I'm thinking about the contrast between pediatrics, which makes sense.

[00:20:27] What moves people to desperation, but I would say parents, especially sleep issues, and also most savvy parents are gonna really be concerned if they're like noticing potential feeding issues or like you said, gag reflux could manifest as maybe. Reflux in general just over, over reflux in general.

[00:20:47] Anyway, I'm thinking about adults and children and the common denominator here is sleep. And how I would understand, I'm on a mild functional, slight myofunctional journey with my husband. I'm like more of a sight. The, on the, like I'm a spectator for sure on the sidelines. But. He's got a mouth appliance and really the reason that we pursued that is because 

[00:21:10] my understanding was that with tongue, he had a really severe tongue tie. Actually. There's just a lot of tightness and actually most of the testimonials I know from colleagues have a lot to do with tightness or headaches and like some very specific things. One of my friends said she could touch her toes for the first time after she had her tongue tie released.

[00:21:27] And I think there's probably a lot of, let's we'll move to some results things here in a moment, but so tightness and just overall tightness and tension in the entire body. Could manifest as pain in different places, intermittent or headaches. And so those are the ones I was thinking of. So when you brought up some of these other things, these were surprising to me.

[00:21:46] I've never heard anyone refer to airway stuff as hormone, but are you saying like the root of some of this was sleep issues, that then downstream you got these other problems? Yeah. Okay, cool. Just trying to understand it in my head. 

[00:22:00] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Yeah, I know for sure. And I wanna circle back because right before you said the common denominator of sleep, you were saying something and it triggered in my brain that I wanted to just point out that a lot.

[00:22:10] You said, I think you had mentioned the reflux and things like that, and a lot of digestive issues are affected by how the tongue is able to move. So that's another one that if we're. Not chewing our food to the full extent, then that's going to make digestion harder than it needs to be. And that on its own can create a lot more digestive issues.

[00:22:32] But it's not just I know a lot of attention goes to the tongue because of tongue ties, but one of the things that's really interesting, again, when we get into the early stages with a child who's still growing. We can actually, if we have something like a dental crossbite, so our upper teeth are intended to sit just slightly outside of our lower teeth all the way around, and that's something that if we have the lower teeth sitting on the outside cheek side or lip side, then it is what's called a dental crossbite.

[00:23:08] And if. We have some of these issues of how the jaws are growing or how the teeth are positioned early. That also changes the function of how we chew and how our. Speech might be how a lot of other kind of day-to-day activities are gonna be affected, but also how the jaws continue to grow. If they're getting trapped in this position, then just there's gonna be, even in some cases, like a favorite side.

[00:23:36] So kids are gonna have an easier time chewing on one side versus another, and then that's gonna stimulate more signals for growth on that side. That's easier to chew on, and that's gonna further affect the way that the Jawbones grow. So it's something that, speech can be affected, eating can be affected.

[00:23:55] There are all these other patterns that can be affected early on. Then those. I think those still affect adults. It's just that we don't have as many, there are still opportunities to intervene and change the way that the jaws meet and the way that the teeth meet. But if we can identify those patterns that aren't on track early, we can make that change even earlier and hopefully set up the jaws in a better position, in a somewhat less forceful manner than some of the other.

[00:24:28] I. 

[00:24:29] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. I've been curating where to go next. 'cause there's several things I wanna cover, like timelines and results. But I think before that I need to understand, and this is really where the triage component comes in, is understanding some of this toolbox and the tools in the toolbox or the care team involved.

[00:24:46] Like what are some, it's probably bigger or different than we would expect and I think sometimes if our experience for sure, I'm in the Midwest, this always hits, it hits the coast and then moves inward slowly over the years. And so from where I am from especially, it's slower to I've got one place within several hours for me that does something like this.

[00:25:07] And so sometimes I think it's almost a surprise some of the tools or things that they use. And then I wanna make sure I'm covering like probably my only, point of possible improvement for them is like helping people understand the bigger picture a little bit sooner. 'cause that can be, I think, like humans lose interest when they don't understand what's going on.

[00:25:26] And so I could understand where this could be tricky because there's gonna be quite a lot of timeline differences. Anyway, I'll come back to that. But as you're talking about this, I'm thinking about a lot of structure, right? Because I always talk about the health triad here, and there's different angles from what you can go about any symptom.

[00:25:40] So if the symptom is. Sleep apnea. Is there a nutritional or like mouth breathing, right? Something like that. Is there a nutritional chemical part? Is there some kind of bacteria? For me, it's is there bacterial or other microbial crap in the sinuses that we could clear out and then also impact the.

[00:25:59] The greater microbiome as a whole. That's what I think about on that corner. And then I think about we're talking about mouth breathing, so whatever the emotional or energetic part of that is, I don't, can't think of anything for that one at the moment. And then structural which is maybe this toolbox.

[00:26:12] And so it makes me wonder if sometimes. How this is all, and I think this is probably the tricky part for a client is hey, just so you know there's multiple angles here. It doesn't have to be, a stressor. It's just just so you know, there's always gonna be some opportunities for other things.

[00:26:29] Like this is one angle if we haven't addressed this angle or if it hasn't been assessed, et cetera. And I think assessment is probably also a conversation that's like trying to understand. And that's probably actually where. Maybe you thrive in supporting, 'cause it's like assessment is usually the step before.

[00:26:43] It's what do I need in this toolbox? But I wanna understand a little bit more about the holistic and airway dentistry realm care team and some of that toolbox. And so you mentioned, you've got myofunctional therapy and I've talked about that really briefly here. I don't remember with who, but my understanding is that's just a training.

[00:27:03] On top of something else. And it's not like usually people yet at this moment, as far as I know, people aren't really going to school specifically only for myofunctional therapy. They're probably going for speech therapy and then this is like an additional certification they get on top of it, which is why it's hard to fully understand this 'cause it's new.

[00:27:19] It's new-ish or that's how it feels to me. So talk about unpack some of the care team. 'cause I also think like sleep apnea we talked about here. I know in Kristen's episode we talked about sleep apnea and how it's not necessarily what you think it could be. Like someone totally uncharacteristic and so you aren't stuck with going to the hospital for an overnight sleep test anymore.

[00:27:38] You can get home sleep tests. So those are a couple of tools and part of the care team, but please expand upon this. What are some other pieces of the toolbox or the care team so we can be enlightened on some, here are some of the things that come into play with these different issues. 

[00:27:53] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Yeah, no, that's a great point.

[00:27:54] And just to touch on the idea of myofunctional therapy itself isn't new, but the awareness and the number of providers are.

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[00:29:17] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: The wide range for me, even though I'm helping people come up with airway dentistry solutions, it's not necessarily limited to dentists, as you've pointed out. It's for some, as you rightly pointed out, maybe we need to start with looking at nutrition or what might be causing nasal inflammation. Is that something environmental?

[00:29:36] Is that something that we need to address with a functional health provider. In some cases, the sleep component you mentioned people are very motivated by lack of sleep. I've definitely had some parents who once they realize that this can be. Driven that their child's poor sleep that's affecting the whole household can be driven by poor breathing habits and all of that.

[00:29:59] They're desperate to get started, and they might be on a wait list. It's gonna be a little while to get in before they can get an appointment with either a dentist or possibly an ENT or whoever they. Feel is the next best step. So sometimes even having a conversation with a sleep coach that kind of has knowledge in this airway dentistry space can start to address some of the non.

[00:30:23] Non-structural issues, maybe the more behavioral components of things. If we can get a few wins and at least improve or eliminate some of the factors that way, that can be really helpful. But it can be a broad spectrum, so a lot of providers, a lot of therapies. But then even within dentistry, once we start to get into dentistry, there's a broad range of solutions there.

[00:30:46] So I've broken them down for myself into, I. Three sort of categories in the way that I approach it. The first I call like the natural nurturers. So that is gonna be things like therapy, that's gonna be the things that you see all over the internet now. What's called a tooth pillow. There's a lot of early.

[00:31:06] Options that might help with retraining the nasal breathing component, getting the tongue into a different position and different kind of factors like that. But then as we progress through, I've then got guided growers. Which could be some different appliances that maybe you've heard of, a dental expander.

[00:31:26] There are some removable expanders. There are some other types of like clear Invisalign. I know a lot of people are very familiar with Invisalign, but not familiar with the idea that it can be used early for kids. So there's something called Invisalign first, and that can be something that can be a solution early on as well.

[00:31:44] And then as we gradually. Ramp up towards what I call foundation fixers. Those are going to be, as we move through those three categories, we've got more, light forces moving up to more forceful forces needed where we'll have either surgical interventions or, and something fixed like braces.

[00:32:03] Fixed expanders, rapid expanders, so things like that are more forceful, but they're also more precise in getting more precise outcomes. And that's where kind of that broad spectrum of treatment options comes into play. With surgical options, we might need a different, an oral surgeon or a gum surgeon or an ear, nose and throat surgeon, and that could be tons adenoid surgery.

[00:32:26] For some families that's necessary, but for some families they say, what are our other options that we can look at? Before resorting the surgery. And that's where we can take a few steps back and look at some of those other treatments. So there are a wide variety of solutions and the reality is it's really hard for parents to figure all of this out on their own.

[00:32:47] I see. A lot of parents who do come to me and you were mentioning the assessment component. Again, that was where I really originally intended to get started was building more awareness around this. But the reality is most of the parents who find me have done so much research already on their own.

[00:33:04] They know all the technical jargon, they know a, in a lot of cases, they know a lot of the appliances and the indications for different appliances. And when I say that, it's just whatever sort of. Whether that's a certain mouthpiece that's doing a certain job or braces are also appliances, it's whatever sort of mechanical piece is going in to help make that change.

[00:33:27] So yeah, there is a wide variety and that is why I really try to create a landing spot for parents who are feeling overwhelmed in this space to be able to just come and say, in some cases it's that parents feel. More attracted to one kind of approach versus another. Again, that's where that parental intuition comes into play, and I think that should be listened to.

[00:33:54] Most dialogues should be with the healthcare provider, the patient or the representative of the patient. In this case, the parent should be able to. Be having their voice be part of the conversation. So just enabling that part as well. 

[00:34:09] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, 

[00:34:10] it's really helpful to hear the categories, which are very much progressive, that you've.

[00:34:16] Filtered these through, natural nurturer guided growers, foundation fixtures. And this is, it's really nice because we tend to, whether we realize it or not, thrive with frameworks. And so it's give me a big picture. 'cause you're talking about all these different topics and it's I need some anchors to go back to, to understand where something is and generally.

[00:34:37] I think maybe we could understand I think this is generally along pediatric timelines, not completely, probably adults would be more foundation fixers, I'm guessing. Or there's probably a whole nother maybe map for adults potentially. I'm not sure. Is there something you wanna say there? 

[00:34:54] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: I just would say for the most part, a lot more of the foundation fixers are in play for adults, but I still consider therapy approaches to be aligned with the natural nurture.

[00:35:04] So in that case, the therapy again, could be what we talked about already with the myofunctional therapy, but in some cases I consider chiropractic work, osteopathic work, some of that, that can still make or play a role, as you were mentioning at the very beginning. And I circled away from, we can circle back to that some of that body tension that is in play, either from potentially a restricted tethered tongue tie or lip tie, or from a variety of other factors.

[00:35:33] Quite honestly, we know that premature births or C-sections, there's a lot of. Factors that are beyond, it's not our lifestyle choice, it's how we came into the world. And that carries implications down the road as to how we're gonna function and how things are gonna be. Like for our muscle function, for our nerve conduction. I know we can get a little abstract there, but again, that's where I do think some of the body tension can be addressed and that can help some of the other oral function too. 

[00:36:04] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, I can understand why. Mostly the parents that are coming to you or even adults have gone through lots of other things because we gravitate to what makes sense to us.

[00:36:15] First. When I'm working with eczema, people are gonna gravitate to a topical cream first 'cause it makes sense in your head, right? If you have pain in an area, you're gonna gravitate to somebody who can maybe affect pain in different ways, depending on your choice. Some people may go for a medical intervention, some may go for a structural intervention around that.

[00:36:31] So it depends on what's going on there. So that makes sense that people. Would've had to try something, it may not have worked. And so then they find that there's actually more tools and that's always the case, right? There's always more tools. So I'm wondering if we could, and I think this would be quite general, but I do wanna cover a little bit of like timeline and result things.

[00:36:49] And these may go together, but I wonder if we use the same categories because, this question can come from, I think this is always important 'cause it's like a big old topic and I loved the framework that you just gave us that helped to guide us, into kind of categories. But what people really care about is like getting to the result that they're pursuing.

[00:37:08] Generally. Like rare, it's not, I definitely get people come in and they wanna optimize this 'cause they understand it or learned about it, and I'm thankful for them. But usually people are in a place where it's this is, I need to fix this thing. I know that this is a hard question to answer because the airway, holistic dentistry space is more broad than one would think, and so we just talked about some of those.

[00:37:30] Cool tools and different things. And when we talk about timelines, it's I'll just preface this by saying, I can understand where tongue tie release or FIEs got really trendy because it's an immediate, anything that gives an immediate result is going to become exciting to anyone providing it and anyone.

[00:37:48] Receiving it. And then the negative is that maybe a function wasn't addressed or you weren't having therapy around it, then you can go backwards technically. And so I bring that up because it's like immediate results versus delayed results and then the relapse. And so what do you wanna say about timelines and helping people see the big picture of the results?

[00:38:05] So the timelines and the results will probably go hand in hand here, if you can talk about that. 

[00:38:10] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Yeah. And honestly, one of the things that I've been able to reflect on a little bit from a cultural standpoint in having moved relocated from the US to Europe is that I do think that desire to get to the fast results is a driver behind kind of consumer choice.

[00:38:26] In the us for the most part, we are driven to look for fast results where we can get fast results, but you're absolutely right that a lot of times the approaches that are maybe advertised as fast results in so many cases, and that's why. There's so much frustration in this field. I think from people moving through that timeline is in most cases, one single approach isn't gonna be enough.

[00:38:52] And so that's where we have to decide, or we have to help each family decide what's our best first step to take and what can be the most impactful first step. And for me, a lot of times. The driving force behind that is, what's the symptom that's most worrisome to us? So for example, I use this example a lot because it's family and I feel like I can talk about it, but my niece.

[00:39:16] I pointed out she was having some allergy issues early on. She was having some digestive issues early on, and I saw, because I have the eye to look for that, that her teeth were really crowded. So as we have baby teeth, as children, we actually should have spacing between our teeth and. I saw that she already had crowding.

[00:39:38] So that would be one of those cases where most dentists would say, start saving money for braces, right? Not what you wanna hear. So I helped my brother and my sister-in-law talk through some options, and for them, the therapy component was just not on the table. They were like, I hear you, and that doesn't sound like something we can commit to.

[00:39:56] There. Lifestyle wasn't gonna allow them to take that approach because with things like therapy, especially with kids, it's a lot of hard work and I always wanna make that clear. I. Those are the slower timelines. Those are the things that are gonna take a while to really reset function.

[00:40:14] And especially as we get older and adults, we have successfully compensated in more ways with our body and how we function. So it's gonna take longer to unwind that as an adult too. But as a child, again, it's still a lot of hard work and the real. Hard work really has to be put in the position of a parent who's at home reinforcing those activities, and a lot of parents that's not on the table.

[00:40:41] My brother and sister-in-law opted for a dental expander. It was a more forceful, more rapid way to address that concern. As a result, they were happy to note as well that some of her allergy issues did improve. We treated a dental problem. We can't always say when we're going into treat a dental problem that some of the other systemic.

[00:41:04] Things are going to resolve, but anecdotally we're gonna note that a lot of other things do improve. But yeah, there are in most cases a dental expander is like four months to six months of expansion and then holding that result for a period of time for things to settle. And that's with what we call a rapid expander.

[00:41:22] There are slow expanders that are gonna be more cran friendly. And so for the families that are looking for maybe something that. That is more cran friendly to the body and the way that the body moves. That is something where we can do slow expansion instead. And again, that may come down to what a provider's preference is or that may come down to each child and what's gonna be best for each child.

[00:41:47] So if a child is maybe more sensitive to different things, they might choose a slow expand. A fast expander and that obviously with a slow expander, it sounds like it's gonna be slower, but at the end of the day it's slower to achieve a certain result, but the end result, the amount of time that expander stays in the mouth, a slow expansion can ultimately be more stable by the time you get to where you're going.

[00:42:15] Because the rapid expansion had to happen quickly, and then the body has to adjust. So those are just between two appliances examples of how we can use some more force and get results differently. But again, the reason I mentioned that is because that was the approach that they wanted to take rather than a therapy approach that was going to be an unknown.

[00:42:36] The reality is nobody really has an answer for how long therapy is gonna take, because I would say it's like any sort of. Of, of therapy. I am not a, an emotional therapist by any means, but I would imagine the amount of time that most emotional work needs to be unwound and adapted in a different way.

[00:42:57] It's hard to say going into it how long that type of work it's gonna take. I think. For some families they might start that and realize it's not the right approach for them. If it feels like it's taking too long For other families, they might do the expander, they might do the adenoid surgery and realize that we're missing a functional piece and that's where maybe the next step comes in.

[00:43:18] We've dealt more quickly with something that, especially in cases of like severe sleep apnea or severe sleep disruption, maybe we do wanna go. To a more sort of forceful approach, first to get that family sleeping again, and then we can make more efforts and progress and from a place of sleeping better.

[00:43:38] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Makes sense. 

[00:43:40] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: So it is difficult. Makes sense. 

[00:43:40] Christa Biegler, RD: No, yeah. I can mirror that with my own examples and totally different conditions, right? It's sometimes you just need to come in and try to get results as fast as possible. If the, if you're willing to do X, Y, Z thing so that way you can sleep and function so that way you can actually not have to use any kind of other outside forces.

[00:43:59] So that makes sense and I appreciate the answer with a case because, that's like how we actually, for me, that's how I actually figured out how long it took to get results. It wasn't like, there was some book that I read that was like, it'll take this long to get results. I figured out how long results took by.

[00:44:14] What do we call that? The school of hard knocks with clients. And so it was just like I worked with him so closely and I just kept seeing patterns of different things and it's this is how long this can take, but. I appreciate your comments here because my sentiment with our airway and biological dentist journey is just I don't understand the full big picture and the possible timeline and even your story is like a little encouraging or just helpful.

[00:44:38] And it's understandable that if you're working with a care team, sometimes these things can get bounced around a lot and. Anytime you're in clinic in a place, sometimes there is not time. They're doing a lot of education, maybe they're doing active therapy, but it's sometimes it's like hard to bridge all the education that needs to happen too.

[00:44:54] So I'll just acknowledge that can be, just part of the challenge so I can understand where navigating, I'm rearranging the title of this to Navigating Airway and Biologics Dentistry. So there's a lot more, I'm sure there's much more we could talk about and everyone always wants to know it.

[00:45:09] In context of their own situation and their own case, and fortunately for you, Dr. Julia will have a conversation with you and tell you give you context about your own case. So where can people find you online and reach out to you, Dr. Julia? 

[00:45:22] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: So I do have my own website. It's orris wellness.com, so ORIS wellness.com.

[00:45:29] And I'm also on Instagram a fair amount at Orris Do Wellness. Those are the two biggest areas where I'm showing up, but if you go through my website, there's a few others. Gradually throwing some YouTube videos out there and otherwise to try and provide more resources as they can. 

[00:45:45] Christa Biegler, RD: The Healthy Mouth manual though, what's in that?

[00:45:48] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Yeah, no, that is a little freebie ebook that I've got. That's what I put together over the course of time when a lot of parents were saying, but what can we do at home? So it's a good foundation for the types of changes or factors that you can look at. For some of the younger kiddos who maybe you're having a harder time finding the right providers for that age group, or you're just really trying to take that initiative of what can we know about and influence growth and development from an early stage.

[00:46:19] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah, for sure. If you could leave parents or people. Adults with some structural stuff, or if they're curious about this topic, that's why they clicked on this title, what would you wanna leave them with? What kind of insight, what kind of supportive message would you wanna leave them with? 

[00:46:37] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Yeah, I would echo your common sentiment of we always have options.

[00:46:42] I think that's one of the biggest things is sometimes people embark on this journey and maybe they don't like what they've heard from one provider or they freeze. 'cause now they're hearing. Two completely different options from providers. There's always gonna be options. So don't let that overwhelm you.

[00:46:59] But if you've been told that there aren't options, then keep digging. There's definitely always something you can do to take, make a small change, and that's where this all begins. 

[00:47:09] Christa Biegler, RD: All awesome. Thank you so much for coming on today.

[00:47:11] Dr. Julia Sadove-Lopez: Thank you.