Addressing health issues that may have unexpected causes? What could the bite have to do with them?

“We recently discussed whole-body posture: the neck, shoulders, back, and lower body. We will continue with this topic, but this time we will focus on the posture of the head, jaw, and teeth,” said GP Valerijus Morozovas on the Delfi TV show “Sveiki! Su gydytoju V. Morozovu”. The doctor discussed this topic with dentist Rūta Zykutė-Želvė.

“In fact, all of your posture depends on the position of your teeth,” said Dentist Rūta Zykutė-Želvė.

“Are you saying that even when we stand on our feet, our posture does not depend on our feet, but on our mouth?”

“Yes. Just as our joints and our bite are positioned, so are our legs,” replied R. Zykutė-Želvė.

I have read that, at best, only one in five of us has a correct bite, and everyone else should take some kind of measures. Is that true? Are we all so flawed?

Actually, it is true. There are very few perfect bites. It is perhaps utopian to talk about a perfect bite; it would be better to talk about a near-perfect bite. Approximately 2 to 5 per cent of people in the world have a perfect or near-perfect bite. Everyone else has a more or less pathological bite.

When it comes to aesthetics, it’s clear: if your teeth are ugly or even uncomfortable to chew with, you see a specialist. But in reality, there are more clinical signs, aren’t there? How dangerous is an irregular bite?

First of all, an irregular bite is dangerous because it distorts the balance of the entire body. We are designed as living beings to be harmonious. And if we lose a tooth on one side, the body’s compensatory mechanism adjusts so that we chew on the other side. Over a long period of time, 10 to 15 years, we may experience consequences such as neck pain, even displacement of the first cervical vertebra, headaches and sleep apnoea.

Shortness of breath, palpitations, sweating. Could all this be because we don’t chew on one side?

Yes.

I myself have encountered headaches at work, none of the specialists can say anything: the ENT specialist sees nothing from his field of expertise, nor does the neurologist from his. Then we turn to dentists, they put a dental plate in, and the pain goes away, even though, in principle, the teeth are not decayed. Can pain like this also cause discomfort?

Of course, our only so-called temporomandibular joint in the upper jaw is affected through the teeth. It starts to wear out and function irregularly, and then we start to feel headaches, ringing in the ears, sometimes it is difficult to open the mouth, chew food, it hurts when chewing, etc.

How does the bite or position of the teeth affect snoring and how is this related to sleep apnoea, when breathing stops for a period of time during the night?

If a person has chewed incorrectly or breathed incorrectly throughout their life or if their tongue is in an incorrect position, they will experience the consequences you just mentioned: snoring and sleep apnoea. When the tongue is not in the correct position, i.e. in the palate, but is relaxed and falls back into the lower jaw and is pressing on the trachea, a person cannot breathe properly.

Are you saying that a proper bite is not just about the position of the teeth but also the position of the tongue?

Of course, it is not only the position of the teeth that matters. A proper bite is also determined by muscles, teeth, soft and hard tissues, joints, ligaments, nerves and blood circulation. It is a huge system in our body that allows us to chew food, perform phonetic functions and smile. If it malfunctions, many functions are disrupted: we can no longer smile or chew, and we cannot sleep peacefully.

And breathe.

Yes, and breathe.

Let’s talk about the causes. We are often inclined to blame someone or something. I often ask my interlocutors who is to blame, what is the source of these causes? Perhaps genetics is to blame for all these problems with the bite, and there is nothing we can do about it?

This is what patients usually do. It is very easy to dismiss the causes as genetics. “That’s my genetics, that’s my lot.” What is the cause? It all starts at birth. How a baby is born, how and what they are fed. In principle, babies should be breastfed to help them develop a normal jaw.

But that’s what happens. Up to six months, breastfeeding is strongly recommended and encouraged to continue for at least a year.

According to the latest data, children should be breastfed until the age of two along with supplementary foods and encouraged to develop their jaws. It is also recommended that children start chewing solid foods at six months of age rather than being given mashed foods as they will not know what to do with their jaws.
It is advisable to give them chopped boiled carrots and potatoes so that they can mash them with their toothless alveolar ridges. This will help them develop a chewing reflex. Then the swallowing reflex develops, and these sequences should not be mixed up. Usually, it happens like this: when a child is six months old, they are fed porridge, which is cooked, mashed and fed with a spoon. The child does not understand what they are eating.

Safety first, we don’t want them to choke.

Of course, safety is the most important thing, but the child has reflexes to prevent choking. Of course, you should make sure that the food is not too hard, difficult for the baby to chew or crush with the alveolar ridges. 

It’s logical: if you can’t bite and chew it, you can’t swallow it.

That’s right. Babies do the same thing. We start getting them used to normal chewing and swallowing reflexes, which usually develop around one year and eight months. Until then, the kid is just learning.

The longer you breastfeed, the better for the jaw and future teeth?

Of course. It is important to remember how our jaws should grow and in which direction. The lower jaw must grow horizontally, i.e. forward. For it to grow forward, it is necessary to make a movement and pull: take a piece of meat so that the child can bite, pull and direct the jaw horizontally. If this is not done, and the child also breathes through the mouth (one of the most harmful habits), how will the child’s jaw grow, and in what direction?

Downwards.

Yes, vertically. The child opens their mouth because they need to breathe through their mouth, and the jaw begins to grow vertically.

So, we have found two culprits. The first is mothers who feed their children incorrectly, and the second is a runny nose that prevents them from breathing through their nose.

In fact, it is not the runny nose that is to blame, because a runny nose comes and goes. The harmful habit is to blame, and it is unfortunate that we do not notice it. Everything must be done to keep the airway clear and to try to close the mouth. The first mistake mothers who breastfeed make is that they lay their babies down after feeding and they remain with their mouths open. You need to pick them up and close their mouths. The baby then closes their mouth, swallows their saliva and the tongue naturally falls into the correct position, i.e. on the palate.

What about pacifiers?

They are either a helpful tool in raising children or a harmful factor. In general, it is recommended to give up pacifiers if possible. If this is not possible, it is important to know exactly which pacifier to choose. It should be as similar as possible to the shape of a nipple and as wide as possible at the palate. The pacifier should not open the child’s mouth too wide and, as far as possible, it should press the tongue against the palate so that a wide palate can form. My recommendation is to give up pacifiers by the age of one. It is essential.

Summer is here, and lots of young people are walking around holding some kind of drink and sucking on a straw. Is this good or bad?

Very bad. Any kind of sucking or pulling through a straw or a hole is not a good way to drink. Even babies used to be fed from a small cup.

What is the difference between an older child sucking through a straw and a baby sucking at the breast?

Our task is to move the jaw horizontally forward. When we suck through a straw, we pull inward.

When milk teeth fall out, permanent teeth replace them. Pacifiers have no effect on permanent teeth.

Children lose their milk teeth at around the age of six. I really hope that there are no children in Lithuania who use pacifiers after the age of six. By the way, children are clever: when you take a pacifier away from them, they come up with other things to suck on, such as their thumb, tongue, cheek or lip. All these harmful habits also cause the child’s jaw to develop incorrectly, which will cause serious problems in the future. Our job as doctors is to inform, observe, notice and stop these harmful habits, replacing them with harmless ones.

In other words, burden mothers with yet another worry.

Basically, yes.

Another harmful habit is teeth grinding. It is often attributed to parasites, and general practitioners often blame stress. What is dentists’ approach to teeth grinding, especially when it comes to bite problems?

Why is it dangerous? We wear our teeth down too quickly. Tooth wear is a very natural physiological process. From the moment they erupt until we reach a respectable age, our teeth are supposed to wear down to a certain extent. Sometimes, the teeth of 30-year-olds are worn down to what they should look like at 80, which is already a pathology.

Another harmful, or perhaps useful, thing is chewing gum. Is chewing gum constantly good or bad for your bite?

You will not see a single advertisement that says you should chew gum constantly. The advertisement says to chew after a meal for about one to two minutes. That’s it. And only to regulate the pH of the mouth. Chewing gum stimulates saliva production. When we chew gum for a long time, it acquires a certain texture, structure and viscosity, and the muscles also begin to trick themselves: they start to pump and train. When you put regular food in your mouth, you are no longer able to recognise its consistency and how much force is needed to chew it. There is a chance that you will start chewing soft food with very strong and harmful movements. Everything should be eaten slowly, savouring it, without rushing, then there will be no injuries or other consequences.

As far as I understand, everyone should consult a specialist about their bite, at least as a preventive measure? Even if you are satisfied with its aesthetics and function?

My advice would be to start from the beginning. Don’t wait for consequences to appear, when the damage is already done, but do everything you can to avoid those consequences, start with the causes, know what they are, and know what to do to keep our children healthy. We definitely have the knowledge to ensure that our faces healthy, beautiful and regular.