The tonsils and adenoids were removed. (BREATHE). Several days of popsicles for breakfast, lunch and dinner ensued. It was rrrrrrough (more for my wife and myself), but Grace did it. As far as I was concerned the hard part was over.  Afterall, now that the hard part was done, finding someone to treat her should be a slam dunk!

Famous last words. 

As with most professions, there are many different schools of thought when it comes to treatment. For a very long time, orthodontics performed in the United States was focused on ensuring straight teeth and correcting specific occlusion in relation to the opposing arch. It was an art of form and function. If teeth needed to be extracted to accomplish fit, then so be it.

Safe to say, things have changed.  Thanks to the boom of Invisalign™, teeth can be straightened at just about any age, provided said teeth are present. So essentially the focus has shifted (still a lot of work to do) to the concept of Airway First Treatment -- doing all we can to improve a person's breathing  and in so doing, do nothing to hinder the breathing processt. 

Again...what does all this mean for Grace (and possibly your kids)?. I had to take all of the records I had -- including sleep study and digital dental data --  to five orthodontic offices over the span of many looooong days in order to finally find one who would treat Grace.

I was frustrated to say the least.

It wasn’t like I and my wife were unprepared or or our case undocumented. We had the evidence. We had the data. We had the history. We had Grace herself. Many of the clinicians we consulted were, in fact, good clinicians --  they simply hadn’t been exposed to the shift in treatment philosophy required to embrace the reality of our situation.

We had to ask the questions and present the evidence. We had to advocate resolutely for our daughter...and it took us almost a year and a half to find someone who finally listened.

But we did. And ultimately we were able to begin Graces treatment -- upper arch development via RPE (Rapid Palatal Expander). 

More to come . . .