Blog: Big Trouble in Little Mouths

So last Friday, newest practice team member Susan and I visited Temple City Christian Preschool for some pre-K dental screening and when TCDC and TCCP get together, watch out!
The kids were great and the staff was about as warm and reassuring as hot chocolate and a cold winter morning (like when we’re sub-60 degrees Fahrenheit around here.)
We’ve been checking the young scholars at Christian Preschool for several years now and with each successive appearance I’m feeling like some kind of front man for local orthodontists.
I’ve done dental screenings in local schools for years and the only difference I’ve seen in Temple City schools, as  opposed to Third World jungle classrooms, is the jungle kids are totally adapted to their environment and don’t need orthodontists.
Here in the valley of allergens, we have an epidemic. At TCCP, at least 80% of the children I saw should start orthodontic care as early as age six.
Yeah, there were the usual several thumb-sucking generated open bites and some crowded primary teeth (meaning the adult teeth would also be crowded) BUT for every five young patients, four already had skeletal development discrepancies.
The developmental challenges showed up as narrow arches, steep palates, uneven profiles, and overbites that made lower anterior teeth virtually invisible in a closed mouth.
The cause of the distorted anatomical development is most often allergies. When a young immune system responds to allergies tonsils and adenoids get big and the airway disappears. What follows is adaptive swallowing and breathing that impacts oral and facial development, not to mention cognitive development and growth in general.
When little kids grind their teeth at night (you can hear it), it’s not because their boss is a jerk; their grinding actually helps open the ear canals to help relieve the pressure building up in the airway behind the tongue and soft palate. Like snoring in adults, the grinding is indicative of an ongoing struggle to breathe.
With adults, a comparable condition is obstructive sleep apnea, impacting some 20,000,000 Americans.  Untreated adults lose an average eight years of life expectancy. Imagine the consequences for a growing, developing preschooler.
Early visits to the pediatric dentist (Arcadia pediatric Doc Eddie So and San Gabriel’s Toni Chen are awesome) and their collaborative relationship with pediatric physicians can make a huge difference in your child’s future. It’s NEVER too early for a first visit.