Thankful for Two Patients Who Changed My Life - Part 5

In 1985 I met Peg, a woman in her 20’s, who had been suffering daily headaches for years. She had undergone retractive orthodontics as an adolescent and wanted me to eliminate her headache pattern. I saw that her face was severely caved in by the extraction/retraction treatment she had undergone. I felt the only thing which might help her would be to reverse that treatment and reopen her extraction spaces. I’d never seen an article in the refereed literature saying former extraction spaces could be reopened and had heard many orthodontists say that it absolutely could NOT be done. I told her that I could not help her and wished her well. 

She returned in 1989 with the same pain pattern and was desperate. In the interim I had learned many new things in my continuing education odyssey. I had begun using some removable appliances which would easily create space for kids with crowded teeth so their teeth could all be aligned without removing any. I figured this might be the way to predictably reopen spaces. I told Peg every possible negative outcome I could think of. I told her she might get recession, she might lose teeth, and that she might have an open-bite that could only be closed surgically. To each warning I voiced she responded, “I don’t care!” 

She had spent four years looking for solutions, had no other options, and couldn’t go on the way she was. I did not promise resolution of even one symptom, but told her I would do my best. Her caved in face was filled back out, her pain pattern was completely eliminated, and I was successful in my very first case of reopening previous orthodontic extraction spaces. That success spawned another similar success soon thereafter. I then did the same treatment on myself reopening a previous orthodontic extraction space. 

I now have patients from other continents and all over North America coming for me to reopen their previous orthodontic extraction spaces. I can’t thank Peg enough for literally forcing me to try something that I now am trying to teach to others from around the world. The patients I treat are thankful to Peg even though they will never meet her, because I tell each one the story. 

The second patient to dramatically change my career was someone I met in 1992. Joan, a woman in her mid 30’s, was traveling two hours past at least a dozen orthodontists to see me for treatment. She had been suffering a severe TMJ pain pattern and had consulted with a number of orthodontists who wanted to remove teeth and treat her conventionally. She heard that we would not remove teeth and that we had some experience in treating complex TMJ/pain patients. 

Treatment had gone well and she was feeling great until the appliance we were using to hold her jaw forward broke. She was not able to get to our office for about two weeks to have it fixed. With the appliance in place, her horrible life altering pain pattern had been eliminated. When she returned to the office she confided that she was “feeling like I did in the beginning…like I would drown or choke to death.” Those words changed my life, and I can’t thank her enough for them. Her words caused me to look at her airway. Her airway was very small, and I learned from an oral surgeon friend that it was much smaller than the norm. Until that point in my career I had no idea what the norm was!  

We were successful in helping Joan , particularly since her words helped me focus on a solution! From that patient on I’ve looked at the airway in every case. It is perhaps the very first thing my eyes are drawn to when I see a lateral head x-ray. With 25 years experience in the rear view mirror I can see how Joan’s words literally changed my focus and my practice. This wasn’t a doctor speaking. It was a patient.    

Indeed I’ve had a conversation with an orthodontic department head who stated he didn’t think that the size of a person’s airway matters! Who knows their body better than the person occupying it? I’m thankful for the patients I’ve treated who have taught me so much.  My patients who benefit from the ability to breathe better, be free of OSA, etc. have Joan to thank for their own result even though they will never meet her.