Your Mouth Matters: The Hidden Links Between Teeth and Total Health

When health headlines leave you confused, when medical myths be busting, when you need straight talk from someone who's seen it all, it is time for what the health is happening. Your weekly dose of medical reality from the front lines of healthcare. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Valve Crowder, but you can call me Dr. V, and this is What the Health Is Happening. And I'm a board-certified emergency physician who has spent decades on the front lines of health care in hospitals across America. With experience treating everything from common cold to major trauma, I bring you the insight too on what is really happening in medicine today and what you need to know to improve your health and the health of your family. Get ready for straight talk, real stories, and medical insights that you need to take control of your health and wellness. There won't be any jargon, no sugar coating, just clear answers from a doctor who's seen it all. We give you the inside scoop on health matters and empower you with information on everything from breaking news to cancer updates to medical research. Each week I'll be answering real medical questions from listeners like you and providing evidence-based research and science you can trust. Have a pressing medical question? I want to hear from you. Send your questions to info at askdrb.us. That's info atskrv.us. And you might just hear your question being answered on our next episode. This is what the hell is happening. Your weekly dose of medical reality from the front lines of healthcare. So we actually, myself and some of my friends, we actually put together this show so that you can actually talk and get all of your questions answered. Today, we are actually going to talk about oral health. And you know, a lot of people don't realize, but your mouth really matters, and there's a lot of hidden links between your teeth and actual, actually your total health. So you might brush twice a day, or maybe you floss every once in a while or daily. Um, and you may see a dentist once a year or twice a year, but what most people don't realize is that your mouth is more than a gateway to a great smile. It is actually a gateway to your health. So today we're gonna take a deep dive. I have joining us Linda Dean Darue, who's here to share with us some of her experiences. So if you're listening and you want to join the conversation, you can email uh any questions to info at askdrv.us if it's about this topic or any other topic that you're interested in. Let's take a minute from our sponsor. Morgan Stanley, financial advisor, can bring the experience and the range of resources you need to help you manage your wealth effectively. To start with, they will review your specific and long-term and short-term strategies. Then they can factor in how conservative or aggressive you are. Find out what asset allocation, uh what asset allocation means and can do for you. Morgan Stanley, financial advisors, call Millicent Eubanks, first vice president, financial advisor of McLean, Virginia, 703 556-8124 to discuss your personal financial needs. That's Millicent Eubank at 703-556-8124. What the health is happening is a real question. Um, and it is the name of the new podcast. So if you miss an episode of the Ask Dr. V show, you can catch uh many of these shows plus additional information on our new podcast called What the Health Is Happening. It will literally give you life-changing advice and information related to all sorts of healthcare matters. What the Health Is Happening podcast can be found on any podcast or streaming app. It doesn't matter whether or not it's Audible, Spotify, download, subscribe, and comment. All right. So now I want to bring in our guest, um, Linda Dean DeRue. And um I I I I brought Linda today because she has a very interesting story um about what happened to her and dealing with some healthcare issues. So, Linda, welcome to the program.

Thank you.

So I want to start off asking you about um what happened in 2008. You started to have a a health journey. And tell me a little bit about, you know, where were you, what sort of symptoms you were having, etc.

And uh it was uh December 2008. I was in Miami to celebrate my birthday at the end of a year, and I started having fever and sniffles, and I thought, uh, maybe it's just the cold, and you know, it takes some Tylenol, it's gonna go away, but it was getting worse. So I couldn't even party and I had to leave. And I got home and I'm thinking, okay, this is gonna go away. It didn't. The fever was getting worse, the headache was just the fatigue and all of that. So I had to go to the doctor, and I it still was not getting better.

So when you went to the physician for the first time, what did they do for you?

Uh they just said, well, it might be the flu, you know, just go home, take some terraflu, you know, those kind of things. You get Tylenol and things like that, but it didn't get better.

So then, did you then go to another doctor or a different doctor?

Oh yeah, I did go to another doctor, and you know, they said, Okay, now maybe you have bronchitis and you get some antibiotics, and I got some antibiotics, it was not getting better, the fatigue was just becoming so much, I was starting to forget things, and I was like, okay, this is just not normal. I you know, migraines was getting so much worse, and I was starting to cough, and there's a lot of cough in the mornings, and I just again i I was just not myself. I wasn't feeling myself at all. And so I thought, I need to find something, I need to check this out because this is getting too much.

So so you then had gone to the physician twice. Yes. And then did you go a third time?

Oh, yeah, that was I went a third time. And uh by the third one, I said, okay, my friends were going like, you know what, you gotta go see some of these holistic people because maybe they can have an answer to what's going on. And so I went to see the holistic doctor, and they said, Okay, you gotta go gluten-free and all of that. And I that was difficult because I love me my gluten, you know. So, but I did try. I went gluten-free and for about three months, and you know, I didn't get better and I didn't lose any weight. Okay. And I got back to him and he said, This is unfathomable. Anybody who goes gluten-free loses weight. You didn't even lose a pound. I said, Yeah, I didn't. So at that time they tested me for Lyme disease, and it came back. He said, You have Lyme disease. And I was like, Flabbergasted, because the only lawn I crossed, the only way I said, Where did the tick find me? Right. You're not an outdoor person. No, I'm not an outdoor person. Anyway, so I said I had the medications for Lyme disease. It's not just antibiotics, so the holistic protocol for Lyme disease, it's a lot of things you have to do. I was doing that but reluctantly, and in my mind, I knew I didn't have Lyme disease, so I kept looking for answers.

So did the did the so did the Lyme protocol it didn't did it work? Did it make you feel better? It didn't.

I didn't feel better. So I I did go to another doctor.

Okay, you know, I did another test and it's now was this someone who specialized in infectious disease?

Yes, yes, I did go to an infectious disease specialist, and he said, Well, I need to run more ad more advanced testing than than the regular tests that you did for Lyme, and if it comes back positive, you have Lyme disease, and if it doesn't, then you don't have Lyme disease. Right. And he did that test and it came back and it said, You don't have Lyme disease, but I don't know what you have. And so he sent me to another doctor.

Okay. So then you went to this internist.

And what did she do? Oh, that was crazy. So I go to this internist who just you know, you know, is a specialist by itself, and no, it doesn't take any insurance, and you go there and you all my story, I take one look in my mouth, she says, You must have sleep apnea. I go, shit crazy, because uh sleep apnea, if there's something in the mouth that tells you you have sleep apnea, I would know. And why and you would know because I've been a dentist for over 20 years, and if something in the mouth is saying sleep apnea, I should know that, right? So so she's diagnosing you with something that is actually in your specialty. Uh, you know what? She was right. She sent me to a sleep test, and then she was right. Yes, she did diagnose me from that, yes.

So, Dr. Dean Darue, what happened after that?

Well, I got to be on uh CPAP. I don't know if many of you know what that is. That's the stuff you have to like a machine that goes over your face, and you have to sleep in it because it helps to pump oxygen into your face, and that helps you sleep, right? And yeah, that helps you breathe. And were you able to tolerate the CPAPs? Oh my God, it was terrible. Because, you know, first you had to try the nose mask, then this mask and that mask, and eventually I settled on the one that covers your nose and your face, and you know, if it was a full face mask that you had to go to sleep with every night, it was difficult. I did my best because it made me feel better.

So you so the CPAP machine actually did work and was uh was did it made a difference?

Yes, it made a difference for me for a while until it didn't.

And then what happened as so it would work and then it wouldn't work. So they changed the different types of masks that you had. You went from a nasal one to a full face. Yes. Did they do any other changes? Oh yes.

You know, for a couple of years it was doing well, and for uh probably about seven years or so, and they kept changing the pressures because it's my symptoms started coming back and it wasn't working anymore. And my option then was to have double jerseys surgery to make more room for my tongue.

Okay, so they were saying basically that your mouth was too small. Yes. And they wanted to break your jaws on both sides? Yes, on top of the body to open up the air your oral cavity area.

Yes, to make more room for my tongue, yes. Okay, all right. Did you have that surgery? Oh no. I was like, no, thank you, because I looked at my face and I go, my face doesn't look that narrow. I have a big jaw, it's an African face. You know, I did a lot of chewing as I was growing up. Right. I don't need to have no jaws broken. I don't want my jaws broken at all. So, anyways, I no, I did not have that surgery.

So, how did you find other what sort of alternatives did you look into? Or how did you what did what did you how did you how did you come up with something other than having your jaws broken?

Well, at that point I started looking for alternatives. I started looking for options. And I did go to a conference, you know, as as a dentist and as a provider, you're always looking for ways to make yourself better. And one of the conferences that I went to is called the American Academy of Applied Myofunctional Sciences. It was a congress in Chicago, and it was a world congress that a whole lot of people came, there are physicians from all over the world, including the father of sleep, Dr. Christian Gilmino, God rest his soul. And at that congress, many people were talking about how your face grows, how your tongue grows, how well your face grows, determines how well you breathe and sleep from infancy. And it was eye-opening.

Right. And was this something that you you because you said you were a dentist. Are are you you're a general dentist or a pediatric dentist?

No, I had been a pediatric dentist by that time for over 25 years at that time. So no, I we just knew that you know you grew your face, your face needed to grow and things like that. But I had no idea how important it was on how your airway and how you're breathing and how you sleep and all of those, how they were all related. Related in case. I did not have an idea of that. However, it was at that Congress that things started to make sense.

Right. Right. A lot of people don't realize that we as healthcare providers, we learn during our profession. Right? Continuing medical education is important. So so tell us what did you do then as a result of this information that you got? Because the recommendation was to have your jaws broken, you didn't want to do that. So you you went to this conference, got new information, and and what did you do?

So when I got home, I looked at pictures of myself. The youngest one I could find was me, me at nine months of age, and all the signs were there. All the things that we're talking about about the conference was there. I had an open-mouth posture, my mom said I was inconsolable, my hands were twist, my fists were clenched, my mouth was open, my neck was twisted, and I'd always been an open-mouth sleeper, and I was always mouth breathing. I'd had migraines all my life, and I thought all of those things were just part of growing up. And so when I looked at all those, I thought, oh my gosh, I have had all these signs and symptoms since I was a baby, and nobody even knew that they were connected. And so at that point, I thought, I see babies as young as two days old to help them with breastfeeding and things like that. And didn't even know they were all connected. And I just said something's gotta be different. If it was too late for me, it didn't have to be too late for all the children that I see. And so I pivoted uh practice. I stopped doing things the way I used to do them, like braces trying to just fix teeth. And we started to retool the practice and retrain and relearn on how to help guide the growth from infancy. Because when a baby is not able to just feed properly, latch on easily, which is just natural, then there's something that is not happening to how they're going to grow. And that's going to affect how their face is going to grow. And how well your face grows determines how well you sleep and how well you breed all your life.

So now, given that you kind of made this determination that you had a problem and you're now in adulthood, what did you do for yourself?

Well, at that congress, too, there were a lot of people who were like providers who were already helping people heal from this. Right. So I connected with one of them, uh, Dr. James Bruss Bronson out of McLean. And I did go to him for treatment. I was treated with the alpha plants, uh steopathy, which is a different kind of doctor to help you get the bones of the skull moving, to get your nerves moving, myofunctional therapy, non-surgical laser treatment, and they already say myofunctional therapy, which is like yoga for your face or physical therapy for your face, right? And the facial muscles, uh retrain how to breed, and also um a whole lot of getting nutritional advice and getting a whole lot of ways to treat the root cause, getting to the bottom of it. I did not have to have the double jersey surgery, and I've been off my CPAP now for over three years, and I haven't had a migraine headache for over three years as well.

So so with this protocol that you followed that he gave you, you were able to actually get off of your CPAP. Yes. And did you ever have a follow-up sleep study to confirm that you don't have sleep apnea anymore?

Or I did not have the follow-up sleep study with the sleep with the sleep center, but I did have other studies that we have regularly, like a home sleep test that we do have that does show me the way my sleep is at night, and it's so much, much better. It's so much better. Great. Awesome, awesome. And I don't have the symptoms anymore.

Yeah, I I think a lot of people wouldn't actually associate like migraines and coughing and congestion and brain frog associated with um sleep apnea, but that is sometimes sometimes that is the presenting symptoms. People often think about only just the snoring, right? Yes. So you did this and then you were able to get off of your um you were able to get off of your CPAP machine completely and you've been off of it now for three years. Yes. And then you took all of this training into your practice. Absolutely. So you are uh your practice is Ashburn Pediatric Dentistry. Ashburn Children's Dentistry, yes. Ashburn Children's Dentistry. Great. And you're here with your daughter, Crystal Dean DeRoo. Yes. So we have two guests today. Yes. I wanted to let her uh Dr. Crystal Dean DeRoo, I wanted to have her tell her whole story um before I introduced her. So tell me a little bit about how you specifically change what were you doing before this experience and what did you do after this experience? Either one of you can answer.

Well, thank you so much for having us. Yes. So traditionally um we would see uh kids because we are a pediatric uh dentist and just do conventional work to align the teeth. Um we also worked with lasers, so we didn't really do only conventional work, but we worked with laser to do fillings, normal drill and fill, what you would expect to see everything in the dental office, in addition to helping moms with breastfeeding. And so how we changed the practice was understanding that the growth is regulated by function, and and what we were seeing was more dysfunction than anything. And so we had to get function on board by understanding that breathing, chewing, and tongue posture was they were all governed by the nervous system as well. So if a child is breathing poorly or under that chronic stress, then their body's gonna prioritize a survival of their growth versus just their teeth and things like that. So what we look at is assessing their breathing, their sleeping, along with their teeth, of course, but making sure their airway, their growth is optimal. And so it takes a lot of diagnostics of different types of appliances and things like that that we do use, including non-surgical laser therapy and involving other providers and to be more collaborative with other providers.

All right. Thanks for that. We we've got a caller. Before I actually bring in the caller, I want to actually just uh uh we've got uh one sl one small commercial break here. Um, What the Health Is Happening is our new podcast. Um, it is uh available on all streaming uh platforms. What the health is happening gives you the inside scoop on all health uh all health matters and empowers you with information so that when you interface with your hospital or your doctor, you actually know the questions and the things to ask for. What the health is happening is your dose of medical reality with me, Dr. V, and my friends from the front lines of healthcare. You can hear it on all uh streaming platforms. Download, subscribe, or comment. All right, we've got a question on line one. Linda on line one. Hi, Dr. V.

I have a question about I have the I was diagnosed with Bell's palsy. Um you didn't see anything about it changing your taste, but my my ability to taste has definitely been affected since I was diagnosed. So I don't know if it's medication or actually the diagnosis. Yeah. So um comment on that.

Yeah, I will um I will let one of the dentists take the take that question. Let me just put in first. Bell's palsy is where you kind of get a paralysis of your uh of your facial nerve, um, and it can kind of almost look like a stroke. Um it usually does not, uh, you know, it affects sort of uh one side of your face. Um and some people think they are having uh a stroke, but it is usually uh related to an infection or stress. Um either of you want to uh talk about Bell's palsy impacting uh someone's taste?

Because it also has to do with the muscles of the face and then the tongue. Yes, you get your taste could be affected by that as well.

What are you doing to rehab the muscles of your face?

Well, part of it is also the myfunctional therapy and uh non surgical laser therapy, which will help to release the fascia and also help to improve the mitochondria and get more energy to the nervous system and can help that nerve heal.

Are you doing any of those things, Linda? I'm sorry, there's two Linda's Linda the dentist and Linda the caller. So thank you, Dr. Dean. But Linda, are you doing, yeah, are you what are you doing to actually how long have you had it and what are you doing to actually uh improve the muscle strength of your face?

I've had it um about two and a half weeks, and I've been going to electroacupuncture, where they've used um electronic pulses um as well as acupuncture all along my hairline, my jawline, my eye line, down my neck, and all over my chest.

Oh wow, okay, all right. And has it been helping?

Yes, it has really helped. Um they even did some acupuncture in my like at the base of my skull. And yes, that helped a lot. That's actually when my vision had also been fluctuating. My vision as well as my sense of taste had also been fluctuating, and it it came kind of flooding back after that, and it seemed to improve. But I am interested if um about the non-surgical option of lasers that she mentioned. So if she could say a little bit more about that, that would be fabulous.

Absolutely. Um, you want to say a little bit more about that, and then we'll go on to our next question.

Yes, absolutely. The acupuncture that you're doing is also very helpful. What the non-surgical laser does is help to release the fascia because the nervous system is enclosed in fascia, and when it does that, it's very tight. So what the laser will do is loosen it up so that the nerve can actually travel. It helps to decrease the inflammation. So you're really on the right track. So and the laser therapy will go along the same lines of the acupuncture uh points as well, and so it's almost like you're doing double duty on that. So, yeah, what you're doing is quite helpful. And if you add the laser therapy to it, you'll be kind of doubling it as well.

That therapy is called oralase.

Yeah, it's called Aurelase.

Awesome. Great. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. All righty. We've got a call, we've got a uh question that was emailed in, and I'm gonna uh let my two dentists uh take at it. And this actually more relates to some of the sleep apnea. So Sandy from Prince George's County said, Can poor dental health really affect my respiratory system? I have COPD and I'm wondering if I should be more aggressive about my oral care. So a lot of people don't really understand how how oral care, your story kind of brought it out and how it actually impacted um and caused you to have sleep apnea. But could you guys expound upon that a little bit more?

A couple of different things. But yes, the care of your your your gums and your teeth, that's extremely important for your bloodstream, your heart health, um, but for your breathing health, that has to do with your the muscles of your face and your tongue. So your tongue posture and the the amount of room that your tongue has to be able to uh sit comfortably so you can nasal breathe is gonna be really important. So uh if you're uh dealing with COPD, it's gonna be even more critical that uh the tongue uh posture um and the lack of restrictiveness of your tongue is is gonna be uh something to be able to look at.

Yeah, because the tongue really is important in getting the um the roof of a mouth wider so we have more room to breathe. Because the roof of your mouth is the floor of your nose. So if that doesn't rest properly, it's harder to get even the skull bones moving so that your brain can actually move better and function better and you can release toxins from it. And so you being able to breathe through your nose is gonna be really critical for you. And so just make sure that you're having your nose clean and open every day. And uh whatever you have to do to keep your nostrils open is gonna be important for you. And um doing the things like even the clear spray and things like that will be great. Uh or nasal nasal saline sprays, or even uh netipot, just making sure it's open so that you're not stressing your body as much. That would be really critical for you. And yes, be more aggressive with your oral care because if you do have gum disease, then your body is struggling even more.

All right, we've got another caller on line one.

Hi.

Hi, how are you?

Oh, I'm fine. Dr. V we have spoken before. This is Gloyd McGuire.

Yes, we're near the end of the show. You have a quick question?

Oh, yeah, yeah. I want to I'm here, I didn't hear everything, but I want to get off of this DPAP machine, and I've been on it for 15 years. And and in the beginning, I tried a dental flaws, you know, where you take it out, tighten it up, take it out, and adjust.

Right.

And that didn't work. So it's like 10 years ago, so I don't know if that's something new now.

So if somebody so let me uh let me have them ask answer that question, okay, because we're near the end here. If somebody wants to get off their CPAP machine, what should they do?

Well, first you gotta get checked to see why you have sleep acne. So that's very critical. And so you need to have somebody examin you properly so they can find more of what your root cause issue is, and then make sure they're doing it in a collaborative way, because it's not one thing that causes it, it's multifactorial. So you have to have a whole team helping and guiding you with that. So that's the same.

All right, we are good. Thank you. We are at the end of the show here. I want to thank you guys for joining me to answer your healthcare questions. Thank you for joining us today.