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Alyssa Luck

Alyssa Luck

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APE Diary #5: My Consult with Dr. Brad Lockhart

Alyssa Luck · Mar 27, 2018 · 6 Comments

Note: We are now in realtime. I repeat, we have attained realtime.

March 27th, 2018

In case you didn’t read my previous post, here’s what’s up. Yesterday I flew across the entire country, drove an hour in a rental car in California traffic, and will repeat that entire process tomorrow, with the sole purpose of talking to a dentist for an hour today.

Luckily, it was the best dentist appointment ever, and Dr. Lockhart is fantastic, so it was worth the trip!

(Edit 9/6/18: My opinion of Dr. Lockhart has somewhat changed. Read the update here.)

To be honest though, this isn’t even unusual behavior for me. At least 75% of my life consists of doing things that people find very strange in order to fix obscure problems with my body that almost always sound made-up.

Okay, recap of the appointment. Dr. Lockhart agreed with my assessment about what’s wrong with my mouth, and what needs to be done: upper palate expansion, primarily pre-maxillary development (aka forward development of the dental arch/facial bones). He liked the progress I’ve already made developing laterally with my current expander, and said I’ve already created about 6-8mm of space. I’ll need at least 12mm of space to accommodate the two implants, so that’s great progress for only a couple months!

We both agreed that my current rudimentary expander has served it’s purpose – essentially as a proof-of-concept for both me and my ortho. Y’know, as proof that all of this isn’t completely impossible and totally ludicrous to even attempt. *eye roll*

His plan for me going forward is to put me in a y-split DNA appliance (edit 2/2/20: he ended up putting me in a Meridian, not a DNA; see footnote*), which has three plates instead of two, enabling expansion both laterally and forward. Below are a couple pics of the order form he gave me, which my ortho can complete and send to the lab.


I’ll use a little metal key to expand it like I’ve been doing with my other expander – every 3-6 days, depending on how often I’m able to wear it. It’s not as low-profile as my current expander, and has acrylic plates covering the biting surfaces of the back teeth, so it will probably affect my speech more. And since I just got a new job…it’s possible that I’ll decide to not wear it at work, and just wear it for the other 16 hours of the day.

Luckily, he said it’ll still work (albeit slower) as long as I wear it at least 12 hours per day, so I’m not too worried about it! I’ll just wear it as often as possible. Maybe once I’ve irrevocably ensnared my new coworkers with my delightful personality and unencumbered enunciation, I’ll flip the switch and subject them to my acrylic-induced lisp. We shall see.

The other extremely appealing device we’re going to use is called a face mask, but it looks more like creepy face-jail. I promise I’ll post a pic of me wearing it later on, but for now, here it is not on my face:

IMG_2969

Yes, those pads go on my forehead and chin. And rubber bands connect the middle blue bar to the DNA appliance. And the metal bar goes smack dab down the middle of my face. It’s horrifying.

But I only have to wear it at night, so don’t worry. I’ll still have friends.

(Fun fact: I came across a picture of one of those “face masks” on the internet not even a month ago, and thought holy heck, that’s exactly what I need! I wonder if Dr. Lockhart will recommend one. But he didn’t mention them on his website, so he probably doesn’t use them. Heh.)

After I’ve achieved enough expansion (thanks to the aforementioned devices), my gaps will still be all over the place, so I’ll get braces (third time woo) to consolidate the gaps into a space behind each of my canines. Once that’s done, I can get implants! Easy peasy. And the whole process should only take about a year!

 

If you’re in Cali and need a dentist or orthodontist…go see Dr. Lockhart.

Fo real. He was super helpful, and is more than happy to be in contact with me and my ortho as we have questions throughout the process. He also taught me how he adjusts appliances by testing for pressure points on the palate and shaving off parts of the acrylic. So now I can teach my ortho!

He told me to take a picture of this spray and tell my ortho to get some. He uses it to test for pressure points.
He told me to take a picture of this spray and tell my ortho to get some. He uses it to test for pressure points.

He also told me that I’m very in tune with my body, which is lovely to hear, considering that I’ve spent most of the past ten years trying very hard to be in tune with my body.

And he said I should go to dental school, because I’d be awesome at it. He’s now the second professional to tell me that, so maybe I’ll file that idea away for my next midlife crisis.

Alright, I think that about covers it! I’m super glad I made the trip, and so excited that I have an expert on board. I’ll be sure to update you guys very soon once I get my DNA appliance!

 

P.S. I just remembered that “DNA” stands for “daytime-nighttime appliance.” So by calling it a “DNA appliance,” I’m calling it a “daytime-nighttime appliance appliance,” and have thus become one of the people I hate. But I’m leaving it, because just calling it a “DNA” sounds dumb as heck and is confusing because I already have DNA. And so do you. Curse you, namers of the DNA appliance.

 

*Edit 2/2/20: Dr. Lockhart initially told me that he was putting me in a DNA appliance, but later (almost as an afterthought) said that due to lab/certification restrictions, what I’d actually be getting is a Meridian, which he said is essentially the same. But a couple astute readers have pointed out that there could very well be material differences in the two appliances, so for the sake of clarity, I’ve tried to update my posts to make that distinction!

Related

Functional Orthodontics & Orthotropics adult palate expansion, DNA appliance, maxilla, non-surgical palate expansion, orthotropics, pre-maxillary development, reverse-pull headgear

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Sean says

    March 28, 2018 at 4:08 pm

    Hi,

    I’ve been looking into maxillary expansion for myself for awhile and it’s nice to see blogs about expansion in adults. I’ve had a particular interest in the DNA appliance and I am looking forward to seeing your progress updates.

    Reply
    • Alyssa Luck says

      March 28, 2018 at 9:42 pm

      That’s awesome Sean! Let me know if you come across any other blogs about this. I think the only one I’ve seen so far is claimingpower.com, and I’d love to see other people’s experiences.

      Reply
      • Sean says

        March 30, 2018 at 4:51 pm

        I’ve come across a few other blogs for adult expansion, the best results tend to be from the DNA appliance as far as I can tell. No one is as well documented as claimingpower.com though and his results are impressive. Many bloggers only did partial updates, so it’s not the best anecdotal evidence, but the pictures they provide are always nice to review. Here are some of the one’s I’ve found specific to the DNA/Vivos appliance:
        http://mydnaappliance.blogspot.com/

        http://epiorthodontics.blogspot.com/2012/04/progress-slow-and-steady.html

        http://dnasmiles.blogspot.com/2014/10/update-pictures.html

        I’m remembering coming across a few others, but would have to spend time on google figuring out how to find them again. Personally, I think the results on dnasmiles are quite nice.

        Reply
        • Alyssa Luck says

          April 2, 2018 at 9:09 pm

          Cool, thanks Sean! I’m excited to add to the documentation out there in the blogosphere…there’s definitely still a dearth of information!

        • scott says

          August 22, 2018 at 9:47 pm

          So happy I found a current blog of another person undergoing palate expansion. I to started out on this just within the last year. I’m blogging on it as well at scottgetsmouthy.wordpress.com. Fell free to delete if you don’t want this, but most DNA Appliance blogs seem to be several years old. I look forward to following your journey with this as well.

        • Alyssa Luck says

          August 23, 2018 at 4:03 pm

          Hey Scott! That’s awesome!! It’s great to connect with you 🙂 I just read all your posts so far, and I’m so glad there are a few others sharing their experiences. I’m long overdue for an update – there have been some major bumps in the road in the past couple months, unfortunately. Hoping to have time to write up an update in the next few weeks!

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Hi! I’m Alyssa. I like thunderstorms and cats, hate wearing shoes, and enjoy devising extensive research projects for myself in my free time. This is me in Bali with a monkey on my shoulder. And this is my blog, where I muse about health-related topics and document my relentless self-guinea pigging. If you want to know more about me, click here!

alyssa.luck

alyssa.luck
Photo dump from the last year. Thanks to everyone Photo dump from the last year. Thanks to everyone who made 28 the best yet - excited for 29🥰

(PS. In case anyone wants to know what it’s like in my head, I was going to write something like “year 28” or “my 28th year” but then I realized that the year between your 28th and 29th birthdays is not your 28th year of life, it’s your 29th year. I am turning 29 because I have been alive for 29 years. So then I had a whole thing about how to word it without being inaccurate and ended up going with what you see above which is vague and weird but the point is it was a good year and I love all the people in my life dearly)
Biology of Belief (2005) was written by Bruce Lipt Biology of Belief (2005) was written by Bruce Lipton, who earned a PhD in developmental biology in 1971 and was an anatomy professor and academic researcher in the 70s and 80s. Despite the book's presentation and Lipton's background, this is not a science book. It is an exposition of an ideology, supported by haphazard and poorly contextualized nuggets of evidence, rhetorical leaps, and a mind-boggling overuse of analogies. 

The book largely failed to deliver on its promised content. What it does is argue for the primacy of the environment over DNA in controlling life; propose that the cell membrane rather than the nucleus is the "brain" of the cell; invoke quantum physics to explain why modern medicine fails; explain that our behavior is largely controlled by our subconscious mind; inform parents that they therefore have a great deal of control over the destiny of their children; and conclude that humans must become nonviolent protectors of the environment and of humanity because Everything Is Connected.

It’s not that these points aren’t relevant to the topic at hand - they are. But they were not connected in a coherent way that would explain how “belief” actually works (like…biologically), and the treatment of scientific concepts throughout was careless, or perhaps disingenuous.

I think he's correct about many things, some of them being common knowledge. For instance, the "new" science of epigenetics is now old news, as is the critical role of parenting and early environment in shaping a child’s future. But however important these and attendant concepts may be, the book did not do a good job explaining, supporting, or connecting them. 

As far as practical guidance, he refers the reader to a list of resources on his website, which is fine, but I expected some scientific insight into how/why those modalities work. None was given. 

On the plus side, the book was quite thought-provoking, and I came away with loads of references and topics to follow up on. My favorite line? "There cannot be exceptions to a theory; exceptions simply mean that a theory is not fully correct."
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (section 382) Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (section 382), as quoted in the introduction to Thus Spoke Zarathustra because I like the translation better.
This paper totally changed the way I think about e This paper totally changed the way I think about early nervous system development and the relationship between physiology and sociality. 

The authors propose that newborn babies are not inherently social, and have just one goal in life: physiological homeostasis. I.e. staying alive. This means nutrients, warmth, and regulation of breath and heart rate, i.e. autonomic arousal (it’s well-accepted that newborns sync their breathing and heart rate with caregivers through skin to skin contact). 

All these things are traditionally provided by a loving caregiver. So what the baby experiences during the first weeks of life, over and over, is a shift from physiological perturbation to homeostasis (a highly rewarding event inherently) REPEATEDLY PAIRED with things like the sound of a caregiver’s voice and seeing their face. Thus, over time, the face/voice stimuli become rewarding as well. 

The authors argue that THIS is the beginning of humans’ wiring for sociality, and may explain why loving social interactions can have such a profound regulating effect on physiology throughout life: because the brain was trained for it at an early age. 

This framework holds all kinds of fascinating implications for what happens if that initial “training” isn’t so ideal. What if the return to nutritional homeostasis via feeding is paired with negative expressions and vocalizations rather than loving ones, perhaps as could occur with PPD? What happens if the caregiver has poor autonomic regulation, such that social stimuli become paired with cardiorespiratory overexcitement in the baby? Could that have potential for influencing later introversion vs extroversion? (Because if social interaction is paired with autonomic overexcitement, that could lead to social interaction literally being more energetically draining, which is what introverts experience. Thoughts?)

For my energy metabolism enthusiasts: Table 1 in the paper draws a link between metabolic rate and sociality across species. Swipe for a screenshot. 

Anyway, check out the paper! It’s free, just google “growing a social brain pdf.”
I’ll be under general anesthesia in a couple day I’ll be under general anesthesia in a couple days to have two tooth implants placed, and I think I’ll take the opportunity to have a little heart-to-heart with my subconscious mind. A bit of medically-assisted self-hypnosis, if you will. 

I randomly stumbled upon these papers a couple months ago - an RCT showing reduced post-op pain in patients who listened to recorded positive messages while under general anesthesia, plus a post-hoc analysis of the same data that found reduced post-op nausea and vomiting in a subset of high-risk patients. 

The full review paper from the first slide is unfortunately in German, but it has long been recognized that even when unconscious, the patient is listening (for better or for worse). 

It boggles my mind that it isn’t standard of care to have patients listen to recordings like this while under sedation, considering that almost nothing could be easier, safer, or cheaper, and we have at least some evidence of significant efficacy. I mean c’mon, what more could you want from an intervention? 

(Yeah, I know. Profit. If anyone still thinks that our medical system operates with patient well-being as the foremost goal, you’re deluding yourself.)

“There should be a fundamental change in the way patients are treated in the operating room and intensive care unit, and background noise and careless conversations should be eliminated.”

“Perhaps it is now time to finally heed this call and to use communication with unconscious patients that goes beyond the most necessary announcement of interventions and is therapeutically effective through positive suggestions. When in doubt, assume that the patient is listening.”
If you've seen "vagus nerve exercises" that have y If you've seen "vagus nerve exercises" that have you moving your eyes or tilting your head, you've probably encountered the work of Stanley Rosenberg. The exercises he created and introduced in his 2017 book now appear in instructional videos all over the internet. 
 
The book itself has much to recommend it: it's accessible, it's practical, it's inspiring. But it has one major flaw: the solid practical and informational content regarding the cranial nerves is framed in terms of the scientifically dubious polyvagal theory. 
 
I particularly enjoyed the book as an introduction to the therapeutic arena of bodywork, of which Rosenberg is a skilled practitioner. His book is full of case reports that demonstrate how immensely powerful extremely subtle movements and physical manipulations can be. These do need to be kept in perspective: it's a small sample size of the most remarkable cases, and the results were achieved within the supportive clinical environment of a skilled practitioner. You can tell from his descriptions how refined his technique is. But nevertheless, it was a paradigm-shifting read for me, and the exercises give you something concrete to play around with. 
 
The book also brought the cranial nerves and the concept of “social engagement” to the fore as arbiters of health. Rosenberg has a solid background in cranial nerve anatomy and shares many interesting tidbits and considerations that you don’t typically hear; for instance, the potential impact of dental and orthodontic work on cranial nerve function.
 
So, is it worth reading? If any of the above piques your interest, go for it! Just read my post on polyvagal theory first – you can use the book to practice separating the wheat (solid informational content) from the chaff (pseudoscientific framing). If nothing else, the book is a nice reminder that genuine healers who get lasting results for their patients do exist.

But if you just want to try the exercises, you can easily find them all on YouTube. 

“You learn techniques to understand principles. When you understand the principles, you will create your own techniques.” -Stanley Rosenberg
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