These symptoms could be due to sleep apnea. This sleeping disorder happens when you are unable to breathe easily while asleep because your airway is obstructed in some way. Not getting sufficient oxygen while you are sleeping means you haven’t achieved the deep sleep that is required for normal functioning during your waking hours.

You may be unaware of your night time breathing problems, since you seem to sleep through the night. This often results in feeling tired even though you got a good amount of sleep. There are some new orthodontic treatments for sleep apnea which may help to alleviate these symptoms. These are called epigenetic orthodontics.

Epigenetic Orthodontics for sleep disorder treatment

Epigenetic orthodontics is a treatment specifically designed to grow jaws orthopedically and to grow airways pneumopediclly to prevent airway obstruction.  This is different from typical orthodontics because it does not use heavy mechanical forces to move your teeth. Instead, a removable device called Daytime-Nighttime Appliance™ (DNA appliance™) is placed on your teeth throughout the evening and night, which lets the body alter the positions of your teeth more naturally and gently.

Genetics is the study of genes and our genotype describes the actual genes in an individual.  Phenotype is a description of how our genes are expressed.  Epigenetics is the study of how environment changes our gene expression.  The DNA appliance is used to correct acquired deformities and to bring out the ideal form and function.  Dr Shapira recently lectured (March 2014) at the ICCMO meeting in Buenos Aires on the common developmental pathways of TMJ and Sleep disorders and the epigenetic causes of these problems.

It has become common for children to do two step orthodontics with expansion (growth) being done as a first phase and braces or invisalign as a second phase of treatment.  This has not been possible in adults until now.  The DNA appliance allows us to grow and expand adults today .

These newly developed DNA appliances™ don’t depend so much on the continuous force that traditional orthodontic braces use but instead they help to move the teeth, the jaws, the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), the face and the airway into better relationships which help to ensure adequate sleep and correct breathing. The DNA appliances™ are made with special  3-D Axial springs™, which do not require any adjustment on a regular basis but puts vibrations into the system which greatly enhances treatment.

The RNA Appliance is a combination DNA growth appliance and a Mandibular advancement sleep apnea appliance.  There are published case reports of sleep apnea cures from treatment with DNA and RNA appliances.