Airway Treatment

How you breathe — awake and asleep — shapes more than you would expect. Restless nights, snoring, daytime fatigue, crowded teeth, and a jaw that never quite had room to develop are often the same story told from different angles.

Airway treatment at Posh addresses that story at its source rather than managing the symptoms one at a time. It is one of the practice's areas of focus, for children and adults alike.

Guided Growth and Development for kids

A child's jaws are still forming, and that window does not stay open. When the upper jaw develops too narrow, the tongue has nowhere good to rest, the airway stays smaller than it should be, and the teeth end up competing for space that was never created.

Our Guided Growth and Development Program works with that growth instead of waiting for it to finish and then straightening the result. Dr. Groberg uses Vivos appliances — removable appliances worn on a schedule — to guide how the upper jaw develops, and works alongside a myofunctional therapist who retrains the muscles of the tongue, lips and face so the new shape is supported by how your child actually breathes and swallows.

Appliances and therapy work best together. An appliance can create room; muscle habits are what hold it.

For adults

Adult jaws are done growing, but a compromised airway is still very much treatable. We offer:

• Appliance therapy — a custom oral appliance worn at night, designed to hold the jaw and tongue in a position that keeps the airway open. For many people it is a more tolerable alternative to a CPAP machine.
• Dental arch expansion — widening a narrow upper arch to create room for the tongue and improve how the airway sits.
• Myofunctional therapy, through the same therapist we partner with for our younger patients, retraining the muscles that hold everything in place.

Coming soon: laser treatment for snoring

We are adding laser treatment to reduce snoring by tightening the soft tissue behind the palate. It is not available yet — when it is, it will be listed here. We would rather tell you what is coming than advertise something we cannot do today.

Is this you?

Some of the things worth mentioning at a visit:

• Snoring, in you or your child
• Waking up tired no matter how long you slept
• Grinding or clenching (bruxism)
• Mouth breathing, especially in a child
• A narrow palate, or crowded teeth with no room
• Morning headaches or a sore jaw

None of these on their own proves anything. Together they are worth a conversation.

Start with a free consultation

Airway consultations are free, for children and adults. We will look at how the jaw developed, how the airway sits, and tell you plainly whether treatment would help — including when the honest answer is that it would not.

Worth reading: Could your dentist help you sleep better? and laser treatment for snoring.