Yea, you read that right. Side effects of being a mouth breather include bad breath, TMJ, headaches, and chronic fatigue (just to name a few).
For a long time I didn’t know what was wrong with me and I thought I could power through and live a normal life. Then after 2 wonderful kids, it got to a point where I couldn’t power through anymore. I didn’t have anything left to give. I realized I had to do something.
It's through the adventures of getting adult braces that I found out the shift in my teeth would continue to reoccur if I didn’t take care of the actual problem: my tongue thrust.
And of course it doesn’t end there because, my “real” problem is why I have a misplaced tongue in the first place. I haven’t been able to breath through my nose in God-only-knows-how-long, which causes my tongue to drop down and push against my bottom teeth, so I can breathe by sucking in air through my mouth. (Lovely imagery, I know).
So I started with allergy shots to help my breathing, consultations for surgery to straighten my deviated septum, appointments with a myofunctional therapist to do physical therapy for my lips and tongue. I am literally re-teaching myself how to breathe and what scares me the most is realizing that I am just scratching the surface. I’ve had to force myself to slow things down enough to recognize that breathing controls how I react to every aspect of my life.
And maybe this doesn’t sound like a big deal to anyone else who has normal breathing habits, but not breathing correctly caused chaos in my life I didn't even know was happening. Basically, when we breathe through our nose, it signals our brain and nervous system that everything’s chill and okay. But when we breathe through our mouth, it signals our brain that something’s wrong and it switches on our fight or flight response. Meaning, I’ve been living in fight or flight mode for the majority of my life, never fully resting or chilling.
It makes me feel extremely anxious. I have constant chattering in my head becuase I'm always preparing for potential threats. I have long hypothetical conversations with myself that lead to competitiveness and fiery reactions. And these emotional reactions then make me question who I am, leaving me confused and disappointed because I don’t know how to live any differently.
I’m fully grasping that changing will be so incredibly difficult that there's a strong part of me that just doesn’t want to let it go…it’s my preeeecious. It’s more comfortable for me to live this mouth-breather life since I know what to expect, versus change and face the unknown.
But as I push against what's familiar to me, I'm shocked by how often I fall back into old habits despite how badly I want things to be different. Basically, I can't seem to help from falling off the wagon. But surprisingly, I've learned to normalize this part of the healing journey by understanding that falling down is part of learning how to pick yourself back up.
So, here I am. I need to heal and I want to change. My journey has started with mouth breathing but I know it's just the beginning. There will be so much more to go, so much more to understand, and so much more to heal, but at least I've
decided to keep moving forward despite the hard work and how terrified I am.
Not so long ago I was embarrassed to admit I was a mouth breather. I would do everything to mask my symptoms which only left me exhausted and ashamed of my dirty little secret. Now I can say that I'm ready to face the real problem: ME. And I'm not afraid to admit it anymore because for the first time I believe that there is nothing actually wrong with me, I've just accepted what I need to work on.
With Love,
Ming-Cee
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