Did You Have Teeth Extracted When You Had Braces?

Several dentists, a world-renowned orthodontist and a sleep scientist have all told me that the tooth extractions and retractive orthodontic work I had done at age 13 is the likely cause of my underdeveloped jaws and resulting obstructive sleep apnea. It has left inadequate space in my mouth for my tongue which has nowhere to go during sleep but backwards, blocking my airway. I now believe this is what has devastated my health, caused my chronic fatigue and profoundly impacted my life over the last 12 years, and perhaps even longer.

However, the connection between orthodontic extractions and obstructive sleep apnea is apparently controversial amongst orthodontists. I had no idea that I had sleep apnea until it was diagnosed a couple of years ago after a polysomnograph that my sleep specialist almost didn’t recommend given my lack of recognised risk factors. It seems that sleep specialists are also unaware that orthodontic extractions are a risk factor for obstructive sleep apnea.

The kid looks scared. He should be.

I’ve probably had some degree of obstructive sleep apnea much of my life, but it gradually worsens over time as muscle tone is lost due to ageing. I suspect that a big part of the problem in testing the safety and effectiveness of orthodontic treatment is the difficulty performing long-term clinical trials over such a time frame. The duration involved is so long that researchers and orthodontists don’t get feedback from their clients on how the treatment is impacting long-term health until after they have retired. A 20 year feedback loop is just too long.

This probably isn’t going to change until a significant number of people who have been injured by orthodontic treatment step up and start speaking out about it. My focus at the moment is getting effective treatment rather that advocacy work, but Karin Badt is currently running an informal survey to gather data into the correlation between childhood orthodontic treatment and serious health issues including obstructive sleep apnea. Collecting this survey data is a starting point for solid research that could change the future direction of orthodontic training and practice so that other people don’t suffer needlessly like I did. If you had teeth extracted for orthodontic treatment as a child please take the survey by clicking here.

Once you’ve done that, check out Karin’s article Extracting Premolar Teeth for Orthodontic Treatment: The Risks, which includes some preliminary findings from the survey.