Where Is Your Tongue? | Ep 100

Imagine getting up every day full of energy is if you were in your 20s. Again, what would that be like? What would that be worth to you? What is your health worth to you? Think about it. Your health isn't everything. But without it, everything else is nothing. And yet too many of us are taking it for granted until something goes wrong. No one wakes up hoping to be diagnosed with a disease or chronic illness. And yet we've never been taught how to be proactive in our health through our school system or public health. As a registered health coach and integrative health practitioner, I believe it is time this information is made available to everyone. Combining new knowledge around your health and the ability to do my functional medicine lab tests in the comfort of your own home will allow you to optimize your health for today in all your tomorrow's don't wait for your wake up call

welcome back to another episode of The don't wait for your wake up call podcast. I am Melissa Deally your host and here with me today is a another wonderful guest who has become a an amazing friend and colleague of mine, Sheree Wertz. Welcome, Sheree.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Well, I'm excited to have you here and I want to introduce you to the audience. Shireen has been a dental hygienist for over 30 years. She graduated from the dental hygiene program at Loyola University Chicago, where she earned her Bachelor degree. she expanded her knowledge in the oral oral myofunctional therapy in 2019. With Kim banker and continue to learn in this ever growing field with Sara Hornsby in 2020. Right up until now she's still studying, she is passionate about the oral systemic health connection. And now in today's world, that connection has become more mainstream and is very important to survival. Where your tongue is breathing, pH diet, brushing and flossing your teeth have a huge impact on your systemic health. And that's why I wanted to have you come on the show and share all of the knowledge that you have with our listeners. But first, let's just go back what got you into this line of work? Sure.

So what got me in first of all, to being a dental hygienist was back in the 60s, they gave kids tetracycline when they got sick, and I had a lot of ear infections and high fevers. And back then, if you took tetracycline, before, while your teeth were developing, it caused them to be gray and yellow and dark. So as a child, I was teased because my teeth always look dirty, and they were never clean. And kids would point and say, Do you know how to brush your teeth? Or you know, Do you brush your teeth and I remember not smiling. And then I remember people asking me what was wrong with me a lot, because I didn't smile and smile because I was made fun of. And I didn't want to be made fun of so I kept my mouth shut didn't talk a lot didn't engage a lot. And that really affects your self esteem. And I did not realize how much until I got older. And I thought, you know, I want to go into this because I don't want other kids to feel like I did I want to you know, figure out why this happened to me. What can I do? And it led me kind of down this road. And then I was still hyped on this for a long time. And I started working in a mobile dental company after I got divorced. And I saw kids that had a lot of cavities. And I had always heard cavities were the number one preventable childhood disease. But I didn't see it because I worked in an office and I saw kids whose parents brought them to the dentist every six months. Once I started going to the schools and seeing kids were lower income or on public aid. I was like, oh my goodness, they weren't kidding. Like this is really a problem. And so that led me down to figure out why it can't be just because you're not brushing or flossing. And that's when I became a myofunctional therapist. So I found out a bunch of stuff that was happening. My daughter was having some issues, I was having some issues. And I started learning about this and as a dental hygienist they never taught us where's your tongue or to look at your tongue. They taught us to look at your teeth, clean your teeth. You know you need to brush more floss more see your dentist regularly. Watch what you were eating and that was going to prevent cavities. And once I went down this rabbit hole, I found out that it was more about where's the position of your tongue? How are you breathing? Are you breathing through your nose or your breathing through your mouth? Yes. What are you eating? What is the pH and then I started realizing just how much the nose in the mouth affected the rest of your body. If your mouth breathing, you are out swallowing air so you might have some GI problems. If your mouth breathing or you sucked a pacifier or you were bottle fed, you could develop a tongue thrust or you would have tubes put In your ears because of how you were fed. So all of this starts with how you breathe, how you're fed, and how this is affecting the rest of your body. And I was not taught this in dental hygiene. And it was so interesting to me. And I realized just how much it was connected to the rest of your body. And then, you know, it just helped myself, my daughter, I got breast cancer. And then I realized how much they don't ask you about your mouth, and how much your mouth is related. And I actually went and had bloodwork, which is kind of how I found you, because they told me everything was fine, right? There's nothing wrong with you, you're fine. Your blood work is all normal. But I was getting my hair was falling out, my nails were breaking my nails have always been really, really hard. And I was tired all the time, not generally a tired person, and my gums started bleeding. And as a dental hygienist I was like, Okay, I know that when your gums are bleeding and your teeth are healthy, that's a warning sign, something's out of balance in your body. And so I started looking for someone like you that does this bloodwork that looks for other things that are off in your body. And that's when I met a doctor of cause she said, if you're not testing, you're guessing that was before I met you. And she found out that I had low vitamin D, I had heavy metals, and all of this stuff. And she's like, I think that this might be part of what led up to your cancer. And that led me down to seeking out what you do. And doing this journey and realizing that you are your own healthcare advocate

100% 100%, I like to say that you're your own best doctor, because you lived in your body your whole entire life. And when we slow down enough to listen and pay attention, it will guide us. But we also have to have the knowledge around that in order to be able to take action or to know that our body is guiding us and to then know where to turn to for support and assistance. And your health is a lifelong journey. It you know, you always want to be focusing on your health right to the very end, it's not that there's this one answer, and then you're done. Right? There's one answer for that health issue. And then you move into optimizing your health, right until something else might come up. And I love what you were sharing in those stages of your journey. That, you know, in dental hygiene school, you didn't learn any of that, because there's also a lot of new science that's coming out now that they didn't have back then Right. But you're continuing to educate yourself, which is so important for practitioners, but also for individuals to keep learning about their body and how it functions and to seek out those resources, which obviously, all of the audience listening to this podcast is doing because you're here learning and from all of the guests that I love to bring to you. So your journey is so fascinating to me. And I totally agree that what's happening in your mouth is impacting your breast health, because it drains down, we know that what's happening in your health impacts your in your mouth impact your heart health. And it's not the only thing. But it does have an impact. And it does need to be looked at, in addition to the toxins that were found in your heavy metal lab test your you know, reduced vitamin D levels, et cetera. Vitamin D is so paramount and boosting our immune system, our respiratory system, etc. So it was kind of this, you know, combination of things that happened that triggered that cancer, which is really what cancer is, is triggered by the environment in inside our body. And when we learn how to invite or create an environment that is inhospitable to disease, we don't have to have those diseases turned on. Yes, yes. And that's something that I love hearing you talk about. And I learned from you, as I learned from all the people that come on my show, but we were just recently together at a retreat in Mexico. And we were kind of laughing over you asking people the question, Where is your tongue? I love that. And so if you can just explain further why. That's an important question to ask. And I'm sure all the listeners right now are moving their tongue around in their mouth and wondering, Where is their tongue?

Where's your tongue? And why is it important that you know where your tongue is? Right? So where is your tongue? So one of the things that I talk about is taking ownership of your health starting with oxygen, right? We can survive without food for weeks without water for days. But we can't survive without oxygen for more than four to six minutes. So where your tongue is is important because where it's rusting in your mouth when have you think about if you're sitting right now you're listening to me? Where is your tongue? Right? Is it floating in the center between your teeth? Is it resting on your lower teeth? Or is it resting up on the roof of your mouth? Why is this important because depending on where your tongue is, it could be blocking your airway. And you could be mouth breathing, so we can breathe through our mouth. But we should not be breathe through our mouth, we should use our nose because when we breathe through our nose, it warms, filters humidifies the air and you get nitric oxide co2 Exchange, which is really important to get oxygen to your brain, and to the rest of the blood cells in your body. When you are a chronic mouth breather, you don't get any of that your your your oxygen or what you're inhaling just goes right into your lungs. So all you have to filter is your tonsils. And then when you are a mouth breather, it could inflame your tonsils. So your tonsils are bigger, you could have a forward head posture, because if your tongue is bigger, and it doesn't fit on the roof of your mouth, you're going to have issues breathing through your nose. So one of the first things I do when I see someone as a myofunctional therapist is look to see can they even breathe through their nose? Because I'm not going to worry about where your tongue is, if you can't take oxygen in through your nose. Because if that's the case, there's not anything else you can do you have to figure out why can't you breathe through your nose, because that's going to cause other issues. If you can't breathe through your nose, it's going to affect your sleep, it's going to affect your food, because you know, you use your smell when you taste. So that's why I'm saying you know, your nose and your mouth are the most important things are in for me, when we talk about health. That's where we should be starting, we should be starting with can someone breathe? And how are they breathing and where is their tongue, because that's affecting everything, it's affecting your digestion. So I'd say it starts from the head down, right your beliefs, your nose, your mouth. And if you think about it, our mouth is the body part that we use the most. So some people are breathing through it, we talk with it, we eat with it, you know, we do a whole lot with our mouth. And so it's really important. And if you have bacteria in your mouth, you're also swallowing that and it's getting into your bloodstream. So heart disease is the leading cause of death, the diabetes, all that starts with your mouth. And when they look at the plaque in your arteries that's accumulating, they found it's the same plaque that is in your mouth. So if your mouth is not healthy, and you're brushing, and you're getting bleeding, or you're breathing that in, it's getting into your system, and it's wreaking havoc on your whole system. So that's why your mouth is really important and where your tongue is. And since the agricultural revolution, what's happened is we don't eat the same foods that our ancestors did when they were hunters and gatherers. We more processed food, more genetically modified foods, so we're not using our tongue and our teeth and our muscles of our face the same as we did back then. So we are mashing our food with our tongue on the roof of our mouth, we're not chewing our food. So that's some of the other things that I look at. So can you breathe, where is your tongue, and then are using your tongue properly. So when we had midwives, and they were delivering us, they used to have this long fingernail. And when babies were born, they would look under their tongue. And if it was attached or tethered, they would take that nail and they would just cut that from under the tongue. So we didn't have a lot of people that had to other tissues and tongue ties. And when I went to hygiene school, we were taught that someone was only tongue tied. If they couldn't stick their tongue out. They were having a speech issue or they were having problems latching as a baby, and it was painful for the mountain nurse. Now we realize that since going to the hospitals, they're not releasing that they're not looking at that. So a lot of the adults that we see that are wearing CPAP machines right now, are they have tethered tissues, they cannot lift their tongue or their tongue is what's that tissue under their tongue, that front of attachment is holding their tongue down. Or they didn't keep their tongue up. When they were born. They were bottle fed. And so when you if you think about when you suck with a straw, it's kind of the same motion. When you suck with a bottle, you use your cheek muscles and your lips to suck out of a straw. When you are breastfed, your tongue pushes up against the roof of your mouth. So the your tongue the your mom's breast is between your tongue and the roof of your mouth and it pushes up. And so it pushes your tongue and it widens your arch. So when kids are nurse, and we used to nurse till kids were five or six, because we didn't have bottles or formula or anything like that, right? So that generation, they had wider arches, they never had cavities. They didn't have sleep disorders, because their tongue was always up and that's how we grew and developed since the agricultural revolution and more nursing and we're only nursing until six months to a year. Our children are not growing and developing the same way. So they're having vaulted ceilings, their tongue doesn't fit on the roof of their mouth and the roof of your mouth. Is the floor of your nasal cavity. So when it's more bolted, it's more constricted, you can't breathe as well, and your tongue is down. So that's where this where's your tongue thing is really important because it really should be up on the roof of your mouth. And it should be up 24/7 Unless you're talking, or unless you're eating. And so this is why this is really important and why we should be looking for where's your tongue?

And it's so funny, because ever since you asked me that question, in the back of my mind, now, throughout every day, at some point, that question comes to me, where's your tongue? Mine is generally at the roof on the roof of my mouth. But it's just so fascinating to me, what we're learning now continuing to learn about the human body and the downline impacts of something that seems as simple as where's your time? Right. And also just what you mentioned, about breastfeeding, because I talk about breastfeeding, in terms of those that weren't breastfed didn't have the same, you know, microbiome development that breastfed babies had, because they weren't getting the prebiotics from mom's breast milk. And you're talking about how, when your tongue isn't in the right position, it can also negatively impact the health of your gut. So it's kind of a double whammy there. And what I saw is probably a 20 to 30, even 40 year period, where in North America, women didn't breastfeed at all, right? Because they were told by the formula companies, that formula was exactly the same as breast milk, and is more convenient. And so you should just use formula. Correct? Yeah. And they didn't know about the prebiotics, because that piece was definitely missing from the formula. And then the sucking motion is different to your point. And so you know, babies tongue didn't develop properly. Right, right. Unfortunately, all in the interest of selling more formula to women who already had everything that their baby needed, in most cases, their body. Yep, yeah. And so I suspect, you must see so many adults that are now in their mid 40s, to mid 60s window, maybe a little bit older, that struggle because of that.

Correct, because of how they were they were nurses in France. And a lot of times, especially for convenience, moms will lay the baby down or prop the bottle up. So you're not holding the infant, you're not holding them up, right. And when you lay them down, a lot of one of the Auntie's that I work with Dr. soggy. He says he doesn't even do tubes in a lot of kids anymore, because if we can get moms to hold their baby upright, right, when they're down, a lot of that fluid gets into their ears. And that's what causes needing tubes in the air. So we asked about that. Did you have tubes, you know, did you have ear infections, because a lot of that has to do with how you how you're feeding, and it changes the whole growth and development of your facial structure. So you know, when you have that development, you have a longer narrow phase, you have darker circles under your eyes, you could be Bedwetting, you know, children might be Bedwetting, and not growing out of it because their mouth breathing because of the position of their tongue. But also, it changes that growth in development. And if you catch it in kids between the ages of two and eight, while they're in that growth development, and you do some of these myofunctional therapy is that it's basically physical therapy for your mouth where your tongue goes, you're using those muscles differently. But then they might not be braces, it will help them develop, they might not have a narrow airway, they'll have their tongue up. A lot of the kids that are being diagnosed with ADHD, sleep disordered breathing, and ADHD have the exact same symptoms. And that's what I found with my daughter, where she had the dark circle. She wasn't sleeping, they want to put her on ADHD medication. And I wanted someone to help her sleep deprivation because she only behaved in this manner when she was exhausted and tired. And I think sleeping and she wasn't because her tongue was down, and it was waking her up. So she didn't have sleep apnea, which is what they test for when you have a sleep test. So they were telling again, another test that was telling me she was fine, but she wasn't because your body compensates. So it was waking her up because she wasn't getting enough oxygen. And then when she would finally get into that REM sleep, which we need for rest and restore. She wasn't waking up so she was wetting the bed. So it's this huge thing. And then when your mouth breathing at night, when you're asleep, you're swallowing air, which causes gi problems. And it messes with your microbiome not only for your gut, but for your mouth. And then you get more cavities because it reduces the saliva because your mouth breathing. So it's this whole trickle down effect that's happening. So it's really important to look at this when our kids are younger and not every mom can nurse. Right? It's like yeah, they were telling you it was the same. Yeah, but it wasn't it's not just about What you get nutritional wise, it's about where your tongue is and how it creates the development for your face and the rest of your body and your airway.

And so this is such a wonderful information to have today, because we probably didn't know a lot about 40 years ago either. But now we do. And the more information people have, the better choices that they can be making. And I love that you said if you catch up with kids, when they're between ages two and eight, that you can have them doing some physio, therapy for their mouth in order to develop the muscles and change the tongue positioning. So they don't have all these downline. Health issues later in life. Obviously, you're the perfect person for people to be doing that with until I met you, I had never heard of this type of work. But I totally understand how important it is. And you know, how many kids are, as you said, being put on drugs for ADHD, that they then have to be on for life to what negative side effect and the drag isn't resolving anything. It's just masking the symptoms versus if it's because of tongue placement, and that can resolve it, then they don't have to be on those drugs for the rest of

their life. And breathing. I mean, breathing is really important. So

absolutely, it's what we need to survive, as you said, so. So critically important, and, you know, ADHD, Bedwetting, some of those things I have coming in my work in terms of deficiencies in terms of nutrients, etc. But I just love knowing this information too, so that I can refer people to you for that extra step. If they are in fact, mouth breathers or to check, do they have tongue thrust, etc, etc. So yeah, I love what you're doing and bringing this awareness to this work, because it's so important. If you're enjoying my content, and someone that wants to step into being proactive in your health and learning more, I would love to invite you to join my membership community,

there's a link in the show notes for only 1999 a month, you get access to all of my content, and there's a lot as well as weekly calls that you can come and get your health questions answered. It's truly priceless. I'd love to see you join the community, check out the link in the show notes.

So what is myofunctional therapy, you've mentioned it, but if you can describe it, so people understand it, that would be helpful.

So myofunctional therapy, it has four goals. Okay, so it seems really simple. It is lips together, tongue on the roof of your mouth, we call it the spot, and some people can't even get it there. It's very interesting, but tongue on the roof of your mouth and breathe through your nose, and then correct swallow. So when we swallow, we swallow 1200 to 2000 times a day. Our tongue is a muscle and a very strong muscle. If your tongue is not up on the roof of your mouth, when you swallow, it pushes forward. And sometimes people's whole head go forward when they swallow because their tongue is blocking their airway. And that's the way their body's way of getting the tongue out that your way to swallow. But when you have that tongue thrust you swallow air like I mentioned before, but also when that pressure is up against those front teeth, it will push them forward. So people will have an open bite. So you when if they smile with their teeth together and swallow not putting their lips together, if you see saliva or liquid go forward or their tongue go forward, then they have a tongue thrust swallow. If they have a tongue for swallow that needs to get corrected, because if you born braces, or if you're going to wear braces, and you have that habit, if you don't correct it, your braces will relapse, and you'll need to wear them again. So a lot of the people that I see myofunctional therapy wise are in their third time going through braces. And they have to correct this habit. So they come to me to correct the habit before they wear braces again, because now it's expensive. They they're paying for braces third time now they're gonna have to pay for myofunctional therapy. So again, if you learn to get these things earlier, you're aware of them, you can catch your unconscious because a lot of this stuff is unconscious, right? You talk about conscious and unconscious awareness. We have to bring that into the conscious awareness so you can control that habit. So myofunctional therapy keeps those four goals in mind, but teaches you exercise to learn to control your tongue separately from the other muscles. So if adults are getting headaches, neck aches, shoulder aches, TMJ problems soreness in their muscles. A lot of times it's because of what they're doing their muscle bracing their how they're holding their tongue, they're thrusting their tongue forward. So myofunctional therapy is usually exercises every two weeks, we give you three or four exercises that build on one another to strengthen your tongue, your cheek muscles, all the muscles of your face. They're related to your tongue to help these issues. and correct a lot of these habits that you've had. So that's basically what myofunctional therapy is and what the goals are of it.

Well, I love it. And it's, I love how you explain it. Because it's quite simple to understand in the sense of those four goals are very easy to understand. And I was doing what you were saying, as you were talking, I'm breathing through my nose, my tongue is on the roof of my mouth, I'm swallowing while my tongue stays on the roof of my mouth. And what was the fourth one? Breathe through your nose? Oh, breathing through my nose. So, yeah, and but it's simple to understand. So people can kind of self assess if they need your help to, which I love, right. And until we're hearing this podcast, they may not have had any idea that something was wrong.

Yes, a lot and a lot of people don't. And the first thing I will do is have people unblock their nose, like if they can't breathe through their nose. So there's a test, there's a simple test that you can do. So I have you keep your lips together, and breathe through your nose for three minutes. If you can breathe through your nose for three minutes without opening your mouth, then you can retrain your brain and retrain the habits. It's like a neuroplasticity to breathe through your nose. But if you can not keep your lips together and breathe through your nose for three minutes, then you don't need me yet. You need to see an auntie and figure out why you can't breathe through your nose. Right, because you could have swollen at adenoids. You could have enlarged terminates, you could have a deviated septum. You could have polyps, you could have something in your nose, that you need to see an anti bore to figure out what's going on. Because I can't help you. You're going to struggle with these exercises if you can't breathe through your nose. Right? So that's where that's where you would start you would you can do that simple tasks. Can you break through those for three minutes? If yes, and you're having all these other things, then, you know, come to me, I can help you. If not, you really should see an end first or bring your child to an end or get that looked at first.

And is there any hope for someone like my husband who's had his nose broken so many times in his youth that structurally, he can't breathe through his nose anymore?

Has he seen an auntie, I can't,

I don't think he ever did actually, he just doesn't breathe through his nose and blames it on having his nose broken so many times

there is because there's things that they can do to open up the airway and the nasal passage. And that is really important. And that's a lot of people are just like, Yeah, I can't breathe through my nose. I have to breathe through mouths, but they don't realize that he's totally accepted it. Yeah. And that's what you and I both know that people just accept that, right. And that's why what we do is so important, because I want people to see that you need to take ownership of your health. So I start with owner for me ownership is oxygen, water nutrition, enough sleep and respecting the one body that you have. Yeah, right. And especially as moms, we put everybody else first, we update our cell phones, we change the oil in our car, every three months, we maintain our homes, but we ignore signs and symptoms that are happening in our body until it's too late until it's gone through all the things whereas you know that there's bloodwork you can do there's things that you can do that you can undo all the stuff that's been happening in your body. So you say don't wait for the wake up call, right? I waited for the wake up call. Somehow I'm I'm like you I'm jumping on your bandwagon because I could have prevented this if I knew this. But I didn't know. We don't know. We don't know. Right? I wish I

had known that you're now teaching others so that they can no and not be in that same boat as you saying, I wish I had no. Right I

had a major part of my body removed because my options were cut it out, burn it out or poison it out. Those were the options they gave me. But had I have known all this, I might not have gotten those options, right? Because now I know that we've created this environment in our body, we can uncreate the environment in our body, especially if we get to it before you get to the signs and symptoms that our healthcare system treats. I call it the secure system. It's true for signs and symptoms. It's not a health care, right? That's really healthy people. It's pretty it's like people, people

exactly it is. But when we have more awareness, we listen to our body and we take action sooner, there are so many things that we can do to reverse everything. Yes, because the body is designed to self heal, when we create the environment for it to do so. And we need to first know that's possible. And second know the resources which is why I love bringing people onto this show to provide more resources and why I'm also building the start now live well program which you're part of, which is literally a menu of practitioners that people can come to on my website to choose who it is that they need to work with on their health journey and make it fully customized.

Yes, yes. I find a lot of people like when they go to the dentist You know, people don't want to see the dentist, right? And they feel a lot of shame and guilt in that. And I don't think you should ever feel that way. Because you are where you are, you can't look back, you have to start now. Right? Start with where you are, listen to your body, and find the people that can help you. And if you listen to your intuition, too. So if you're not agreeing with what one practitioner is telling you, you're probably right for us, because we have those intuitions for a reason. And we need to listen to them, we need to pay attention to them. Because you like you said earlier, you know, your own body, you know, better than anyone else, you know, your kids, you know them better than anyone else. And so, you're not wrong. Listen, listen to yourself.

100% agreed. So, you also talked about sleep apnea and CPAP machines, you said a lot of people on them are people that are tongue tied, that can't get their tongue up onto the roof of their mouth. But are there other situations where people end up on CPAP machines? And then how do you help people come off CPAP machines, because I know you do that too.

I can do that there's a lot more involved with people on CPAP machines, because generally people on CPAP machines are on a lot of medications are older, are overweight, can't breathe through their nose. And a lot of times we put them on a CPAP machine. And we don't look at all those things. Because what I found in the healthcare system, is that people treat the one thing that you go to them for, they don't look at the body as a whole and what's happening with the systems, right. And so they put us on they put people give them oxygen, so it forces the oxygen of their nodes. But if they can't breathe, and they can't get the oxygen, and they're not getting that nitric oxide, co2 Exchange, and they're still breathing through their mouth at night, when they sleep, they're struggling with a CPAP machine. So they have the ones where it goes up your nose, and then they have one that goes over your mouth. Or if it goes over your mouth and your mouth breather, you're still breathing in more oxygen, because they're forcing that oxygen in. But if your mouth breathing on your CPAP machine, you're not getting that nitric oxide co2 exchange. So a lot of times that's why they're struggling. And again, we don't look at the root cause we do a sleep apnea test, we see that they're not getting enough oxygen, and we put them on a CPAP machine. So sometimes you need to look a little bit more into what's happening there. And in anything that I do, the first thing that I talk to you about after we figure out how you're breathing is what are your outcomes? What are you looking to solve? Because that's that's what's going to be important, and you don't want to be disappointed. So you want to kind of want to look at why are you struggling with the CPAP machine? What's happening? Why did you go on it to begin with? So there's a lot of health history questions that we have to go through when it goes to CPAP machine and everybody is so different. It's such a diverse.

So I love that, I love that you do that. Because as everybody is so different. So it isn't a one size fits all here, do this and you can get rid of your machine. There's no steps to this, and understanding where they're at what got them here, where they want to get to. And then the process is designed specifically for them. We may

need more providers more celebrity or somebody worker, you know, is your job wide enough is your tongue blocking your airway. You know, some of those people need what's called MMA surgery, because their maxilla, their upper jaw is too small, it's too small for their tongue. A lot of people especially older and see that they don't want to do that. Right? So then we have to figure out what is going to make you comfortable and happy because you don't want to do what's ideally going to be best, right? Not everybody wants to go through all of that. So that's why there's a lot more involved with people and CPAP machines that are struggling. So that's going to be definitely an individual basis.

Yes, but I just want people to know that it's possible that again, you're on a CPAP machine, you don't like it, you have some options to talk to Sheree and find out where you're at where you need to get to what it takes to get you there, so that you're not stuck on it for the rest of your life. It's still a choice as to what you do based on what Sharise telling you to do and recommending. And then the choice is yours from there. Yes, it's so important for people to be able to sleep well of course, because that is you know, one of our key pillars of health. And I find a lot of people don't even recognize that they take their sleep for granted. It gets squished out of their day. You know, the longer your day is the more things you have on your list is like I just get to bed later and later and later. Versus I encourage people to plan their day around their sleep. Yes, the circadian do you have to get up in The morning and then go to bed. You know eight hours before that, so you have time to fall asleep and then still be getting your 78 hours of sleep per night, as opposed to squeezing sleep out. And also expecting to sleep on demand. because sleep is impacting our health. So critically as well, it makes us good sleep makes us more stress resilient. It helps to keep a nice balanced gut, it helps us maintain a healthy weight. There's so many benefits to sleep, and not the least of which is giving us energy, how many people are waking up everyday exhausted, dragging their butt around all day dependent on coffee and energy drinks to get through the day.

Yes, because that's when we were stressed and restore resting repair. If you're not getting sleep, you're not you're not repairing your body and your body is behind when you wake up. And if you're getting up and going to the bathroom in the middle of the night, two or three times the middle the night. That a lot that has a lot to do with mouth breathing, which I didn't know I was seeing urologist and they were putting me on medication to help dry that out. But guess what the side effects of that medication are, it dries out your mouth, your nose, your eyes, everything. And what I found out when I went through this myofunctional therapy was it was my mouth breathing that was causing me to get up in the middle of the night. So I started mouth taping which is a thing, but you have to make sure you can breathe first. Now I can sleep a good six to eight hours, because now my mouth is not waking me up. So I was sleeping with water next to my bed getting up and going to the restroom. And so that was affecting my sleep. And so I was waking up with headaches, stuffy nose, dry throat, sore throat, and all this all this myofunctional therapy changed that as well.

That's amazing. I love that. And you can hear I have a bit of a cough, I'm getting over a cold. And a week or so ago, I was really congested. And I was steaming and doing my eucalyptus oil and trying to get it all out of me. But my nose was blocked, right? During the day, I tended to be fine. But at night, of course you lie back and it just all congested yet I have two pillows where I normally have one to try and manage it. But I was still too congested to properly breathe through my nose. So I had to have my mouth open. This is why we have a mouth for breathing for those times when our nose is blocked. It's congested, right? That's the only time we should be breathing through our nose that we do exactly, is the Plan B's survival mechanism. But I would keep waking up because my mouth was so dry. And then I would have to have a sip of water before I could fall back to sleep again. And of course because I've met you and got to know your work. I'm lying there in the middle of the night. Like how do these mouth breathers do it? Because it was so hard for me to have such a dry mouth.

And you know, what would your stuff be like that there's a unblocking your nose technique that you can do. So if you take a breath in through your mouth, you keep your lips closed, pinch your nose, shake your head to the left and right. Shake your head front and back. Then when you feel that hunger for air, let go of your nose, keep your lips together, breathe through your nose, and it will unblock your nose. Oh, that's awesome. So you can do that at any time. And that will help a tip thank you your nose. So that's one of the myofunctional therapy exercises that we can do as well. So if you're sick, and you're feeling that, if you do that, it will help unblock your nose.

And so in the middle of the night, when you're lying down, you got to sit up and do it

and do it. But then you can lay back down and you know sleep on your side down on your back. Because yeah, your tongue is gonna block your airway in that case. So but yeah, we are lucky that we can breathe through our mouth. Yes, it's

our plan was plan B breathing system.

Yeah, I think we were the only humans are the only ones that can breathe through their mouth like that. I think dots when when they pant. They're letting out. Yeah, I think that as I'm not sure how to find that out. I don't think other animals read through their mouth, although it's

interesting, because that means that they don't get congested in their nasal passages like we do them. That's amazing. Well, all of this has been absolutely fascinating. I love, love, love the work that you do. And I'm so happy to have found you and be able to refer people onwards to you for this very important work. So that people aren't just being put on CPAP machines or drugs for the rest of their life, we actually are getting to a root cause understanding and knowing that once again, with the right therapy, we can retrain the muscles because we can retrain our brain. So I love it. So thank you so much for your time. And I love to ask my guests. What does don't wait for your wake up call mean to you.

So I love that. I love that this is your podcast. Don't wait for the wake up call for me. Obviously going through cancer means that Now that I know what I know is that you do have choices and options. And you can look into what's going on your body what's out of balance, before you get to a point to where you're going to need to seek medical treatment, and it's going to be more costly. So don't wait for the wakeup Hall means seek out people like you the this what you're creating here and find out what's imbalanced in your system. So you can correct it before it ends up being a very costly experience. Because not only did it cost me over $150,000, I couldn't go to work. I couldn't get out of bed, I missed. I missed all the holidays. I missed Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and my family and friends had to take care of me, it was a humiliating, to say the least to lose that part of your body. And no find out after the fact that there was something that I could have done about it. So I at first, I thought it was a punishment. But I realized now that it was a gift. Because I went through this and I now am woke it up, right, I had that wake up call. So now I'm awake. And I can help other people realize that they don't have to go through what I went through, there are things that you can do, you get to take ownership of your house, you get to listen to your body. And there are people out there now that can help you figure out what's going on in your body before you get to the illness before it presents is anything in your system in your systemic system. And so I am very grateful for you and what you're putting together. And that there are people like you out there that can help us before you get to the wake up call.

And I'm super grateful for you, and what you're now doing to help others. And for the choice that you've made to look at that experience, that traumatic experience you went through and be able to look back at it with gratitude, because that also allows you to move forward as opposed to stay stuck in the victim story, right. So I love that you do that and that you're paying it forward and helping others. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And to your point, about the cost is people often don't want to invest in their health because they feel fine. But are they really fine? Are they ignoring symptoms? Do they know what's going on inside their body? And that's a huge cost. versus working with Uri now is a pittance of that cost in order to prevent having to pay that out later on.

Right? 10%? And then if you don't, what do you talk about about being in the nursing home? So right? If you don't get it now, then the end of your life you're going to pay? So what we're doing now is not it's less invasive, it's less costly. And it's much easier to handle before it turns into a problem. I agree.

Yes. And to that point, the stats on the nursing home are the average person is spending 10 years in a nursing home in North America. And that as harsh as this sounds when you're in a nursing home at that point, you're waiting to die. You don't go into a nursing home with the expectation of coming out, right. So your quality of life is gone. You're waiting to die. 10 years is a long time. It is and it's at a cost right now. $180,000 a year. And by 2030. That's forecast to be $140,000 a year. So what's it going to be by 2060? Over $200,000 a year?

And how many of us even live on $100,000 a year now?

Exactly. So where's that?

Who's gonna pay for that? Exactly. Where's

that money coming from? Versus setting aside some money now to focus and invest in your health, the way you invest in your house and you invest in your car to look after it. So you get all of those years later on and you don't have that massive expense at the end of your life. Not to mention the time energy and money drain it presents for your family having to pay for it come visit you. You may not even know who they are. So there's emotional drain as well. So, yeah, yeah. So thank you for for sharing that. And please share with the listeners how they can get ahold of you.

So you can reach me at my name Sherry Wirtz, S H E r, E wertt.com, backslash social, and that will take you to everything that I do. You can get you can work with me. You can get some of the debt free downloads that I have. It will take you to my myofunctional therapy page. So it takes you to everything that I do on that page. I also have a book Log In. That's called dental hygiene 411. A lot of people couldn't spell dental hygiene. I did that 10 years ago. And so I still kept it just because I had so much information on there. I didn't want to lose it. But I have a blog, if you like to read about different things you can go to there as well.

That's awesome. And you've also very generously offered a few gifts to the listeners.

Yes, I have a couple of PDFs, that tell you a little more in depth of what we've been talking about here. And you can see if it's something that pertains to you, I always like when people can self assess, because then you kind of know a little bit of what's going on. If it's something that you would like to look into, you'll be like, Nope, that that I don't resonate with that, or Yes, that sounds like me. So you can go to those PDFs, they're also under the sharing words.com social. And then also I work with a company called remet mastered sleep, they actually have a cup and a straw, you can get both, or you can just get the straw. And what it does that straw is it mimics that nursing with that suck, swallow breathe, and it puts your tongue up on the roof of your mouth the way it's supposed to. So that's a straw that you can get that can help with some of the exercises that myofunctional therapy does. So if you don't want to do therapy, but you want to try that out, that's something that I do recommend. It's something that I usually give anyone that works with me, I usually give them that straw, because you're retraining your brain and keeping your tongue up. If you have a tongue tie, though, however, it might be painful for you to suck on that straw. So just know about that. But that's healthy mouth. 10 If you want to look into that. And then I am also a verse ambassador, I deal with the mouth and oral health care and I love their products. They have electric toothbrushes water flossers they have floss that is black, so you can see the plaque coming off. They also have probiotics for tonsil stones that are specifically for your mouth. And they have children's toothbrushes, they have all kinds of products. And if you go to their website, www burst oral care.com I have a promo code five ZMZ br Where you get 30% off the toothbrushes, they're 3999 with the code 10% off a child toothbrush and then 10% off the water flosser as well. If you're in the market for oral care products,

that's awesome. Well, thank you so much that's so generous of you. And I love the fact that you're encouraging people to check this out and do a little bit of self diagnosis before reaching out. But all of the information you've provided, is in the show notes. So listeners, you can go ahead and go to the show notes and find all of those links for the free gifts, the straw, the oral care products, as well as all of sharees information. So any last tips you would like to leave the audience with today, Cherie,

I would like to say, just listen to your body, don't ignore it. Your mouth is definitely a warning sign to the rest of your body. Your intuition is letting you know that it's something you need to look into. It will just be like, Oh, that popped in my head that popped into your head for a reason. And don't wait for the wake up call. Learn from Melissa and I. And definitely look into what's happening with your health. Put that first because if you don't have your health, you don't have anything else. You can't work, you can't make memories, your health is everything.

Thank you so much. And everybody listened to that from somebody who's gone through it and had to learn the hard way. So thank you for coming on the show sharing all of your knowledge. I love, love, love it. And thank you to all of the listeners. Thank you for supporting this podcast. And if this show resonates with you, or you know someone that could benefit from hearing it, please share it. Thank you very much. Thank you.