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Comment by Empact | Hacker News Reader

I'm 34 and have personally experienced significant changes in my face thanks to orthotropic pressure / mewing, and have the photos to prove it.

In addition, my bite has been stable without a retainer, whereas in the past I've had braces twice.

My background is I had an undiagnosed mild tongue tie that I discovered a bit over a year ago. I previously couldn’t press my tongue against the roof of my mouth, which led to a tongue thrust on swallowing, which led to an open bite, and my nasal breathing was very constrained.

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I just started mewing this week.

I can't get the back of my tongue up between my molars if I have my front tongue close to my front teeth. I can like either mew my front tongue or back tongue. Any tips?

Also how long did it take you to successfully be able to unconsciously keep your back tongue up? Right now it's hard for me to do it for 10 seconds bc it's so uncomfortable

For those of us that don't know (myself included), what is "mewing"?

Not the GP, but first Google result says "Mewing is simply resting your entire tongue on the roof of your mouth until it becomes an unconscious resting position for your tongue whenever your mouth is closed", and is apparently for "correcting facial asymmetry, ill-defined jawlines, and sagging jowls."

[1] https://jawlineexercises.com/everything-you-need-to-know-abo...

Exerting pressure on your palate with your tongue, which stimulates growth in the jaw and acts on the maxilla, shifting it forward and up over time.

Exerting pressure on your palate with your tongue, which stimulates growth in the jaw and acts on the maxilla, shifting it forward and up over time.

I’d love to see some actual evidence of that, which isn’t in the form of online anecdotes and testimonials on sites dedicated to the concept, or weird-as-hell “incel” sites. Something peer reviewed, in a respected journal would be a stsrt, even if the results haven’t been replicated yet.

Because it sounds like complete nonsense, and looking at the sites discussing it only reinforces my belief that it’s crap. I’ve spent some time searching for even a scrap of what someone with a hint of skepticism would consider compelling evidence and found nothing. I did find some communities I never knew existed, and wish I could now forget. Suffice it to say that “incels” are a truly strange bunch, and gullible at that.

I'm working on writing up a personal case study, showing my own experience. Plan to publish that soon.

Of course, my experience isn't peer reviewed, but it could play a part in motivating such research. After all, if society is in denial, they will not bother studying it, will they?

The tip of your tongue should be toward the back of your hard palate - where it rests when you form the “N” sound. From there you should be able to flatten your tongue to broaden your palate / spread your molars.

I’m not sure how long it took to hold my tongue in place, but it took me 3-6 months to see initial external results, given regular mewing + chewing hard gum (falim/mastic). The bone movement occurs in tiny increments of course, but over months the changes are clear. Keeping the mouth closed while breathing is also very important, as it’s the balance of forces between the tongue and cheeks/lips that shapes the arch. For me this wasn’t easy/comfortable prior to expanding my airway via mewing. As for discomfort, I would just keep at it for a few months and see whether your palate is opening up.

Care to link to a good methodology? I've been intrigued by this but there's a lot of conflicting information out there

I would go and schedule an interview with an orthodontist instead of relying on the internet, here. "Orthrotropics" appears to be a registered trademark, which is, at the very least, a yellow flag.

A cursory search on details has broken this down to extractive / surgical vs. non-extractive / non-surgical orthodontics, the latter of which has proven to be effective before the palate and growth plates have fused -- in children.

Talk to somebody you trust with a degree in the field.

I'm interested in mewing for the purported facial aesthetic and breathing benefits

> Talk to somebody you trust with a degree in the field.

Tough ask for a lot of people! I have a distant uncle who works as a dentist in the Appalacians and does a lot of pro-bono work. My family has a tradition of taking the children on a trip to see him to ask if they really need braces. Often the answer is no.

I’d feel confident asking him this question, but I don’t think most people have someone like that.

Orthodontists are incentivized against embracing orthotropics by their current knowledge and business model. They prefer interventions they can charge for (braces, slenderizing) over practices which can be adopted without intervention. This may be why the field emerged from dentists rather than orthodontists.

“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it” — Upton Sinclair

> This may be why the field emerged from dentists rather than orthodontists.

Orthodontists are dentists.

but dentists aren't always orthodontists. I think OP meant those that aren't.

I'm referring to dentists who do not practice orthodontistry, and therefore do not have careers hinging on the status quo.

Yes and they call themselves functional orthodontists

http://www.aafo.org/

I can tell you what I’ve done:

* chewing hard gum, falim/mastic, for jaw muscle development

* exerting pressure on the back of my hard palate with the tip of my tongue

* focusing on adjusting my breathing and swallowing patterns to press on the palate rather than elsewhere

Look at functional orthodontics.

http://www.aafo.org

Also, see myofunctional therapy.

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