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Comment by QuackingJimbo | Hacker News Reader

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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