Young, Fit Female Syndrome: Healing Anxiety, Light-Headedness, Teeth Clenching with Kristen Geist, DDS

This week on The Less Stressed Life Podcast,  I had the absolute pleasure of diving deep into the world of breathing, sleep apnea, and all things airway with the fabulous Dr. Kristen Geist. She's not just a dentist; she's a sleep and breathing guru who turned her own health battles into a mission to help others breathe and sleep better. Whether you snore, grind your teeth, or just feel tired all the time, this episode is your wake-up call to the wonders of airway health!

Special Offer: 
Kristen has a limited number of discovery calls up for grabs—mention you’re a podcast pal for a chance to snag one! 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Are your breathing issues being missed because you're a woman? Learn the surprising reasons why!
• Snoring isn’t just annoying—it’s a major red flag for hidden airway problems.
• Think tongue posture doesn’t matter? It could be the secret to better sleep and breathing!
• Mold and allergens in your home might be silently wrecking your sleep quality—here’s how to spot the signs.
• Tired all the time, anxious, or grinding your teeth? Don’t ignore these warning signs of deeper health issues!

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ABOUT GUEST:
Kristen has been practicing dentistry for 8 years, but during the last 5 she has been narrowing her focus to airway, sleep apnea, and adult laser tongue tie release. Several years ago she was struggling with exhaustion, lightheadedness, anxiety, and trouble breathing before she was properly sleep tested and diagnosed with something called upper airway resistance syndrome, which is on the spectrum of sleep apnea. Now, she works together with other providers to help those with sleep apnea, tongue ties, etc. feel their best. She lives in upstate NY with her husband, son, and 2 adorable rescue pups. She is excited to spread awareness about the issues that things like sleep apnea and tongue ties can cause in adults and what signs to look for to see if you should be screened.

WHERE TO FIND:
Website: https://pranasleepandwellness.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pranawithdrkristen
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/smiling_with_confidence/

WHERE TO FIND CHRISTA:
Website: https://www.christabiegler.com/
Instagram: @anti.inflammatory.nutritionist
Podcast Instagram: @lessstressedlife
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lessstressedlife
Leave a review, submit a questions for the podcast or take one of my quizzes here: ****https://www.christabiegler.com/links

NUTRITION PHILOSOPHY:

• Over restriction is dead
• Whole food is soul food and fed is best
• Sustainable, synergistic nutrition is in (the opposite of whack-a-mole supplementation & supplement graveyards)
• You don’t have to figure it out alone
• Do your best and leave the rest

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Kristen Geist, DDS: just training yourself to be like, where's my tongue right now? Is it on the floor of my mouth? Is it on the roof of my mouth? Just always having it gently on the roof of your mouth, as much as you're aware of it.

[00:00:08] Kristen Geist, DDS: is huge. 

[00:00:10] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm your host, Christa Biegler, and I'm going to guess we have at least one thing in common that we're both in pursuit of a less stressed life. On this show, I'll be interviewing experts and sharing clinical pearls from my years of practice to support high performing health savvy women in pursuit of abundance and a less stressed life.

[00:00:39] Christa Biegler, RD: One of my beliefs is that we always have options for getting the results we want. So let's see what's out there together.

[00:00:57] Christa Biegler, RD: Today on The Less Stressed Life, I have Kristen Geist, who has been practicing dentistry for eight years. But during the last five years, she's been narrowing her focus to airway, sleep apnea, and adult laser tongue tie release. So a very fun, kinda sorta trendy topic. Several years ago, she was struggling with her own exhaustion, lightheadedness, anxiety, and trouble breathing before she was pregnant.

[00:01:16] Christa Biegler, RD: Properly sleep tested and diagnosed with something called upper airway resistance syndrome, which is on the spectrum of sleep apnea, which is so interesting and deceiving, right? Because there's how we think of sleep apnea and how sleep apnea could be. I bet you were shocked. Now she works together with other providers to help those with sleep apnea, tongue ties and more feel their best.

[00:01:36] Christa Biegler, RD: She lives in upstate New York with her husband, son, and two adorable rescue pups. And she's just, I'm thrilled to spread awareness about things like sleep apnea and tongue ties, that what can be caused in adults and what signs you should look for if you should be screened. So what a wonderful topic, honestly, this is serendipitous because I meant to do maybe a few episodes related to this and then you just fell into my life.

[00:02:00] Christa Biegler, RD: How wonderful. And very recently, you're so beautiful. Sister who is amazing, Jen Johansson, was here talking about something absolutely completely different. Yeah. 

[00:02:09] Kristen Geist, DDS: I love it. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. 

[00:02:11] Christa Biegler, RD: The whole family here. We met all in the same place in an online group for health professionals. So I'm just thrilled you're here to talk about your story and what you're doing now, Kristen. 

[00:02:21] Kristen Geist, DDS: Thanks. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Yeah. Shout out to the unconventional collaborative for connecting us. 

[00:02:27] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 

[00:02:27] Kristen Geist, DDS: I love that. Love it. So sure. I'll tell you a little bit about my journey and how I got here. So I still do some of the normal dentistry things, but. A lot of how I got into this was because of my own journey with just feeling like junk a lot of the time, which I feel like is how a lot of us start to go down these rabbit holes, right?

[00:02:48] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yes, exactly. When I tell you I was short of breath, I felt exhausted. I could walk from like where I was seeing my patient to the front desk and be Like I was like, something was very wrong with me and I was lightheaded and the anxiety was just through the roof. And so naturally went to serious.

[00:03:05] Kristen Geist, DDS: Oh, it was a problem. Went to lots of doctors. No answers, Oh, your blood work's normal. You look normal. You have a stressful job. Everything's coming back normal. So maybe you just need to work on your stress. That kind of thing. And I was like, I don't know, I like, yes, could anxiety be part of it, but there's something like physiologically just off here.

[00:03:24] Kristen Geist, DDS: And I just don't, I just need help. And first 

[00:03:26] Christa Biegler, RD: it was the anxiety. There, or was it created by the breathing issues? That was the conversation I was having with, 

[00:03:33] Kristen Geist, DDS: they feed off of each other. They feed off of each other so much. Exactly. So I ended up, I went to urgent care and they're taking my pulse ox and they're like your oxygen is like really low.

[00:03:45] Kristen Geist, DDS: I think you're having a pulmonary embolism. And they sent me to the hospital and chest scans, all the things. And they're like, I don't know. You look pretty healthy, 

[00:03:53] Christa Biegler, RD: and this was so frustrating for you, a doctor. 

[00:03:57] Kristen Geist, DDS: And this was like in the middle of the night in the middle of a week during a work week and I'm like, okay, cool.

[00:04:01] Kristen Geist, DDS: So I still don't know what's wrong with me. 

[00:04:03] Christa Biegler, RD: Maybe I'll die tonight. I don't know. That's 

[00:04:05] Christa Biegler, RD: like where your brain's going. 

[00:04:06] Kristen Geist, DDS: Literally, like I felt so lost and I happened to go to a dental sleep medicine course, literally. Purely coincidence. It happened to be down south where my sister lives and I wanted to coordinate a visit with her.

[00:04:19] Kristen Geist, DDS: So I'm like, cool, that sounds interesting. I don't know anything about it. Let's go. And part of the course was they were like, we're taking, volunteers to take these sleep tests. Like the normal sleepers and then the people who think they might have sleep apnea and I'm like I sleep great.

[00:04:34] Kristen Geist, DDS: I don't snore or anything, but I would love to learn, like I'll volunteer. So I took a test and the next morning when they printed out the results, they're like, so we're not your doctor. We're not diagnosing you with anything. But You're not breathing and there's, this could be problematic. You might want to see someone about this.

[00:04:53] Kristen Geist, DDS: And so I was like, what? Like I was at the same moment, like so mad, but so grateful at the same time, because I was like, okay, this is, could this be like a light bulb? Is this a thing that I should look into? Was it after the middle of the night emergency room visit? Oh yeah. I had done through, I had been through all of that.

[00:05:12] Kristen Geist, DDS: Okay. And I'm like, so that was fine. Oh, gosh. It was like months, maybe even like a year. Like it was a long time. 

[00:05:19] Christa Biegler, RD: It was horrific. 

[00:05:20] Kristen Geist, DDS: It was horrific. And 

[00:05:21] Christa Biegler, RD: that really decays your entire health. 

[00:05:23] Kristen Geist, DDS: Everything. Oh my gosh. From your digestion to your emotional regulation, I could cry at literally anything, like at any given moment because of how dysregulated I was.

[00:05:34] Kristen Geist, DDS: But anyway, so I printed out the test, went to a pulmonologist and was like, Help. What does this mean? And he went through the whole test with me and was like, to be honest with you, I'm seeing this more and more, I'm calling it the young fit female syndrome, which is upper area resistance syndrome.

[00:05:51] Kristen Geist, DDS: It's people who don't present as the typical. Sleep apnea person. But there's something with your airway. There's something in the resistance in there that's causing this fragmentation of your sleep. Which basically throws a lot of things off. And you just feel terrible. And I was like, oh my gosh. It was amazing to finally have an answer.

[00:06:09] Kristen Geist, DDS: But then I was like, okay, now what? And he's I see that you're a dentist. I really, I would love for you to learn about this so we can help more people together. 

[00:06:16] Christa Biegler, RD: How did you find this guy? 

[00:06:18] Kristen Geist, DDS: Just by chance. I needed a pulmonologist. Yeah. I got really lucky, but honestly at that time I was too tired and overwhelmed to even consider it.

[00:06:25] Kristen Geist, DDS: I was like, I just need just help. It wasn't until quite a bit later that I like looked into how to actually help people with this once I was like, Oh my God, life is so good when you can breathe and sleep. Oh my gosh. What have I missed out on for years? So that's basically. How it went, I realized I had basically a form of sleep apnea, started to feel better and realized, Hey, I can not be the only one, especially as a woman who doesn't fit the mold.

[00:06:51] Kristen Geist, DDS: And talking to people, I was like, wow, there's a lot of us. That this is going on. 

[00:06:56] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about how sleep apnea usually looks and how common it is. And then, let's talk about what it looks like when it's, we're calling it upper airway resistance. I was making some notes because this is, one of my favorite things is like, bringing to light things that people don't realize would be an issue, right?

[00:07:15] Christa Biegler, RD: And so often when we look at things by color The cover of the book. I have a lot of examples of this, but we'll just stick to yours. Sleep apnea was not at the top of your list to expect. Were you using any kind of sleep tracker? Because I ask because sometimes, like on an aura ring, it will show that you're waking up several times in the night. 

[00:07:33] Kristen Geist, DDS: I think I had an Apple watch at the time, but I don't think, I honestly didn't even process that sleep was part of it.

[00:07:39] Kristen Geist, DDS: I thought the fatigue. I thought it was something else. Like some, 

[00:07:41] Christa Biegler, RD: did you feel like a restless sleeper? 

[00:07:44] Kristen Geist, DDS: No, that's the thing. I didn't really realize that my brain was active or waking up all night long.

[00:07:48] Kristen Geist, DDS: A lot of us with these breathing issues, you don't recall that. You're waking up a lot. . So I actually thought my sleep was fine, . 

[00:07:55] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh, wow. 

[00:07:56] Kristen Geist, DDS: I knew my breathing was off. Yeah. Which I never. Shortness of breath. Connected everything. So I guess I'll go over just like a couple of like terms here, just so everything makes sense.

[00:08:07] Kristen Geist, DDS: So with sleep apnea, basically an apnea means you stop breathing, right? So I always use the analogy of a faucet. So if you turn a faucet on the water's, running through full throttle, that's good, healthy breathing. You turn the faucet off that's apnea. Now in the middle, if you turn it a little bit, there's little drips coming through.

[00:08:26] Kristen Geist, DDS: That's called a hypopnea. So you're like shallow breathing or like you're breathing through a straw. That's what I was doing all night long. And those little shallow breathing episodes keeps you in this like surface level sleep all night. And your brain is what's going on?

[00:08:41] Kristen Geist, DDS: Like in that sympathetic fight or flight mode all night long. So that's where the anxiety piece also comes in because you're never getting into that parasympathetic kind of mode, but anyway, so typically the older model of sleep apnea was. It's more common in men. It's only a fear of a bigger body size or a bigger neck.

[00:09:00] Kristen Geist, DDS: That's literally like the stop bang protocol is. It's really geared towards. Men and bigger men. But it misses a huge category of people especially women. Cause a lot of it has to do with just your anatomy or your airway. So about, I would say about 50 percent of people snore somewhere around there, but in about a quarter of people have some sort of sleep apnea.

[00:09:25] Kristen Geist, DDS: So it's massively. And I think we all have this idea that the only treatment is CPAP, and that's not really the case anymore. There's so much out there, but this is all new. Sleep apnea wasn't even really named until like the sixties CPAP's only been around since the eighties.

[00:09:40] Kristen Geist, DDS: This is all new and changing constantly. 

[00:09:42] Christa Biegler, RD: I would say, I would guess that there's a lot of under diagnosed sleep apnea. And then this is a whole different kind of level. Because of how we're assessing, right? I'm thinking about this big picture. I think about let me use a silly analogy.

[00:09:56] Christa Biegler, RD: It's just the first thing that's coming to mind when I think about diabetes, for example, like we do have some pretty simple blood work where it will show up in a few different markers that we can look at or get an indication, and some clear symptoms. I feel like with sleep apnea, it would be, I think the diagnosis is not, I don't feel like it's complicated, but it doesn't even seem particularly accessible to people all the time because my interpretation is that it's a sleep study or a sleep test and that's not always accessible to everyone.

[00:10:27] Christa Biegler, RD: Would you agree? 

[00:10:28] Kristen Geist, DDS: I agree. 

[00:10:29] Christa Biegler, RD: Is there any back end markers that can give us like an indication that it's there? 

[00:10:34] Kristen Geist, DDS: So I would say in the typical presenting person, it's the snoring, it's the gasping in the night. You wake up all the time to pee, or you just feel tired all the time.

[00:10:43] Kristen Geist, DDS: It's people with high blood pressure. But in women, especially the UI UARS population, it doesn't present the same way. It's the anxiety, it's the lightheadedness, it's tooth clenching and grinding. It's things that unfortunately, if the awareness isn't there and nobody's there to put the pieces together.

[00:11:01] Kristen Geist, DDS: You're not ever getting that test. 

[00:11:03] Christa Biegler, RD: And the test should be a sleep study, right? That's it. That's the only option. 

[00:11:06] Kristen Geist, DDS: I would say a sleep study is a great place to start. Yeah, 

[00:11:09] Christa Biegler, RD: I think I saw that there was. I'm just literally shooting from the hip. Sorry, Kristen. 

[00:11:14] Kristen Geist, DDS: you're good. I love it. 

[00:11:14] Christa Biegler, RD: I feel like I saw recently advertised to me on Facebook, obviously, hopefully I'm talking loud enough to my phone.

[00:11:20] Christa Biegler, RD: It'll show up again. That there was like a home sleep study test or a home sleep apnea test. Have you seen that? 

[00:11:27] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yes. So there are actually a bunch of them out there. Like the one that I work with a lot, it's called sleep with three I's S L I P. And they're amazing. The doctor who created it is just wonderful.

[00:11:36] Kristen Geist, DDS: And he does a lot of hands on like he does the consult. He's he mails you a sleep test to your home and he does the follow up so he can prescribe an oral appliance or a CPAP or whatever it is that you need right there. A lot of the at home sleep test companies where I've seen them fall short is there isn't a follow up.

[00:11:54] Kristen Geist, DDS: They just send you the results and then there's nobody there to guide you. And I've had a hard time with that because then people come to me like,

[00:11:59] Christa Biegler, RD: I want to just put a flag there that this is a common, I like to just entertain humanity sometimes. And I will say that humanity does believe that a test will be the answer for them.

[00:12:13] Christa Biegler, RD: And I'm not saying that's exactly wrong, but it feels really invalidating when you go from place to place and you have a test that are like, Oh, everything is fine. And, or if you want to order a test and you cannot interpret it or do not know what to do with it, because sometimes tests are not straightforward.

[00:12:30] Christa Biegler, RD: Sometimes there is some gray area. Most tests are designed so there isn't gray area, but there is. 

[00:12:38] Kristen Geist, DDS: That's so valid. And honestly, with like people like me, a home sleep test is great, but it's not always the end all be all. 

[00:12:46] Christa Biegler, RD: What if you did a home sleep test and it was negative, you would have just moved on. 

[00:12:48] Kristen Geist, DDS: So that's what's happening to like tons of people. And then they reach out to me cause they're like, but I still have all the symptoms. Something's wrong. Number one, hope sleep tests, massively underestimate scores, but it's much more, it's much Accessible. It's a lot cheaper to do it that way.

[00:13:03] Kristen Geist, DDS: And it's a great starting point to just see and there's a lot of issues with the translation. Like you said, like I've had so many people who's the doctor just wrote on it negative for sleep apnea. And I'm like, but there's like a lot of other details in here that are showing us that they woke up a million times from something.

[00:13:18] Kristen Geist, DDS: So sometimes it's a matter of having the right person to help you understand it too, which is just hard. 

[00:13:23] Christa Biegler, RD: It is hard. And, luckily for us, you went through some hard stuff too. I think when you go through something, you have a different type of empathy. There's something you can understand when you've gone through something.

[00:13:35] Christa Biegler, RD: Whether it's good or not that you've had this experience, here we all are learning from you. Thank you. Let me ask you about just like major ballpark cost of the sleep or the, that home sleep apnea test. Is this like a thousand dollars or 500 or 2000? 

[00:13:53] Kristen Geist, DDS: A lot of it's honestly covered by health insurance.

[00:13:56] Kristen Geist, DDS: Which is amazing. Like even the one that I do right now through sleep, most of my people doing it, get it covered. Which is awesome. I would say worst case it's maybe a few hundred dollars. These are not no. In lab studies are much more expensive to physically do and to get, and it's just a lot more complicated.

[00:14:15] Kristen Geist, DDS: So yeah unfortunately, like it's a pretty easy, it's non invasive test to do. So if we can just get this out there to more people so they can at least do that, then it's helpful. 

[00:14:26] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. I don't think we fully finished your story. I think it's going to lend us to, What happened? So you go to this pulmonologist.

[00:14:35] Christa Biegler, RD: He happens to be amazing. This is a lovely privilege, sometimes, of being in the coastal areas, I feel like, as a woman from the Midwest, where things hit us late. I'm not saying we don't have amazing doctors just sometimes you sometimes get someone really progressive a little ahead of their time, which feels like maybe you did.

[00:14:50] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm not sure, but hopefully. So you got this pulmonologist, he's letting you know, hey, you've got this thing I'm seeing a lot. Cool. Amazing for him. And then what happened? 

[00:14:59] Kristen Geist, DDS: So to be honest with you, as much as he helped me get to that point after that, I was yes. I hate to say it cause he's amazing, but there is an oral appliance that he didn't.

[00:15:11] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. And so I did have to do a lot of learning myself to figure out okay how I breathe better? What does that even mean? So at the beginning it was a lot of like inhalers and different things to try and like. 

[00:15:22] Christa Biegler, RD: So he didn't even, he wasn't even really able to tell you about like tongue tie and. 

[00:15:27] Kristen Geist, DDS: Oh, none of this. No. 

[00:15:28] Christa Biegler, RD: It's so funny, right? That you just happen to be in the right profession to learn these things right? 

[00:15:34] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. 

[00:15:34] Christa Biegler, RD: Not that it's automatic. 

[00:15:35] Kristen Geist, DDS: I'm super grateful. He was like, you can make yourself an oral appliance to keep your airway open while you sleep. It can't hurt to try that.

[00:15:41] Kristen Geist, DDS: And I'm like, Okay, cool. I'm like, what? So I did it. It's basically like a mouth guard that some people wear for sleep apnea. It keeps your airway open while you're sleeping. And the next morning when I woke up, I was like, are you kidding me? I didn't wake up at all. And I was like, is this what it feels like to sleep normally?

[00:15:58] Kristen Geist, DDS: Does everybody have this? Or I just thought it was normal to Wake up feeling like crap. So as soon as I did that, I was like, okay, there's something here. And then just went down all the rabbit holes from there to keep working on my breathing and sleep. 

[00:16:11] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. All right.

[00:16:12] Christa Biegler, RD: So let's talk about some of those rabbit holes. What happened? You basically had to like self treat it sounds but you're into laser tongue ties and things. And I don't think that's really popped up yet in our conversation. So how did that play into your story? If at all? 

[00:16:23] Kristen Geist, DDS: So actually it wasn't in my own mouth.

[00:16:26] Kristen Geist, DDS: It was in the mouths of all the people that I was seeing. Cause I started to get all these sleep apnea people who needed oral appliances because of, yeah, 

[00:16:35] Christa Biegler, RD: it's funny. What happens when your eyes. Become open to an issue. You're like, Oh my gosh, this is actually everyone's problem. 

[00:16:44] Kristen Geist, DDS: I know. And then it gets then, Oh, my husband snores.

[00:16:47] Kristen Geist, DDS: Oh, can I send him to you? Cause his, he had a sleep test, but he can't tolerate a CPAP. And so I just started to get everyone who couldn't tolerate a CPAP. And then I start to look in their mouths and I'm like. Oh, my God. Every other person has a severe tongue tie. What's going on? 

[00:17:00] Christa Biegler, RD: And did you know anything about tongue ties before this? 

[00:17:02] Kristen Geist, DDS: Not really. To be honest, it sounds so weird, but with our training, it's not really in there. 

[00:17:09] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh, yeah. I'm not shocked or anything. I'm honestly just so thankful to me. In the last month, I've met more than one dentist that, that focuses on this. 

[00:17:19] Kristen Geist, DDS: I love it. 

[00:17:20] Christa Biegler, RD: I feel like fireworks. 

[00:17:22] Kristen Geist, DDS: I love it. It's a small little world.

[00:17:26] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yes. So once I was in the breathing world and sleep and airway, I just started to notice it. And then I'm like now I got to learn about this because everybody in that I happen to see with this issue has this, like what chicken or the egg, what do I do? I'll back it up to just like a nasal breathing, mouth breathing thing real quick, because that's where this all ties in.

[00:17:42] Kristen Geist, DDS: I know you just had a lot of conversations with other people about breathing. 

[00:17:46] Christa Biegler, RD: The person listening to this, listen to that episode, carry on. 

[00:17:48] Kristen Geist, DDS: So in order to breathe through your nose two things must be true. You've got to obviously have a clear nasal passage, but also your tongue has to be able to get up to the roof of your mouth and make contact with the palate.

[00:17:59] Kristen Geist, DDS: That's how you breathe well through your nose. So right now, if you put your tongue up gently on the roof of your mouth, you're going to breathe through your nose, right? For people who it's tied down to the floor of your mouth, you're going to habitually breathe through your mouth. Cause it's just easier.

[00:18:14] Kristen Geist, DDS: It's a lot of effort for your body to get your tongue up to the roof of your mouth where it should be. That's the key piece is that the tongue being up or down is like the on off switch for if you can mouth breathe or nasal breathe. 

[00:18:25] Christa Biegler, RD: I've never heard it explained like that. And it's so simple.

[00:18:27] Kristen Geist, DDS: It's so simple. 

[00:18:28] Christa Biegler, RD: Sometimes someone says something in one sentence. I'm like, that's the best way to explain that. That never makes sense to me. 

[00:18:34] Kristen Geist, DDS: Oh, good. But it's literally, with your background, mouth breathing, there's not even a debate anymore. We know there's so many issues that go along with it.

[00:18:42] Kristen Geist, DDS: So if it's that much harder for your body to. to breathe through your nose. It's putting so much stress on so many systems. So literally just that one piece of just your tongue being able to have the proper posture was causing people to breathe poorly. So I started to look into okay how do I help these people?

[00:18:59] Kristen Geist, DDS: And Dr. Zaghi at the Breathe Institute has amazing resources. Zagi, Z A G H I. And he's doing a lot of research too to have the evidence there for how these things work and how they help people. So that's been amazing. So I did a lot of courses through him and actually he's a great resource.

[00:19:16] Kristen Geist, DDS: The Breathe Institute website has ambassadors and affiliates that have gone through his trainings to find somebody in your area. But yeah, so that's basically the key piece is that tongue position really changes how you breathe and how you swallow. So for adults, cause I don't really treat kids, but I treat adults.

[00:19:34] Kristen Geist, DDS: So some of the key things to tell, do you have a tongue tie or not? So we'll do this together too. So say you've got food stuck behind your top back molar. Can you reach it with your tongue? Okay, good. A lot of people with a tongue tie can't, they can't clean the food off their teeth. Yeah. So I'm, you start to see people as a dentist and I'm like, why do all of your top molars have root canals and crowns and you've had fillings and oh my God, you can't clean it off with your tongue.

[00:20:05] Kristen Geist, DDS: What? Yeah, 

[00:20:06] Christa Biegler, RD: so you don't know what you don't know, right? You just start to you just think you're anatomically fine. Understandably. 

[00:20:14] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. You ask somebody and they're like, Oh, I always have to shove my finger in there. And I'm like, Oh, you shouldn't have to do that. Essentially, your tongue should be able to move freely to speak, swallow to do basic functions.

[00:20:25] Kristen Geist, DDS: And if it's tied down to the floor of your mouth, it's bringing your jaw with it everywhere it goes. So you're going to have sore TMJ muscles and things like that. You're going to have issues like that. So there's a lot of things that we see in adults with tongue ties. Typically it's the clenching, grinding, jaw pain, constant cavities, cause they can't clean their teeth off well, mouth breathing.

[00:20:47] Kristen Geist, DDS: And you like choke on water a lot cause you can't swallow well. So there's a lot of things like that with adults. Who have tongue ties. 

[00:20:54] Christa Biegler, RD: How about history of braces because of crooked malaligned teeth? I would guess because if your tongue's not on the roof of your mouth, that's honestly creating the shape of your face and the shape of your Yeah, having room for your teeth, right? 

[00:21:06] Kristen Geist, DDS: So there's so much there. I dunno if you read the book Breath by James Nestor, but that I'm sure I, 

[00:21:12] Christa Biegler, RD: in that cabinet there, 

[00:21:14] Kristen Geist, DDS: add your pile. Could you add it to the pile Guess thousand books that are it's such a good, it's such a good listen or read. I love audiobook. For anyone, not just professionals for anyone.

[00:21:23] Kristen Geist, DDS: He goes through like ancient skulls how like their teeth were all straight and they never had dental problems. And then how everything's getting crunched in and smaller over time with like less chewing of food, more pureed baby food, less breastfeeding. There's like a lot of things that have just made our anatomy different over time.

[00:21:41] Kristen Geist, DDS: So if somebody has. A narrower arch and a tongue issue. They've got so many things working against them there. 

[00:21:48] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Unexpected as well. I do want to know, like, why are we having these tongues that are, I know you just gave some examples, but I do want to understand, like, why do we have these tongues that are tied down? 

[00:22:00] Kristen Geist, DDS: So everybody has like an attachment there. Some people just have more tension there than others. So there's a really cool dissection. If you Google like the deep frontal line of fascia, it literally shows like tongue to toes, like how it's connected in the body, who knew everything's connected in your body. 

[00:22:18] Christa Biegler, RD: My friend had a tongue release and she said she could never touch her toes in her entire life. And she had the release and went home and touched her toes. 

[00:22:26] Kristen Geist, DDS: It's insane. When I say it's insane, like when I release the tongue, I'm always like, if there's a functional issue that we're resolving, I'm releasing your tongue to get more tongue mobility.

[00:22:36] Kristen Geist, DDS: So you can do whatever it is that we need to do. I'm not going to promise you it's going to change your world. But the next day, the number of people who are like, my jaw pain has gone. Like I don't get headaches anymore.

[00:22:45] Kristen Geist, DDS: It feels great. Like the things that people come back saying after I'm like, I can't always explain it, but I'm happy for you. Yeah. Okay. 

[00:22:52] Christa Biegler, RD: There was an audio blip and it said my jaw pain is gone. No headaches. And what else did you say? 

[00:22:57] Kristen Geist, DDS: Oh, it's just random stuff that will go away. It'll be like I was in PT for something with my foot or my shoulder or whatever, and it'll totally just resolve.

[00:23:05] Kristen Geist, DDS: I feel like whenever there's tension somewhere in our body, you're going to compensate somehow. 

[00:23:10] Christa Biegler, RD: So fascinating. So fascinating. I know we're not going to talk about kids, but I wanted to just offer the symptoms. That you shared with me in advance that could be showing up in kids if they are having this problem.

[00:23:22] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. 'cause there's a lot of savvy women that listen to this, that happen to be parents and aunts, et cetera. So yes. You said bedwetting, A DHD. 

[00:23:31] Kristen Geist, DDS: That's a big one. 

[00:23:32] Christa Biegler, RD: Chronic infections. 

[00:23:34] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah, chronic ear infections is a big one. Which, the more I learn this, the more I see it like in my friend's kids and the more like.

[00:23:42] Kristen Geist, DDS: Once we get down this, they're like, they're gone. 

[00:23:44] Christa Biegler, RD: You cannot unsee these things, right? 

[00:23:45] Kristen Geist, DDS: You really cannot. 

[00:23:47] Christa Biegler, RD: I remember this reminds me of when I first learned about estrogen detox and chin acne. Then I was like, But this woman has fertility problems. Like walking through life. I've given I've let that one go.

[00:24:01] Christa Biegler, RD: A lot of other ones like that. I'm like, just close your eyes. No, it's not a bad thing. It's tricky. The humanity here is. If your friends love you, they're so excited. And at the same time, it's like sometimes people are like, I don't not care. Not that your friends are like this, right? But it's yeah, you would love to 

[00:24:18] Kristen Geist, DDS: stop talking to me about tongue tie. 

[00:24:22] Kristen Geist, DDS: Okay, cool. 

[00:24:23] Christa Biegler, RD: Last week when I was interviewing Patrick McKeown, When we were talking about children, I just felt so inspired in that moment. So I do breathwork facilitation for my clients. It is not functional breathwork. It's different than, airway type or that type of breath stuff. It's like breathwork journeys.

[00:24:41] Christa Biegler, RD: On purpose. Yeah. That's what we do with clients for other nervous system reset, lymphatic pumping, etc. Lots of physiological opportunities with breathing, as you're aware. It's makes everything better. And I felt so inspired by that conversation. I was like, I wonder if my school would let me volunteer to come in and talk to kids about mouth breathing.

[00:25:00] Christa Biegler, RD: And I'm thinking, what is wrong with me? I'm mostly, I listened to you. 

[00:25:05] Kristen Geist, DDS: You're going to be like at the PTA meeting Hey parents, look at your kids. 

[00:25:09] Christa Biegler, RD: We've really got to breathe through our nose guys. You can't, 

[00:25:12] Kristen Geist, DDS: I'll be at the playground with my son and I'm like, Oh, that kid he's probably like still letting his bed at eight because he's not breathing.

[00:25:18] Kristen Geist, DDS: And it's the reality, but so I know you, I got a little sidetracked, but yes. No, I love it. So ADHD tendencies. Yes. Sleep deprived kids show up. With a lot of the same tendencies. So any kid who is diagnosed with ADHD, it's always a good idea to have an airway screening, sleep screening, best case scenario that can be treated.

[00:25:39] Kristen Geist, DDS: And then they're not on meds for their whole life. Worst case scenario, they still go on the meds. It's super conservative, non invasive thing to do chronic ear infections, because if you can't get that tongue up, you can't swallow properly when you swallow. And you hear that kind of like crunch noise, that's clearing your eustachian tubes.

[00:25:55] Kristen Geist, DDS: If you're not doing that all day long, you're going to be more prone to your infections. Food aversions is super common in young kids because they, different textures are hard for them to chew if in swallow, if their tongue is tied down. So that's a big one. Tired kids, they've got the dark circles under their eyes and all that stuff.

[00:26:15] Kristen Geist, DDS: So there's a lot of different things to look for there with kids. But the amazing part of kids is we can affect them while they're growing and developing. Not even just with the tongue, but like with expanding the palate and giving them. room to breathe, a room to grow. And then they don't turn into an adult like me with airway issues.

[00:26:33] Kristen Geist, DDS: Cause any kid who's clenching grinding their teeth in the night, they probably have airway issues. That was me. 

[00:26:38] Christa Biegler, RD: And we're thinking about this from a very structural perspective, which makes perfect sense for the context of our conversation. And I bet there is a little bit of a chicken and egg situation because I think one of the reasons a person would mouth breathe because they already have congestion as well.

[00:26:52] Christa Biegler, RD: So what came first, and yes. There is obviously some other, what I would call nutrition chemical things or imbalances, microbiome, we'll just call them microbiome imbalances that could aid. Oh, for sure. And clearing up sinus things as well, so you can breathe through the nose. That's the conversation.

[00:27:07] Christa Biegler, RD: I do think that there is a lot of fear about sleeping with your mouth closed and breathing through your nose. And from our conversation last week, Patrick says, there's nothing in your mouth that helps you breathe. Breathe, like your nose is for breathing. Yes. And so it's so interesting to think about.

[00:27:21] Christa Biegler, RD: And we talked about on that episode, many of the things that people say that come up, they're like, there's just generally fear around this. And I'm like, quite often you can breathe through your nose, even if it's a little congested, I do find. But I would say, like you were saying with kids, the congestion. 

[00:27:36] Kristen Geist, DDS: So the reason kids are mouth breathers is not always because of their tongue. A lot of times it is the congestion, allergies, mold, something environmental going on that's causing their, yeah. So it's, the tongue is just one piece of the puzzle, but yeah, absolutely. The nasal congestion is a big piece of it.

[00:27:52] Kristen Geist, DDS: So once we can get that figured out too, yeah. That helps a lot. 

[00:27:55] Christa Biegler, RD: And just small amounts of mold exposure can be pretty detrimental. 

[00:27:58] Kristen Geist, DDS: Oh my gosh, yeah. 

[00:27:59] Christa Biegler, RD: Clean your vents, guys. Get yourself an air purifier in their room if you don't have one if they have nasal congestion. That's all I'm going to say there because that's one of those areas I cannot unsee anymore. 

[00:28:08] Kristen Geist, DDS: Oh, once I did those changes to my home, my breathing changed like overnight. We ripped up all the carpets. We traded our basement for molds. And I was like literally overnight. 

[00:28:17] Christa Biegler, RD: It's so common. If I would say 50 percent of people are dealing with some level, mild to moderate, and that's the thing is some people just have this wall to that idea.

[00:28:26] Christa Biegler, RD: And it's you don't have to see it before, it's there. Your congestions are really dead ringer for sinus congestion. So yeah. Yeah I would say that's there at least 50 percent of the time with clients, if not more for me. So one of those areas I cannot unsee. Yep. Okay. So we talked about what you were dealing with.

[00:28:49] Christa Biegler, RD: We talked about this presentation of anxiety, lightheadedness, teeth clenching and grinding, which is an atypical, that's not your old school sleep apnea. It's the upper airway. Resistance Syndrome. Resistance Syndrome. Thank you. Or young fit females. 

[00:29:06] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. Yeah. Literally. He's it's like, tends to be women like your body type with a long neck.

[00:29:12] Kristen Geist, DDS: And I'm like, okay. 

[00:29:14] Christa Biegler, RD: Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So you did not need a release. You accidentally learned about that and started doing that in your practice. Did we clearly talk about what you did a mouth appliance and that was your saving grace. Aside from the environmental changes, 

[00:29:31] Kristen Geist, DDS: all the home stuff.

[00:29:32] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yes. Lots of home changes and just being aware of what could be causing any congestion purifiers fence cleaning, all that stuff that you said oral appliance. I do wear a nasal dilator every night to sleep. I wear a mute dilator. There's a lot of different options out there. 

[00:29:47] Christa Biegler, RD: Is this like a piece of tape or is it like, is it what Alex Hermosi wears on the internet all day?

[00:29:53] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh yeah. 

[00:29:53] Kristen Geist, DDS: I know what you're talking about. It does that, but it goes on the inside. So for me, there's tons of options out there. There's intake, there's breathe right. They're all good. They all open up your airway. I just like really like skincare. So I don't like things that like stick to my nose and make my skin irritated.

[00:30:05] Kristen Geist, DDS: So it just goes on the inside and opens from the inside. So it's called Mute, M U T E. I just get them on Amazon. That's but that's made a big difference for me. I really like sleeping with that. It's like really easy and cheap. I did have to do inhalers for a little bit, but I don't anymore. And then the other piece is my own function inhalers for a bit.

[00:30:23] Kristen Geist, DDS: I was having these spasms in my airway, probably just from everything reaching a peak. But that was more of a rescue. Inhaler situation just to be able to function. But once I got everything else, like, 

[00:30:35] Christa Biegler, RD: how long did you need that? 

[00:30:37] Kristen Geist, DDS: Several months. 

[00:30:38] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. Just curious because sometimes humans run into roadblocks and they're like, Oh, I think I have this wrong.

[00:30:43] Christa Biegler, RD: And so it's just nice to hear your experience and story because they were like, I 

[00:30:48] Kristen Geist, DDS: think you have asthma. And I'm like I've always hated running. Is that why I've hated running? Cause I feel like I can't breathe. 

[00:30:53] Christa Biegler, RD: I have another question. How long did you have these issues that were somewhat debilitating you think 

[00:31:00] Kristen Geist, DDS: that's a good question.

[00:31:01] Kristen Geist, DDS: I don't know. It was months. It was many months. And then 

[00:31:04] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm just super curious because you did some home changes and that was really a big deal. How long had you already lived in the house you're in now for a very long time before that started? 

[00:31:15] Kristen Geist, DDS: We had been here for a couple of years. Yeah. 

[00:31:17] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. So you were here for a couple of years and then at least a year you had these issues, right? 

[00:31:22] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. 

[00:31:22] Christa Biegler, RD: So there may have been a little bit of a chicken or the egg or sometimes something will happen if you are exposed to something in your air, unfortunately it's invisible, that you start to breathe more shallow. 

[00:31:32] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah, exactly. And 

[00:31:33] Christa Biegler, RD: and you were congested as well. 

[00:31:35] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. And we did have, like I said, basement mold treatment.

[00:31:39] Kristen Geist, DDS: We did have carpets upstairs that had been here for who knows how long, that stuff just holds. So there could have definitely been like some of that just built up over those couple of years. Interesting. 

[00:31:49] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm just curious and I bring this up because a tongue release could be.

[00:31:55] Christa Biegler, RD: Insanely life changing. And someone might be really happy with that. And there are opportunities for a few things to happen, right? A structural intervention an environmental intervention, right? And then you had some imbalance of stuff to maybe correct also after that exposure. I don't know. I'm just bringing up all the pieces here on purpose.

[00:32:13] Christa Biegler, RD: Because I see some stuff, you see some stuff in your practice, we treat it differently. We somewhat come to some of the same conclusions, which is pretty cool. I think that's a wonderful, beautiful thing that there can be more than one way. But I really want to promote everyone loves a quick win, right?

[00:32:27] Christa Biegler, RD: So I really want to promote this whole thing. 

[00:32:29] Kristen Geist, DDS: But yeah, I wouldn't say a tongue tie release is like, The fix all solution for things is just, like I said, one piece of it, but myofunctional therapy is another thing that I've done that I forgot to mention. 

[00:32:40] Christa Biegler, RD: Tell us about that and how you find a myofunctional therapist.

[00:32:43] Christa Biegler, RD: To me, I feel that this is. Novel, new. I'm over here. I have a college age daughter who's, thinking about going into a type of medical school. And after last week's podcast, I was like, will you listen to these podcasts? Cause this is like such a hot area. You could be this. So Natalie this is for you.

[00:33:02] Christa Biegler, RD: Tell us. 

[00:33:02] Kristen Geist, DDS: That's so funny. So myofunctional therapy basically It has such a long name. And if you go down the details of it, you're like, I'm so confused, but basically it's like PT for your tongue and the muscles of your airway. 

[00:33:15] Christa Biegler, RD: So it helps you do it or not really 

[00:33:17] Kristen Geist, DDS: know. So it's a specialized thing.

[00:33:20] Kristen Geist, DDS: So a lot of people who get into it started as speech pathologists. Or hygienists. It's typically one of those two things. And it's people who've been looking in mouths and down airways for years. And then they're like, Oh my gosh, there's dysfunction here that we need to work on. 

[00:33:35] Christa Biegler, RD: Interesting. I love this. So who trains for this? Is it like like a certification you just stack on your current thing? Do you know anything about this? 

[00:33:42] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. So for example, the one that I see, she is a speech pathologist as well. And this is now her, like she added this.

[00:33:50] Kristen Geist, DDS: On after. So she does both, but more my own now, cause there's such a need. So a lot of it's like learning the tongue posture, learning getting the strength of your tongue, how it should be. Cause some people it's just a posture or a habit or they've been thumb suckers or pacifier users for years.

[00:34:05] Kristen Geist, DDS: So not everybody needs a time release. Some people just need some exercises to work on. 

[00:34:09] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh so those are. Red flag issues. If someone needed a pacifier for a long time, it could have affected negatively affected their tongue or mouth strength and structure. Yeah, I'm going to give you another, 

[00:34:24] Kristen Geist, DDS: none of us do another thing that comes up like every day.

[00:34:27] Kristen Geist, DDS: Cause people ask me like, why does it matter about a pacifier or like, why does the roof of your mouth matter? So the roof of your mouth. It's like this, like an arch up, like a high vaulted arch. If you were, if you use a pallet or a pacifier, the pallet, the roof of your mouth is the floor of your nose, right?

[00:34:44] Kristen Geist, DDS: That's the same thing. So if the roof of your mouth is flat and broad, you have a lot of breathing space for your nose. If the roof of your mouth is like this arched up, that takes up a lot of space. And now you've, you are missing out on a lot of breathing space. So you're just putting yourself at a much more compromised.

[00:35:02] Kristen Geist, DDS: Position there. 

[00:35:04] Christa Biegler, RD: But once that's already formed, I feel like that's like that. 

[00:35:06] Kristen Geist, DDS: So that's why it's important on kids to get them into expansion. Cause we can do it while they grow. There's some cool things for adults now, like in your twenties, thirties called Marpie that can expand your palate.

[00:35:16] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. 

[00:35:17] Christa Biegler, RD: I don't know. It, could you spell that? 

[00:35:19] Kristen Geist, DDS: M A R P E. Yeah. But it's for adults who have a high vaulted palette. And there's other things out there too, but that's just, With kids. If we can get on that while they're developing, it's huge. 

[00:35:34] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Okay. So tell me about how my functional therapy has been a game changer for you specifically. 

[00:35:40] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. So it really helps with the respiratory muscles. Like I just feel, I feel like I can breathe better. I sleep better. It's it really just helps put things where they need to be. And. 

[00:35:52] Christa Biegler, RD: When did you add that in after your expansion? Remember when you made your own mouthpiece and solved your problems?

[00:35:58] Christa Biegler, RD: That's how it goes. Look at you. 

[00:36:01] Kristen Geist, DDS: The myofunctional therapy part has been newer for me. So in the past, I used to have to literally send people YouTube videos of here's some tongue exercises you can try. And I was like, please let there be a myofunctional therapist that comes to upstate New York.

[00:36:15] Kristen Geist, DDS: And then when I found her, I was like, Oh. Thank you for being here. And so we just didn't have one in person for a long time. And now we do. And so anybody who needs a tongue release needs to do it before to have the best result. And even with babies, like if they have just a tongue release as a baby, but no body work, no OTPT, no Mayo, they're not going to have the best result.

[00:36:38] Kristen Geist, DDS: So I see a lot of parents who are like it didn't really. And I'm like Just cutting without having some body work isn't always going to be the best solution. 

[00:36:47] Christa Biegler, RD: So relevant, right? Let's go ahead and translate that to every single thing in the world. So any surgery you have no rehab post, and it's 

[00:36:56] Kristen Geist, DDS: yeah.

[00:36:57] Christa Biegler, RD: This just goes back to that old adage, which is an amazing adage, which is, what you do every day is more important than what you do every once in awhile or once. So like how you structure it. and you can tell me if you think I'm on the right path with this, but I have convinced myself that I have exercised my tongue enough to get my tongue to stay on the roof of my mouth and my mouth closed most of the time.

[00:37:18] Christa Biegler, RD: I think like sometimes I have to bring more consciousness or awareness to it again after, life happens or travel or something, right? Yeah. Because I mouth taped for a long time and then, I noticed the difference and then I realized I was like, I think I'm getting it done on my own. Now I say that a little bit like as a comedy, because I also have clients who tell me, I think I sleep with my mouth closed and I'm like, how would you know that?

[00:37:41] Christa Biegler, RD: If people, someone couldn't tell you, right? And I say that joking, right? Because we're just funny humans. We're just very funny humans. I don't know if that's possible, but in my head it makes sense because, once you train for something, I feel like once you do an intervention, I would be, I would love to, I'm just going to ask you, I'm not going to give you the answer here because this happens to me all the time.

[00:37:58] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm so curious. How long do you think you would do like myofunctional therapy before you would see results? Typically that kind of hold. 

[00:38:07] Kristen Geist, DDS: That's a good question. I don't know. And I hate to say it depends. 

[00:38:10] Christa Biegler, RD: That's okay. I find a lot of things are three weeks is my takeaway, like two to four weeks to really try something for two to four weeks before you give up on it.

[00:38:19] Christa Biegler, RD: Because I find that you'll see early results. And I put that in there and it may not be true, but I find it's true for a lot of things. Like I'll just ask random people that big about two to four weeks. I'm like, that is just Continues to the recurrent theme. 

[00:38:33] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. Just like you said with, it does, it is true that when you start to breathe through your nose better over time, it gets easier.

[00:38:40] Kristen Geist, DDS: And the reverse is true. If you're habitually mouth breathing, your nose will start to like literally close up and it'll be harder. So it is true. And just training yourself to be like, where's my tongue right now? Is it on the floor of my mouth? Is it on the roof of my mouth? Just always having it gently on the roof of your mouth, as much as you're aware of it.

[00:38:56] Kristen Geist, DDS: is huge. 

[00:38:57] Christa Biegler, RD: I love to credit one of my original breathwork coaches who was a physical therapist and went just fully into breath stuff, like functional breath work, like this type. And he said, just walk around with your mouth closed for a day. And that was such like, when you wake up and you're like, that's your job for the day, it's so fascinating.

[00:39:16] Christa Biegler, RD: So I did that a few days in a row and I still have that. 

[00:39:19] Kristen Geist, DDS: Oh, yeah. Some people do wear tape for a few hours just during work or whatever, just to see, but most people I noticed, if you're waking up with a dry mouth or you need to have water by your bed, okay. You're opening your mouth a lot at night. 

[00:39:32] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. I haven't got my kids into, just the oldest one, into mouth taping or I told them I'm getting them the type that goes around because I'm having this conversation with them. Now I guess we just didn't have this conversation before, so now I'm trying to have this conversation. It's so funny. It's such a, being a parent is such a good experiment.

[00:39:53] Christa Biegler, RD: It's let's see how 10 year olds respond when I'm like, Hey, I don't know Did you ever think about putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth? 

[00:40:01] Kristen Geist, DDS: There's like other cultures, like they'll close the baby's mouth, like when the mouth drops open. So I would notice myself, Oh, I've just feel like I've seen it in books and things like it's just in history.

[00:40:11] Kristen Geist, DDS: It's a thing. And I would notice myself like with my son too. If he, as a baby, if I'm like, Oh my God, shut your mouth. Like pinching his little, He's 20 months. 

[00:40:22] Christa Biegler, RD: Oh, nice. Yeah. Very little, yeah. Little dude. 

[00:40:24] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. 

[00:40:26] Christa Biegler, RD: This is so interesting. My husband used to, when we were dating, there was at least two times etched in my brain where he was like, why is your mouth open?

[00:40:36] Christa Biegler, RD: So I must have had my mouth open more. 

[00:40:40] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. And look at you now. Okay. 

[00:40:42] Christa Biegler, RD: Anyone can shut their mouth. 

[00:40:45] Kristen Geist, DDS: Close your mouth. People. 

[00:40:46] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Close your mouth. Change your life. So funny. This has been delightful. Let's review what we've accomplished so far. Your story has changed everything.

[00:40:56] Christa Biegler, RD: I'm I'm really curious about. I know you were with your dad right in the dentist office, and I'm guessing in a dental office I don't know how I know you said this has really changed how you're practicing the last five years So the majority of the time you've been a dentist, so what was that like?

[00:41:12] Christa Biegler, RD: Initially being this change maker in the office was this kind of hey I'm gonna start doing this in the up So are you doing this kind of in the office outside of the office virtually tell me what that's been like in real life. The reason I ask you this is because really in the last four plus years, I feel that people are so interested in doing something that really matters, right?

[00:41:33] Christa Biegler, RD: And doing some really purpose driven work. So I'd love to ask people, a little bit about their story of how they got into something that they feel is really purpose driven. 

[00:41:41] Kristen Geist, DDS: It's funny because. Bringing anything new into an office, there's always like a little pushback. Ooh, I don't know, like we don't have time.

[00:41:48] Kristen Geist, DDS: What I did was I had You know, I trained my team on it and I told them, my story with it, but I had them test themselves or their spouses or whoever they want it to. And then once they realized. Oh, my husband's snoring is actually like maybe 

[00:42:05] Christa Biegler, RD: when you had them test, were you using that like sleep test? 

[00:42:07] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. 

[00:42:08] Christa Biegler, RD: Okay. 

[00:42:08] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. Had them sleep test. And they're like, actually, this is maybe why his blood pressure has been high for years. Or maybe this is putting him at higher risk of a heart attack or stroke. We're going to look into this. And then so having it done on either themselves or their spouses and realizing like, Hey, snoring super common, but that's actually not normal.

[00:42:25] Kristen Geist, DDS: And it's actually not healthy. And teaching people who are literally staring down airways all day, every day, you can't unsee the signs of the huge tonsils, the teeth that are totally worn down from clenching and grinding all night long. So I just started to like, be like, Hey, I'm happy to fix your tooth that split in half, but this is the fourth one this year.

[00:42:43] Kristen Geist, DDS: So what's going on here? We got to slow this down and figure out why it's happening and not just keep band aiding this. So my team got on board pretty quickly because they saw how much I felt better and how much happier I was that they're like, there's something here.

[00:42:56] Kristen Geist, DDS: Cause man, she was in rough shape. So I feel like it was a pretty quick buy in from them. And then once we started helping people and they would come back and be like, I feel like I have my weekends back. I used to have to sleep all weekend. Like I just the quality of life improvement. So basically we screen everybody.

[00:43:14] Kristen Geist, DDS: We tell them what we see, we tell them what we recommend. A lot of people don't do anything with it and that's their choice. But but it's been pretty cool to see my team become passionate about screening about it too. 

[00:43:25] Christa Biegler, RD: That is so fun. And something I didn't mention, but I always feel like dieticians and dentists should be best friends because I some people don't like dentists.

[00:43:35] Christa Biegler, RD: I don't know what's wrong with them, but I love dentists. It's a lot of people. I know, it's bummer. Maybe that's in my profession too, but I don't get to see those people. They are not going to come to me. So what I think is fascinating is I always think that the mouth is really the window to what's going on in the rest of the body.

[00:43:49] Christa Biegler, RD: And I'm sure you absolutely, I feel like everything going on with your mouth microbiome and now I'm just really I'm at the beginning of understanding airway. I actually sent my husband to a holistic dentist of a couple, at least two years ago, and then just let him fly on his own. I'm like, Oh, I should come back and see.

[00:44:10] Christa Biegler, RD: I feel like maybe you didn't follow up. through the pieces here. I remember she said you have a, like a tiny, like an airway of a small child. It was like something ridiculous. And anyway, I just, the more you learn the more you learn, you don't know what you don't know.

[00:44:25] Christa Biegler, RD: And I'm just thrilled that you were able to tell us your story. Tell us about myofunctional therapy. Tell us about finding this, talking about this deep frontal line of fascia, talking to us a really such a, I think I could find some people who work with kids, but someone who works with adults, especially in this interesting, to have this other answer for anxiety, lightheadedness, teeth clenching, grinding.

[00:44:49] Christa Biegler, RD: These things that just do not make sense for people to have, right? 

[00:44:53] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. 

[00:44:53] Christa Biegler, RD: It's such a big deal. What do you think? I'm just looking through all my notes that I took and that I received from you, which are a great many. What do you think we missed, Kristen? 

[00:45:04] Kristen Geist, DDS: So I was just thinking as you went through that list Just from the dental side, one of the biggest things I see that I forgot to mention is the acid erosion on teeth.

[00:45:11] Kristen Geist, DDS: And if it's not dietary, if it's not the lemon water, it's not the seltzer, it's acid reflux, which is super common. And of course there's a ton of reasons, but it's actually super common to have acid reflux with airway issues because it creates this vacuum of the acid. From the dental side, just like you said, you can't unsee these things.

[00:45:28] Kristen Geist, DDS: If you're constantly like your dentist is telling you, Hey, your teeth are like wearing down, you have no enamel, what's going on. And you've went through all the other things it's worth looking into. 

[00:45:39] Christa Biegler, RD: Actually, I'm thinking about this from the perspective of a couple of clients and something that I see is after a period of chronic stress, all digestion gets Sidelined, essentially, like it's it's down regulated for other purposes, survival purposes, largely, and then.

[00:45:55] Christa Biegler, RD: Longer term, either short or longer term, you'll start to have random things pop up. Acid reflux would be, or some version of it would be very common. Silent reflux, especially doesn't always feel like reflux, but you're going to have that acid in the mouth, especially at nighttime. And I wonder, this might be something to consider if, unless you, unless like for sure you're like, yes.

[00:46:16] Christa Biegler, RD: For me, I feel like there's often triggering like chronic triggering events, a prolonged period of stress, like I just mentioned for you. I wonder, do you see these exacerbations of things provoke even in your own case, think about it. It's like you didn't always have severe symptoms.

[00:46:32] Christa Biegler, RD: Maybe you always had minor things. If you think back, cause I'm all, as you tell your story, I think back to my life about being told I always had big tonsils. I was like, thanks doctor. Yeah. I got big tonsils. So I just wonder about if there's a thing where something will come to a head sometimes where you see a triggering event or something like that. 

[00:46:50] Kristen Geist, DDS: I think so for sure, because I definitely was obviously prone to these things. As a kid, like I said, I would grind my teeth so bad. My parents could hear it from the other room, which we know now is an airway issue usually, but there wasn't that awareness at the time, I made it through life yeah. Yeah. Doing okay. But I'm sure like dental school and working and just life and everything, any kind of stressor is going to make things like you said, come to a head. 

[00:47:12] Christa Biegler, RD: Just curious. Cause that's the question with for example, anxiety and asthma and all of the things it's like, is the breathing causing it, or is the structure, I don't know.

[00:47:22] Christa Biegler, RD: It's what is the chicken or the egg? 

[00:47:24] Kristen Geist, DDS: And they both help each other. Once you can say, you can treat the anxiety. Okay. The breathing. you can get better if you can treat the breathing. The anxiety tends to get better. It they, they help each other. So yeah, 

[00:47:34] Christa Biegler, RD: we didn't talk about, I don't think you have any anxiety very much, but did you see a market change if you were dealing with anxiety?

[00:47:42] Christa Biegler, RD: Do you even have, would you even have anxiety? 

[00:47:45] Kristen Geist, DDS: Oh my gosh. Massive. Like huge change. I think it was just, I was just in this like constant, like heightened alertness kind of state all the time. But I wasn't even aware. 

[00:47:55] Christa Biegler, RD: If you're breathing all day short, you're never sending safety signals to your body.

[00:47:59] Christa Biegler, RD: So you would be hyper. 

[00:48:01] Kristen Geist, DDS: And that was my normal. That was my normal. So it took me a while to get to a new normal baseline, but Oh my gosh. Significant improvement. Yeah. 

[00:48:09] Christa Biegler, RD: Yeah. Oh, I think the takeaway is always man, life can be better if you want it to be like, if you don't love where you are now, like you got a lot of options. 

[00:48:18] Kristen Geist, DDS: Yeah. And there's a lot of people out there to help with sleep and breathing and it's like such a basic foundational thing that so many people are like, I don't need help with that. But there's a lot of people out there that can help you with it. And 

[00:48:26] Christa Biegler, RD: Including you. Specifically, where can someone find someone who is a Airway educated dentist or a myofascial therapist.

[00:48:36] Christa Biegler, RD: You did drop a note earlier that there, I think it was breathing institute, 

[00:48:41] Kristen Geist, DDS: the breathe Institute. Yeah. Has a really good list of practitioner list. There's also the AADSM has a list of dentists. And if you're in an area where you just can't find somebody just shoot me a message, I usually can find somebody through one of our groups 

[00:48:54] Christa Biegler, RD: and more specifically Kristen.

[00:48:56] Christa Biegler, RD: I think you work virtually with people also. So people could work. Yes. You can people find you online. 

[00:49:01] Kristen Geist, DDS: So I'm at Prana with Dr. Kristen on Instagram. I was doing free discovery calls for a bit, and then it was just pure chaos. And I'm like, Ooh, I love helping people, but man, I also need my sanity. So I will do like a few of those for, if you say, Hey, I listened to the podcast and can you help me?

[00:49:18] Kristen Geist, DDS: I'll do a few of those free discovery calls, but otherwise it's kind of one on one right now. And then I have some courses and things that I'm working on to help people. Sleep and breathe better. 

[00:49:26] Christa Biegler, RD: Why not? I love it. I know it's I have this love to do those types of calls and to 

[00:49:32] Kristen Geist, DDS: yeah, it's so fun.

[00:49:34] Kristen Geist, DDS: And then I'm like, that was my whole day off. 

[00:49:36] Christa Biegler, RD: It's always a trial and error for everyone. So so much for coming on today and sharing so much of your story and how you help people with this and just like this other window of opportunity that people have when they have these.

[00:49:48] Christa Biegler, RD: Symptoms that don't seem like they would go together. So I appreciate your time. 

[00:49:51] Kristen Geist, DDS: Thank you.