SomethingOff
PhD in Moggology
- Joined
- Oct 1, 2018
- Posts
- 319
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Moderately long read about dentistry, mewing and the future. About 5-6 minutes.
It's such a fucked up system we live in right now. It's even been reported that some orthodontists pull teeth unnecessarily just because the NHS gives them a bonus for doing so. Absolutely ridiculous. What an exploitative, immoral system.
In fact, I think a better system would be that a golden standard for patients was set. A goal orthodontists would try to aim for with their patients. Take an ideally developed face, analyze the features, such as the FWHR, underbite, overbite, straightness of teeth, amount of teeth. Have a full 3d scan of the face and oral area of the ideal face. Then have such a 3d scan of the patient before, and after treatment.But why? I'll explain later.
The visits to the orthodontist would "pool" money, (a smaller amount) to a total. Basically, the treatment and process would pay fairly poorly and would not be enough to live off of. But the END RESULT should be what determines how much money they make, a "bonus". Most of the bonus the orthodontists get would be from the NHS themselves, so some of that would have to be covered by tax.
The bonus would be based on comparing the patients facial growth to the ideally developed face. It would take into account things such as straightness of teeth, AMOUNT of teeth, facial width to height ratio, bone structure, both compared to the ideal, and the development standalone in the patient. Obviously some people are genetically going to be less attractive/healthy looking and have a worse bone structure than others, which is why the standalone development measurement is important. Did the patient get an extraction? That's a cut from the bonus. Did the face develop downward, increasing the patients Facial Width to Height ratio? That's a cut from the bonus. This system would incentivize orthodontists to actually aim for the best results for each patient. In fact, any kind of appliance or surgical procedure should reduce from the cut, so they don't do anything crazy. If mewing truly works, that's what they should get them to do. Have routine checkups.
As it stands right now though, the orthodontistry industry is in a quite disgusting state. They get paid MORE money if you need braces and have extractions, than if you visited once, developed perfectly, did another checkup, and turned out perfectly developed. It's been shown that orthodontists actually PREFER their patients to have a flat, downward swung face. "Hey, their teeth are straight, I did my job, even though their facial structure collapsed and they lack 4 teeth". The ideal customer of an orthodontist requires braces and 6 extractions, because they get paid more if your face develops improperly. In fact, I would guarantee that if a failproof way to prevent crooked teeth was found (AKA mewing, but it still needs research), the orthodontistry industry would be massively against it, deem it as a public health issue, and claim it was bad for your health... Kind of exactly like what just happened to Mike Mew, who was just recently expelled from the British Orthodontic Society. After all, if your profession relies on a preventable issue to cause improper development in people's face, it would be disastrous if an easy, logical and effective prevention of this issue showed up and was accepted by the public.
The only thing the British Orthodontic Society has on their side is credibility. The average schmuck has no clue what "Mewing" is, and if they find him on youtube, he'll quickly be dismissed as a "scam artist" or "unreliable fake-doctor on youtube who just wants your money". After all, in their eyes, they'd rather trust the well established (and therefore obviously correct) modern orthodontists.
I honest to god think Mew should have his clinic do a "test period" with funding from the british government, just for 4-5 years, where he takes in 9-11 year olds with malocclusions and uses mewing techniques and regular check ups to get a result. I think his methods are decent, but there's more to be learned here. Worst case, if zero improvements happen, they could just get the kids to go to an orthodontist at age 12-13. But I doubt that would be the case. If hardmewing has an effect in adults, think of what a child can do with this information if it's used correctly. Think about this. The amount affected would be miniscule compared to all the patients the orthodontistry industry treat in the same amount of time, but the potential is absolutely massive. If it turns out Mew was right all along, the results from this test period would solve crooked teeth, downswung faces, recessed chins, and general ugliness forever. The risk far, far outweighs the reward.
In summary, fuck the orthodontic business as a whole. In an ideal world for them, mouthbreathing was deemed healthy, and needing braces and extractions was genetic. I wonder how many times they knew the patient didn't need extractions, but did it anyway just because..
It's such a fucked up system we live in right now. It's even been reported that some orthodontists pull teeth unnecessarily just because the NHS gives them a bonus for doing so. Absolutely ridiculous. What an exploitative, immoral system.
In fact, I think a better system would be that a golden standard for patients was set. A goal orthodontists would try to aim for with their patients. Take an ideally developed face, analyze the features, such as the FWHR, underbite, overbite, straightness of teeth, amount of teeth. Have a full 3d scan of the face and oral area of the ideal face. Then have such a 3d scan of the patient before, and after treatment.But why? I'll explain later.
The visits to the orthodontist would "pool" money, (a smaller amount) to a total. Basically, the treatment and process would pay fairly poorly and would not be enough to live off of. But the END RESULT should be what determines how much money they make, a "bonus". Most of the bonus the orthodontists get would be from the NHS themselves, so some of that would have to be covered by tax.
The bonus would be based on comparing the patients facial growth to the ideally developed face. It would take into account things such as straightness of teeth, AMOUNT of teeth, facial width to height ratio, bone structure, both compared to the ideal, and the development standalone in the patient. Obviously some people are genetically going to be less attractive/healthy looking and have a worse bone structure than others, which is why the standalone development measurement is important. Did the patient get an extraction? That's a cut from the bonus. Did the face develop downward, increasing the patients Facial Width to Height ratio? That's a cut from the bonus. This system would incentivize orthodontists to actually aim for the best results for each patient. In fact, any kind of appliance or surgical procedure should reduce from the cut, so they don't do anything crazy. If mewing truly works, that's what they should get them to do. Have routine checkups.
As it stands right now though, the orthodontistry industry is in a quite disgusting state. They get paid MORE money if you need braces and have extractions, than if you visited once, developed perfectly, did another checkup, and turned out perfectly developed. It's been shown that orthodontists actually PREFER their patients to have a flat, downward swung face. "Hey, their teeth are straight, I did my job, even though their facial structure collapsed and they lack 4 teeth". The ideal customer of an orthodontist requires braces and 6 extractions, because they get paid more if your face develops improperly. In fact, I would guarantee that if a failproof way to prevent crooked teeth was found (AKA mewing, but it still needs research), the orthodontistry industry would be massively against it, deem it as a public health issue, and claim it was bad for your health... Kind of exactly like what just happened to Mike Mew, who was just recently expelled from the British Orthodontic Society. After all, if your profession relies on a preventable issue to cause improper development in people's face, it would be disastrous if an easy, logical and effective prevention of this issue showed up and was accepted by the public.
The only thing the British Orthodontic Society has on their side is credibility. The average schmuck has no clue what "Mewing" is, and if they find him on youtube, he'll quickly be dismissed as a "scam artist" or "unreliable fake-doctor on youtube who just wants your money". After all, in their eyes, they'd rather trust the well established (and therefore obviously correct) modern orthodontists.
I honest to god think Mew should have his clinic do a "test period" with funding from the british government, just for 4-5 years, where he takes in 9-11 year olds with malocclusions and uses mewing techniques and regular check ups to get a result. I think his methods are decent, but there's more to be learned here. Worst case, if zero improvements happen, they could just get the kids to go to an orthodontist at age 12-13. But I doubt that would be the case. If hardmewing has an effect in adults, think of what a child can do with this information if it's used correctly. Think about this. The amount affected would be miniscule compared to all the patients the orthodontistry industry treat in the same amount of time, but the potential is absolutely massive. If it turns out Mew was right all along, the results from this test period would solve crooked teeth, downswung faces, recessed chins, and general ugliness forever. The risk far, far outweighs the reward.
In summary, fuck the orthodontic business as a whole. In an ideal world for them, mouthbreathing was deemed healthy, and needing braces and extractions was genetic. I wonder how many times they knew the patient didn't need extractions, but did it anyway just because..
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