A New Model For Kids’ Care

SPEAKER_03 0:00

So, my real goal is what I want to do is I want to start practice or at least consult on practices that put orthodontics together with pediatricians, ENTs, cervical chiropractors, oral malfunctional therapists, all under one roof. Very cool. To really holistically take care of these kiddos, starting at babies, whether they're having latch issues, you know, whether from everything on up. Anything having to do with the face, moving on up, you know, until even into braces and aligners later. So all under one roof. Because right now, all the collaboration is just, it's always getting roadblocked. There's always someone that's not a team player, and it's really hard to get these kids and these mamas what they need when people aren't fully educated.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

I think that's a fabulous idea. I think you should do it. Welcome

Meet Dr. Amanda Wilson

SPEAKER_00 0:43

to Hormone Heroes, where I share testimonials from real people who have experienced bioidentical hormone therapy. Men and women share the symptoms they have experienced and the difference proper hormone replacement has made. I'm your host, Dr. Kelly Hopkins, and I have been in the functional medicine space for over 30 years, with a focus on hormones for 20 years. Please keep in mind this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult with your physician or practitioner for medical advice. Let's get started with today's guest. Hi, and welcome to the podcast. Today I'm very excited to have Dr. Amanda Wilson with us today. She's an orthodontist, an entrepreneur, a global lecturer, and a founder of Straight Smile Solutions, which is an orthodontic consulting and education company focused on airway-centered, early, non-extraction, orthodontic care. Her background spans more than a decade in private practice, startup growth, digital education, and orthodontic consulting. She also describes herself as neurodivergent and often speaks about how pattern recognition, unconventional thinking, faith, resilience, parenting, and midlife changes have shaped both her professional and personal life. She now lives in Honolulu, Hawaii, which, gosh, who wouldn't want to live there? And she lives with her husband, and she has two amazing children that are very esteemed swimmers. So welcome, Dr. Amanda, and tell us about your family. Aloha, my name's Amanda.

SPEAKER_03 2:25

I do live in Honolulu, Hawaii, but uh I was not born here. I was brought here by my husband, who was my dental school classmate back in the 90s at UCSS. Yeah, I have two kids. The older one is off swimming at MIT, and the little one is not little, but she's a senior in high school and she'll also be a swimmer. We'll be announcing where she's going in two weeks when we sign her national letter of intent. So we're super excited. So I'm excited to talk about hormones today because understanding hormones really, I never thought I'd learn hormones as part of being a dentist, but I have, you know, unconventionally. But I'm excited to talk about my experience and my knowledge and maybe helped out some of your listeners.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

Yeah. And you're an amazing woman in business who has overcome some things and you're flourishing, obviously. So just kind of walk us through your life history through growing up and your neurodiversity diagnosis, all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Sure. Yeah.

Perimenopause Hits Hard And Fast

SPEAKER_03 3:21

Well, I'm 52, so there's a lot to say. So I'll try to um consolidate it as much as possible. But for those who are listening, Kelly and I initially were talking about how she lives in the South. And my family is actually from the South originally, not far from where she is right now. So I grew up uh with Southern parents and a Southern family, but I grew up in Oakland, Berkeley, California, which is about as liberal and as blue as you can be. Right. So it was a little confusing growing up. On one hand, during the summers, we were at vacation Bible school with our grandpa in South Carolina, and then we're hanging out in Oakland and Berkeley and hearing a completely different message. So it was it was a little confusing growing up, I'm not gonna lie. So as I got older, I just, you know, put everything into my business, put everything into being an Orthodonist. I wanted to be the best Orthodontist possible. I want to be the best mom possible. You can see kind of some type A stuff going on here. But my generation and our generation grew up being told we can have it all, we can do it all. And I struggled to have it and do it all. I couldn't ever have it all. You know, I think a lot of this was the most flourishing career, being the best mom and wife possible, and then also being, you know, a spiritual follower. And I just found that as I got older, especially, you know, once I had my second baby, things started dropping off the cliff. And I didn't wasn't didn't quite have the capacity that I could have later. And that took me, I would say, 10 to 15 years of figuring out what was wrong. And I finally started off actually with hormones, which is kind of how we met. So, you know, just figuring out maybe it is my hormones that are off and just going down this giant rabbit hole like a lot of women do. The problem is this rabbit hole is not free and this rabbit hole is not cheap. And you have to advocate yourself for yourself sometimes to get answers.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

So I that's kind of what happened. Yeah. I want to back up a second because you said something very important because we did grow up being told, you know, it was right after my mom was part of the women's lib, you know, movement and all that. And my mother actually told me, make your own money because when men leave, they take their their money with them. So I thought I heard the same thing from my grandmas more like it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I thought, well, that's not a great frame to to put my future husband in. But it turns out it did work out that way. So it's like, well, okay. But because we were trying to be every bit as professional as a man was, but also carrying the burden of childcare. There's a lot of good men out there doing the parenting thing now, I think. But it it was it's it's hard. And it's hard to be number one, you know, five-star everything all the time. It wears you out. So you were probably experiencing some adrenal burnout, maybe some mid-life.

SPEAKER_03 6:16

I felt like a big puffy pile of cortisol. And since I've been making some changes, I feel like a lot of that coming off. And I actually lost a ton of weight. I was 210 pounds two years ago. So my goodness. Blood pressure through the roof, you know, A1C, everything, sugars, I mean, and and the doctors just they don't think this is an issue. They just throw pills at it. And I was like, but this is an issue. Like, I've I've I guess for me, I've like I've never failed at anything before. And I felt like I was failing my body, and that bothered me. So I just was like, I need to find answers because I know it's not me.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

So, so what was your path? First worst, and now look at you now.

SPEAKER_03 6:57

Oh, yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, I was I was unhealthy, I was not sleeping. I'm still working on that. That's that's my Achilles heel. But, you know, just cravings. And like I never had an issue with overeating or under eating. And, you know, I was always pretty fit. And it somehow it just it just slaps you in the face, you know, you know, as you start to go through perimenopause. But also, I thought menopause happened in your 50s, not in your late 30s. And when I went to talk to my OBGYN, she would just say, You're fine, you can handle this. I mean, we were the same age, and I kept looking at her, going, Are you nuts? Um, and then she said, Well, there's breast cancer in your family, so we there's nothing we can do. And, you know, the women's health initiative says this and that. And this was probably three, four, five years ago, before some of the new thoughts have come out. So, but then I had friends in Europe and friends in other countries that were getting support who had the same needs as me. And they were like, Well, what about this white paper? What about that white paper? And I was like, Look, I'm still a healthcare provider. I can read a white paper. Let me read the white papers myself instead of having someone translate it for me. And I started reading them and going, I don't think my OBG WAN is right. So get this. I wrote her a letter. Like she, every time I tried to talk with her in the office, I'd get three minutes. And she just oh, you're fine. I was like, No.

SPEAKER_00 8:11

Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 8:12

So I wrote her a letter. Yeah, and and I had highlighted articles and I sent it certified because it was the only one that was gonna get her attention. And she called me and she's like, girl, she's like, You scared me with a certified letter. I said, I just wanted to make sure you read my thoughts. So I started going to doctors in other states or you know, even other countries getting consults, and and and I started trying out estrogen and progesterone first in different doses, and I was like, oh my goodness, I feel so much better. And GLP1s initially as well, just to get things under control. And what worked for me is not gonna work for everyone. So I'm not telling people what to do, but I got all kinds of lab work, I did everything right. Yes, you know, I was like, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do it right. I'm not sloppy doing it. So, and slowly it just started coming together. And as it started to come together, my brain started functioning the way it functioned in my 20s again. And I could think again for myself and I could advocate without freaking out. And I was calmer once everything went together. And I think I was just so wound up before. And when we're so wound up, it's hard for us in business, it's hard for us at home, it's hard to be a great wife, it's hard to be a great mom, it's hard, it's hard to be a great friend, you know? And yeah, and and it's just something I had to do for me to get myself back. I wasn't willing to give up on myself. I feel like my grandparents kind of gave up, not that they had a choice, but in their 50s, they got real cranky and real difficult to deal with, and they weren't the same anymore. And I'm like, I don't want to be that kind of person.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

But that's basically what happened. When you when we know better, we do better. And you know, our grandparents, they were the suck it up generation and they did just have to tough it out. So did you have like a major crash and burn, or did you kind of catch things as they were coming?

Quitting The Practice To Stay Sane

SPEAKER_03 9:56

Oh boy. I mean, I don't want to say too much because I think my crash and burn affects my family as well. And I'm not gonna say other people around me weren't crashing and burning because I think if you have a lot of support and people believe what you're going through, you know, you might not crash and burn as much. But a lot of the reason that I actually moved from being a traditional orthodontist in an office doing what orthodontists do, I think a lot of it was my neurology, and we'll get into that soon, which was the other thing I had to figure out. But a lot of it was also just not having the capacity to be able to work the way I think in healthcare nowadays, especially with insurance, it is so difficult to pull revenue in with as low as you're getting paid. We're getting paid at least orthodontics. When I first graduated, the amount orthodontics got paid is more than you get paid now. Um, even what you got back from insurance is about the same. So it's really difficult to make a profit practicing orthodontics the way you do now. The only way you can do it is speed and volume. Listen, I can do speed and I can do volume, but at what cost? And I just said, I don't like to be in an office, you know, booked out six months in advance from 10 to 7, you know, nine to six, whatever. I'm missing out on raising my kids myself and they're amazing kids.

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:05

And I'm I'm not happy doing this. So what if there's another way to practice orthodontics?

SPEAKER_00 11:10

And that's what I did. So so what did you change in your practice? So I got rid of it. So the practice went bye-bye. My husband, I'm just I've spent time in orthodontics offices. You know, my kids wore braces and things, and it was a major like the office was beautiful. So I'm picturing you just giving all that up just for quality of life.

SPEAKER_03 11:39

That's what I did. My husband said, Hey, I want to move back to Hawaii, which is where his family is from. We had family there, a lot of family cousins. His parents were there, they were aging. I was like, he's like, I got you. Don't worry about it. You can be a stay-at-home mom. At the time, our kids were four and seven or three and six or something at the time we made this decision. They were littles, and we were spending so much money on daycare and well, aftercare and nannies and whatever, because both of us were working kind of crazy hours as dentists. And once I started crunching the numbers, I'm like, wait a minute, everything I'm making is going out. This doesn't make sense. No, like maybe I should find a way to do a side hustle in the same space, but that way I can be around to drop my kids off, pick them up, and take them to whatever their after-school activities are and make them feel loved instead of putting them in daycare, which I'm not shaming people. If you have to do it, you have to do it. Just it wasn't working out for me and my kids. I saw ways that my kids were acting that weren't ideal. And some kids are gonna do fine. So I'm not shaming anyone, but just didn't work for us. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:39

Well, what so then you you parlayed your experience and education into your consulting and correct. And tell us tell us what that could consists of. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

This was like an overnight dream. It was like a fever dream, you know, it's like you make this big decision and like what do I do now? You know, and keep in mind this is before Zoom and well, Zoom existed, but not no one knew about it. This was, you know, 2013, 2014, you know, and before a lot of telehealth stuff, this stuff didn't exist. I was one of the first people doing, if not the first, in the field of orthodontics, you know, offering virtual education, virtual consulting. I think what it comes down to is when you're a dentist, a primary care dentist, not unlike a primary care physician, you can do anything you want. You can a physician could deliver a baby, suit your skin wounds, whatever. Those are all areas of specialty, but as long as they can do it at the level of the specialist, they're welcome to provide those services. I said, I can do the same thing. I can teach any general and pediatric dentist how to understand orthodontics. They were already doing it anyways with Invisalign, a lot of them, but they just weren't doing it well and they didn't understand it. They were just winging it. So I said, hey, look, I've got a program, I'll train you, I'll mentor you. I'm not doing it for you, but I'll teach you how to do it my way and do it at the level of and standards that I do it. We're not gonna do all cases, we're gonna do simple cases. I'm gonna show you what's a simple, what's a not, and how not to fall into a trap. And people could sign up with a subscription model or just help with one case and or take a course, and it slowly turned into something bigger, and it was awesome. I really enjoyed it.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

And that's your straight smile solutions.com, correct? Correct. Yeah, straight smile solutions, yeah. And so that is for general dentists or who who is that for?

SPEAKER_03 14:22

I I have orthodontists that subscribe, believe it or not. New grad ones, they don't always learn everything. I have a meeting with one today. It's not just general and pediatric dentist, but as long as you are a licensed dentist, yeah, you can get support.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Wow. And it's this is I'm looking here from our research we did for you. You've

Private Equity Lessons And Backlash

SPEAKER_00 14:41

helped scale a major orthodontic startup through a billion-dollar NASDAQ IPO. I did. I I also helped with a business.

SPEAKER_03 14:48

I did a lot of private equity stuff when I first started because it was there. Um I was like, that sounds like fun. So I did help. Oh, I'll tell you, the company was called people, people hate this company. So I'm I'm gonna give a I'm gonna give a disclaimer first before anyone tries to call them. I mean, I've had death threats for working for this company. So I have to give a disclaimer. First of all, we'll get into this. I am on the autism spectrum. Didn't know. We'll get that. Once the whole stuff went through, I found out more and learned about that. But a lot of people on the autism spectrum are very justice focused. We're very, we're very focused on a goal. A lot of times our brains, if you've ever seen the social network or some of these other movies, or if you watch, what's another movie? Cupertino, new shoe show out there on Turn Out Plus. A lot of times people who have big brains, you know, are picked up by private equity because they like to tap into the big brains, you know, and everything, your all your ideas. But what I didn't know anything about private equity, I've never taken a business class in my life, is that they can take all your ideas, they can spin it any way they want. You're just a consultant, you're just there siloed in research and development initially. So my big brain came up with some ideas. I thought my idea was gonna be clearliners access to care, you know, in every state for different populations, which it was. They offered clear liners at a fraction of the price, but they spun it a little bit differently than I would have. I'm not gonna disparage them, but just in case. But yeah, you know, a lot of people didn't like that company. Eventually it went bankrupt, and I don't think it exists anymore. So at least it's pretty much Austin as DAC at this point. It's been delisted. So it is what it is. But uh yeah, for about it was around for about, I think, eight to ten years. That company. Goodness gracious. It it made a lot of people a lot of money, not me. So just to let people know if they're coming after me, you'll have nothing to come after me for.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

So have fun with that. Well, you didn't even tell us the name, so don't don't even it's fine.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Yeah, people can Google it. So all the dentists ate it. So trust me. Okay. Well, tell us about your autism. Sure.

Autism And ADHD After Hormone Clarity

SPEAKER_03 16:46

So after I got the hormones all cleaned up, which was estrogen, progesterone, and also a testosterone pellet. I know you're you know a lot about pellets, so yes, yeah. Talk about that later. And sometimes oxytocin nasal spray, all of it. It was like all these cobwebs were gone out of my head. You know, like I finally could think clearly, see clearly, and I was back. I was back. But I did notice that there were times that I would get really revved up. And I started learning more about neurodivergence in late diagnosed females as my next rabbit hole. And there were a lot of Aspie kids in my family, Asperger's, which is you know a thing in the 90s, which are high functioning, you know, mostly men or boys who maybe are focused on a certain topic. And even at my high school, which was a gifted and talented high school, I was friends with all the Aspie boys. So, you know, I probably basically am an Aspie boy. It just wasn't socially acceptable for a girl if you wanted to be popular. So I didn't decided not to. My interests were makeup, beauty, hair, you know, being popular, all that kind of stuff. And that's what I poured myself into reading, consuming every single teenage magazine, back cut back to front, front to back, and just knowing what was cool, which was really, I mean, I was good at school too, math and stuff like that, which is probably where I got where I was going. But that's that's probably well how I got away with going through college and high school without being pigeonholed as a neurodivergent. But as I got older and the hormones went away, it became much more obvious. I am Audi HD, which is a combination of um ADHD, the fun ADHD. But I don't have the type of ADHD that has executive dysfunction. I'm very organized, but that's probably a coping mechanism. So I never thought I could have ADHD, but I can, I can pivot, I can spin, I can learn languages, I can come into any conversation and just light up the room. So that's that's me. But as I got older and the hormones went away, and probably the adrenals were doing their thing, I became I started leaning way more autistic, which was more soulful, more quiet, more meth needed a lot more alone time and a lot more private time. And I think that change really affected a lot, changed a lot of friendships and affected my ability to be able to work as a clinical orthodontist because I just didn't have the energy to talk to 90 patients a day and their parents and come home and be an awesome mom. It just was burning me out.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Yeah. So you're telling me that no one diagnosed you as a child.

SPEAKER_03 19:09

It didn't exist.

SPEAKER_00 19:11

It did very true.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

I mean, did I have a lot of family members? Oh, yeah, but they're all boys. So I really was comfortable with them. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. You got each other, didn't you? So the boys could do their own thing because they had a diagnosis, but I was expected to carry everything in my family. Sure, yeah. Did you have brothers and sisters? Uh only, yes, but the biological ones were all brothers.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

Okay, okay. So did you find that getting your hormones balanced again, then you were able to assess okay, what else is going on with me? There's and so did you did you have to diagnose yourself? Did you have some help?

SPEAKER_03 19:54

I did all the online screenings, and I think there's a lot more that's out there, and then it was just lighting up. But it would light up for depending on the day. One day I'm much more autistic, one day I'm much more ADHD. In the morning, I'm more ADHD, in the evening, I'm much quieter. So yeah, and then eventually I went and got the official testing done. And they were like, Well, we usually do kids. We don't usually do adults, but we'll try you. You know, and they were like, Oh, definitely neurodivergent. They're like, This testing is meant for boys, little boys. So they're like, but you are, and you're all kinds. And then once you've been neurodivergent for a while and you probably had a lot of trauma, it even affects that as well. So they were like, Yeah, okay, congratulations. Here's your paper. You're officially neurodivergent on the spectrum, but you also can have a service dog or a service pony that you can take on an airplane. That's at the end. I was like, what? I don't want to take a pony on an airplane. I picked up. I was like, well, maybe I do want a service pony. I can walk around with it. I was like, okay, well, I have a right to it. My daughter's like, get the service pony. That's awesome. Oh, I live in the city. What am I doing with a mini pony? It has to be a miniature pony. A mini miniature pony. It's so funny. That's in my state what you can have.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

That's funny. Well, I don't I think most of those miniature horses are not that friendly.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

I don't think they're very healthy either. I don't think I purposely want to breed a miniature animal. But it was just so funny. Um they said literally people do it just for the animals. I was like, no, I just love to be able to work and advocate for myself, you know, and be happy and healthy for the rest of my life. But thank you.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Yes. It's a no medication or anything is needed.

SPEAKER_03 21:27

There's nothing you can do for for autism. There is stuff for ADHD, but executive function, once I got my hormones cleared up and I was sleeping better, I wasn't having executive function issues, but it's there if I want it.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Yeah, yeah. So, okay, you mentioned you do testosterone pellets, correct? And then what do you what say again what you do for estrogen and progesterone? Estrogen is patch. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 21:50

Progesterone is micronized tablet at night. Um and then testosterone pellet and then oxytocin nasal spray at night.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

And what uh tell us what the just for listeners that might not know, what does the oxytocin do for you?

SPEAKER_03 22:06

It's the bonding hormone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I don't know that I'm having a lot of bonding going on in my life right now, but we won't go there. But the thing sometimes when you go through all this, you know, things change in your life. But we'll just say that's not the gulf. But yes, it actually helps to settle me, you know, in the evening. So, you know, I'm not so anxious and revved up and stuff because I I'm pretty high energy. So okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

And it the oxytocin is what we produce, you know, after we give birth, and breastfeeding can produce it. It just it's a very calming, soothing type hormone. So that's great.

Airway Orthodontics And Early Growth

SPEAKER_00 22:43

Well, uh let's talk a little bit about the importance of maintaining the airway and because I'm sure there's a lot of people listening that are instantly thinking of themselves or their children and and why the how orthodontics changes the quality of breathing.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's two different ways we can look at it. We'll we'll talk about kids first, and then we can talk about adults and hormones and everything. So there is, first of all, I'm not gonna say that if we're talking about sleep apnea, I'm not gonna say that things cause sleep apnea. There are indirectly related, not unlike hormones are indirectly related. It's like there's a research article that links, you know, ADHD having bad growth potentially in the jaws. But but is it what is it? Is it the ADHD causing it or is it something else? So there is a correlation between ADHD and unfavorable growth, but we don't know what's causing what. So what we want in orthodontics is we want our faces to grow the way that nature intended them to be. And for example, this is it's very complicated, but there is if anyone wants to learn more about this, I would recommend a book called Breath. I think it's called Breath. It's either Breath or Breathe. It's by James Nestor, and it's a yellow book if you go to Amazon. So um look that up. There's also a Joe Rogan podcast where he interviewed him, which is phenomenal. If you don't want to read the book, which is not a dentist-facing book, it's actually more about anthropology and everything like that and how faces developed and how crowding or crooked teeth, let alone sleep apnea and airway issues, was not a thing 100, 200 years ago, 300 years ago. They can go through all these jaws and skeletons that they pick from any country. It doesn't matter where they are. They did not have crooked teeth. So why do we all have small mouths and crooked teeth now? And when they do twin studies and one twin say grew up in Africa identical, and one grew up in London, why and they're identical? Why are their bites different, but everything else is the same? You know, why are there, why are there, why one, why does one have crooked teeth and one have straight teeth? But when you have twins, it's diet, diet, breastfeeding, the things that happen under age three. It's that's the one of the biggest precursors of it because the diets for people who are maybe, you know, not as affluent are gonna have some sand and dirt in it. It's gonna be more, more crunchy and you're gonna have to bite. Whereas the more affluent people are gonna be puring foods for their babies and there might be bottle feeding. Well, you know, the people who are in a more primitive culture are gonna, the kids just gotta pick up the food and eat it, you know? Uh-huh. So that that wears, that helps to the muscles of mastication and the tongue and all that work helps to expand the arches naturally and moves the jaws forward. The upper jaw, which is the base of the floor of the nose, which of course is related to airway, stops growing at age eight. So if this isn't something you can do. And if regular parents are having their kids' orthodontics done when all the teeth come in, they're 12, 13, 14, well, their upper jaw is done growing. So that's not gonna affect growth. All it's gonna do is straighten teeth in the position that they already landed in. What if we could what if we never had to straighten teeth? What if we could be like these cultures in Africa that all have straight teeth and Asia and South America and everywhere? So I started recognizing this actually 20 years ago as I'd start really working, and I it started happening more in homeschooling moms and people that lived on farms. And I started going, why do the city kids have more crowding than the country kids? You know, I started noticing this a long time ago, and I was like, these patterns are weird, but no one's teaching us this. And now finally it's out there 20 years later. So I'm not here just to let people know there are things you can do in babies and little kids. And I can't promise they're not gonna need braces, but it's less likely they're gonna maybe need teeth pulled out or need a surgery or something like that. And people have the right to have this information. And I don't think pediatricians and and healthcare providers know anything about this.

SPEAKER_00 26:32

So would you recommend then a child seeing someone like yourself or an orthodontist before the age of eight?

SPEAKER_03 26:39

Oh, definitely. 100%. The problem is okay, well, just to let people know, my company is strictly B2B, just because of all the licensure and regulatory rules. It is just messy, messy in the US to get involved in B2C, you know, business to consumer. So I train doctors, doctors work with their patients, but but and I do have an active license, you know. So I could, I just don't have my insurance for that right now. It's only so much you can do at one time. Right, right. But it just gets messier. But yeah, for sure. Not all orthodontists will see patients. So they may say, say seven, but the question is oh, I have a great resource on my website if you want to have anyone access it. If you go to my website, straight smile solutions go to services, there's a drop-down. It says for parents, and it just has a downloadable guide, like what you should ask your dentist questions to find out if they're airway focused or not. Just because they're not airway focused doesn't mean they're a bad person. I don't want to say that. They just might not be educated on it. So asking these questions might prompt them to start thinking about it in a different way. Um, also, insurance companies do not reimburse for any of this consulting, any of this testing, or anything. And I know you're in the functional medicine space. So it's just dentists aren't allowed to be in that space to get compensated. No, so yeah, it's so many people expect their insurance to cover things for dentistry. Well, if you do this kind of stuff, insurance is not going to cover it.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

So, what about a child before the age of eight if they visit the orthodontist? Does insurance consider that?

SPEAKER_03 28:03

They will, yeah. So only if you in general, if you have orthodontic issues, meaning crooked teeth, narrow arches, but you'd have to have some permanent teeth in. That's that's the missing piece. If you're all in baby teeth, they're gonna say, what? It's probably not gonna be covered, right? You can try getting a pre-off, it's worth a try. But usually most orthodontic insurance only covers 1500, 2,000, 2,500, maybe 3,000 at the most, one time. Well, usually when you do phase one treatment, it's to fix the bite. Then later you need some fine-tuning in phase two. That's two times. So they're not paying for the second time if you do the first, which is why most people, once they go to the orthodontists, they find this out. Oh, we'll just wait. But then they can't access growth. So, and just because people are saying that they do phase one treatment and they're doing it under age seven doesn't mean they're actually growing the jaws. They may just be straightening their teeth where they are. So you have to ask these questions. And the guide I have on my website should should facilitate that.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

Okay. That's a what a great service. I see it there for parents and patients. So for you know, nothing else. Straight smile solutions.com could help a lot of parents worried about talking points.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

Just go in and I I would go in, even if you were picking a pediatric dentist for your baby. I I interviewed my pediatrician when I was pregnant. Maybe I'm crazy. She thought I was nuts. But we still know each other because we have kids the same age and you know, in college now. So our kids were ended up being at the same school. And she's still laughing about this nowadays. You know, I remember you were there interviewing me and asking me questions, but you know, you should interview a pediatric dentist too. You know, you should find out who because that's the person who's gonna be taking care of your child's airway and deciding when they need to refer to ortho, or they may be doing it the ortho in-house, but yeah, find out everything.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

So, Dr.

Finding The Right Provider And Next Act

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Amanda, other than straight smile solutions, and of course, your your wonderful children that you're watching swim, what else are you excited about these days?

SPEAKER_03 29:56

Goodness. I mean, it's it's my third phase in life. So, you know, I'm figuring a third act, I'm figuring out what's what's next. I've been doing straight smile solutions exclusively for 10 years, unofficially for 13 years, and I'm always ready to pivot. So, my so my real goal is what I want to do is I want to start practice or at least consult on practices that put orthodontics together with pediatricians, ENTs, cervical chiropractors, oral malfunctional therapists, all under one roof. They are to really holistically take care of these kiddos, starting at babies, you know, whether they're having latch issues, you know, whether, you know, from everything on up, anything having to do with the face, you know, moving on up, you know, until even even into braces and aligners later. So all under one roof. Because right now, all the all the collaboration is just, it's always getting roadblocked. There's always someone that's not a team player, and it's really hard to get these kids and these mamas what they need when people aren't fully educated. I think that's a fabulous idea. I think you should do it. I want to do it. I'm out there blazing the trail. So we'll we'll see what comes my way. But it's great to talk to people like you, you know, who understand it.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Yeah. Well, Dr. Amanda, you definitely are a hormone hero. Is there any last thoughts you'd like to give our audience?

SPEAKER_03 31:13

I just, if any FEMA out there, I just want to say this. I'm not a counselor or a life coach or anything like that. But if you are a healthcare provider and you feel like you're struggling with any of this, I because of the rate of unaliving oneself for neurodivergent people, is something between six, seven, eight X, um, let alone the lack of faith. You know, if you're a faith-focused person is again not great. I think we suffer a lot. So if you're if anything I'm saying is resonating with you and you just want to talk to someone, just not giving advice, just listening. You're welcome to use the link on my website to schedule a call. Now, I'm gonna do my due diligence because if you're if you're a parent, I can't consult with you. You have to be a healthcare provider. So I will check you out, you know, and make sure you know your intention is good. But but if you're a parent, I will help find a place for your kid to go if you're having trouble. You know, feel free to reach out to me.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

That's wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Dr. Amanda. You've been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Final Takeaways And How To Connect

SPEAKER_00 32:10

Thanks for listening to Hormone Heroes. Take a moment to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next episode. While you are there, help us spread the word by leaving a rating and a review. If you would like to share your bioidentical hormone story or need help finding a physician in your area, please email us at drkelly at hormoneheroes.org. That's D R K E L L I at H O R M O N E. H E R O E S dot org. We want you to be a hormone hero.