Dr. Lon Peckham,
DMD, DipACLM
Maverick Health — North Idaho
It took flashing lights and a siren to make me realize I might actually have a problem.
I had just come freakily close to running my truck into a parked patrol car without even realizing it. Sure, I could occasionally "wink off" for a split second — but I never thought it was a big deal. I was tired of my wife kicking me at night, but figured she was just being overly sensitive. I never heard myself snore. And yes, it was getting harder and harder to maintain my fighting weight, which obviously meant I needed to get more disciplined with my exercise. Or did it?
They say that "when the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Well, now I was ready. I had always been health conscious and looking for ways to integrate total health into my dental practice — even going so far as taking a case all the way to my state supreme court to defend my right to do so. Yes, we won.
But it wasn't until I learned about and started implementing both Lifestyle and Functional Medicine — into my practice and my own life — that I started to see the results I had been searching for.
Central to this revolution, personal as well as with my patients, is attacking sleep apnea and upper airway restriction at the roots. When we sleep better, systemic stress and inflammation disappear, brain fog clears, energy rebounds — and all those metabolic complications start normalizing too. Now I don't just save teeth. I save lives.
