Adenoid hypertrophy (or enlarged adenoids) is the unusual growth of the adenoid tonsil first described by the Danish physician Wilhelm Meyer in Copenhagen in 1868. He described that a long term adenoid hypertrophy will cause an obstruction of the nasal airways. These will lead to a dentofacial growth anomaly that was defined as "adenoid facies".
Adenoid inflammation results in mouth breathing, which CHANGES THE SHAPE OF THE FACE. It causes nostril constriction, smaller upper jaws, protruding upper teeth, and long slack cheeks.
This is an obvious external symptom, and this has been known for 150 years!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I keep having visions of all the droopy faced children at the conferences I have attended...
Seriously- every single doctor or dentist I have ever seen should have mentioned this.
Not one ever did.
And that includes numerous sleep specialists and ENT's.
They did give me orthodontia for 9 years though. Yeah, that did not solve the problem.
Bonus Study: New research shows that obstructed breathing is enough to harm orexin cells.
Here, imagine my distorted head exploding.
Update: Yeah, I was about twelve when that picture was taken (circa 1972). And I was already haunting libraries studying medical science and history- Pasteur, Koch- I was familiar with infection and microbes. I would have researched this at the time.
Kaboom.
