The Alternative Lightwire Function (ALF) appliance can be a great alternative to conventional orthodontic appliances. For optimal usage, I recommend the following steps:
The child should start orthodontics in a strain-free state. When all of our therapy is complete, the child presents with their optimal brain cycle and loose fascial web to have the best orthodontic outcome.
If the child still has some tightness and the brain cycle is diminished or at zero seconds, the final orthodontic result may be built around those restrictions. That may be the reason why many adult orthodontic patients relapse after completion.
At the insertion visit of the ALF, the provider initially checks the child’s brain cycle as the baseline reading. Let’s say the child’s cycle is 200 seconds.
My suggestion would be to insert the ALF with no active force and recheck the brain cycle. Then wait a few days to see how the body responds to a foreign object.
If the response is positive on the next visit, that passive appliance is now activated. After waiting a few minutes, the child’s brain cycle needs to be holding at around 200 seconds. Any significant decrease tells the provider there is too much force applied to the ALF.
The general principle of orthodontics is to apply a force to move teeth and associated structures in the mouth. As long as the craniosacral fascial system can tolerate that force and still function well, we are good to go.
When that system cannot handle a force over that tolerance, that system can react by diminishing or shutting down. This phenomenon often happens with conventional orthodontics and even with an ALF appliance.
A young boy completed therapy with me with a brain cycle of over 900 seconds—an unusually high reading. That indicates that his body can be very sensitive to change, which can easily disrupt his homeostasis.
His dental provider has to be very careful to check his brain cycle after his ALF is inserted. Even if his brain cycle goes down with too much force to 300 seconds, he can still feel negative effects in his body.
That 300-second cycle may be great for many other children, but not for this child. Everyone has her or his own optimal metabolic functional state.
When the provider becomes skilled in feeling many brain cycles, another way of checking, without timing the cycle, is to feel the speed of the brain expansion or contraction. One can often discern a change in the speed of the brain motion of an initial 200-second cycle that goes down to 100 seconds.
My finely tuned brain cycle is 1,680 seconds, 14 minutes in expansion and 14 minutes in contraction. When I have a dental procedure, I want to leave the office with my full brain cycle intact. Since my body functions well around that cycle, any significant lessening would have a negative effect on me.
I understand this perspective is very new to dentistry, but we are dealing with the absolute laws of nature. When my dental colleagues realize that their work affects the entire body, I believe they will come on board with this concept.
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