Hello Everyone and welcome or welcome back to my YouTube channel!
Today I'm going to
talk to you all about Myofunctional Therapy - what it is, how we use it in our office,
and why it can be so incredibly beneficial.
To find out more about this therapy - it's
very unique and kind of "new" compared to other therapies - please watch this video
until the very end.
For those of you who don't know me, my name is Priya Mistry.
I'm a General
Dentist with a practice located in beautiful Portland, Oregon where we are dedicated to
taking care of patients with TMJ Disorders.
I work here with my wonderful mentor, Dr.
Arthur L. Parker.
Please check out my Instagram, if you haven't already.
I post here quite
frequently and there's a lot of good information on this page, if you like to nerd out on TMJ
stuff like I do.
So let's get right into it.
What the heck is Myofunctional Therapy?
Myofunctional
Therapy is a type of physical therapy for the muscles of the head, neck, and jaw, and
for the muscles that surround and support the tongue.
There are four main goals of Myofunctional
Therapy.
Number One: Establish good nasal breathing during the day and all night long.
Number Two: Establish proper tongue posture.
Number Three: Establish a good lip seal and
Number Four: Establish a correct swallow pattern.
So what does all this mean and why is it so
important?
Well, the theory behind Myofucntional Therapy, in order to optimize orofacial development
and growth, everyone should breathe through their noses instead of their mouths and everyone
should have proper tongue posture - which is with the tongue up against the roof of
the mouth, with a light suction.
Lip seal - the lips coming together - and correct swallow
pattern - swallowing with the tongue pressing up against the roof of the mouth instead of
coming sideways or forwards - can be established once nasal breathing and proper tongue posture
are established.
So the first two goals have to be met first before the last two goals
of Myofunctional Therapy can be met.
Let's talk about the first goal - establishing nasal
breathing - and why that's so important.
Nasal breathing, as opposed to mouth breathing,
is much better because our noses have this cool system that first filters, humidifies,
and either cools or warms the air - depending on the outside temperature - before that air
then reaches our lungs.
Once this filtered, humidified, and temperature-regulated air
then enters the lungs, that oxygen that it provides is then optimally sent throughout
the body through the bloodstream.
Essentially, there's way more oxygen uptake with nasal
breathing as opposed to mouth breathing.
With mouth breathing, the nasal filtration, humidifying,
and temperature regulation systems are all bypassed.
This means that more foreign particles
can enter our bodies with mouth breathing as opposed to nasal breathing, so there's
an immune component to nasal breathing that works in our favor as well.
If the air is
not humidified or temperature regulated, this leads to less oxygen uptake in the lungs and
therefore less oxygen distributed through our bodies.
Studies also show that chronic
mouth breathing can decrease lung function and worsen symptoms in people who have asthma.
Now let's move on to the second goal of Myofunctional Therapy - proper tongue posture and why it's
important.
Again, proper tongue posture is with the tongue suctioned up, against the
roof of the mouth with a light suction.
Why on earth is this even important, you ask?
Well, let me tell you!
Having the tongue up against the roof of the mouth with a light
suction from infancy onwards - yes, infancy onwards - is important because that suction
exerts pressure onto the roof of the mouth.
And that pressure allows the bones of the
roof of the mouth to grow wide and flat, to their full genetic potential!
This wide and
flat roof of the mouth - or palate - can then accommodate all of the teeth, primary and
permanent, without crowding!
That's so important.
How many of have crowded teeth?
How many of
us have malocclusion?
How many of us needed to have teeth pulled to make all the rest
of them all fit together?
If we can establish proper tongue posture from a young age, all
of that can be avoided!
Another thing to keep in mind is that the palate - or roof of the
mouth - is also the floor of the nose.
If the palate grows to its full genetic potential
- wide and flat - that gives us a wide and flat floor of the nose as well, which increases
oxygen intake, it helps us breathe through our noses better.
If the tongue is not on
the roof of the mouth from infancy onwards, then that means it's likely on the floor of
the mouth, down on the bottom, so it's NOT exerting pressure onto the palate.
Instead
of becoming wide and flat, that palate - or roof of the mouth - becomes narrow and arched.
This narrow arch cannot accommodate all of the teeth, and then therefore the mouth becomes
very, very crowded - the teeth become crowded together.
Not only that, but the vaulted arch
or palate - which is also the floor of the nose - exerts pressure onto the nasal septum,
causing it to deviate.
That deviated septum makes it more difficult to breathe through
our noses.
This can make mouth breathing a necessity.
For mouth breathing, our tongues
have to be on the floor of our mouths.
We can't breathe through our mouths and have
our tongues in proper resting posture.
Try it, I dare you!
Put your tongue up against
the roof of your mouth and then try to breathe only through your mouth.
So pinch your nose,
put your tongue up against the roof of your mouth, and try to breathe through your mouth.
It's literally impossible, you can't do it!
Habits that start at a young age that discourage
proper tongue posture are thumb-sucking and using a pacifier.
That brings us to the third
goal of Myofunctional Therapy, which is establishing a proper lip seal - lips together!
If you
start observing people, you'll notice that some people kind of walk around with their
mouths hanging open.
That's because they're trying to breathe!
They can't breathe through
their noses; they're breathing through their mouths instead.
If a good lip seal can be
established after the first two goals are established, that will prevent the mouth from
drying out as well - which also helps in cavity prevention.
Lastly that fourth goal of Myofunctional
Therapy, which is establishing a correct swallow pattern.
When we swallow, the tongue should
press up against the roof of the mouth with a light suction instead of moving sideways
or forwards.
If it moves forwards when we swallow, that's called a tongue thrust.
This
swallowing action done around 1000 to 2000 times a day, -depending on what you read,
what articles you research - if it's done properly, with the tongue up against the roof
of the mouth, it exerts pressure onto the palate.
This pressure allows the palate to
grow wide and flat to its full genetic potential and it also stimulates cranial motion, which
we need.
Cranial motion helps us to secrete certain hormones - and there's a whole other
video I can do on that in the future.
Myofunctional Therapy is incredibly beneficial for those
who are established mouth breathers, who have that low tongue posture.
How does this tie
into TMJ Disorders and why am I talking about this, you ask?
TMJ Disorders don't just start
overnight.
There's oftentimes a long history of dysfunction or disorder or incorrect swallow
pattern, incorrect tongue posture leading up to all of these symptoms that then bring
people into my office.
The vast majority of my TMJ patients have low tongue posture, incorrect
swallow pattern, poor lip seal, and are mouth breathers and have been this way since childhood.
Because they've had these habits since early childhood, their orofacial development was
likely affected in a way that negatively affected the development of the nasopharyngeal airway
- the airway behind our nose and our mouths.
These early childhood habits also force the
muscles of the head, neck, jaw, and tongue to start to compensate heavily.
Muscles can
only compensate for so long, and after some time, something gives and that's when the
symptoms start.
Many of my patients have low tongue posture because of a tongue tie, so
please watch my video "Tongue Tie and TMJ Disorders" to see how all of that ties in.
If the airway was, in fact, negatively impacted by poor orofacial development - then that
can lead to sleep apnea, that can lead to upper airway resistance syndrome.
That will
lead patient to clench and grind their teeth.
When you grind your teeth or your jaw forward,
that then opens up the airway.
All that clenching and grinding and excess force put into the
muscles and joints has a negative impact on the muscles, and joints, and the ligaments
leading to TMJ Disorders.
At our practice, we first make sure that we get our patients
out of pain and that we get their joints nice and stable.
We do this with orthotics, myofasical
release, and osteopathic manual jaw manipulation.
So we actually get in there and we manipulate
that jaw.
Once the patient's chief complaints are addressed and resolved, some of these
patients will then express the desire to treat the underlying cause that's causing all of
these issues.
For many of these patients, this next step involves seeing a Myofunctional
Therapist in conjunction with seeing an ENT to establish ability to breathe through the
nose.
You can't really start Myofunctional Therapy unless you're actually able to breathe
through your nose, and some people have blockages where they really do that; so seeing an ENT
to establish ability to breathe through the nose is step number one.
Then working with
a Myofunctional Therapist to check for a tongue tie, getting that released, doing the exercises
- the Myofunctional Therapy, the physical therapy to establish all the four goals of
Myofunctional Therapy - that would that next step.
So that, my friends, is it!
I know I
threw a lot of information at you in this video, so if you have any questions please
ask them in the comment box below.
I always answer all questions or comments, whatever
it may be.
If you learned something new, if you like what you heard, click "Like", SUBSCRIBE
to my channel, do all the things and remember - you can never have TMI about TMJ!
Thank
you!