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Myofunctional therapy at Ainslie Street Dental Centre can help you improve the positioning of your tongue, lips, or jaw to help you breathe better, sleep better, and have less pain.
Tongue Position & Your Health
Your tongue's resting position can affect everything from chewing and swallowing to your oral health and speech.
At rest, the tongue's tip should touch the roof of your mouth, just behind the front teeth. However, structural abnormalities in facial muscles or airway obstruction may cause misalignment of the tongue, lips, or jaw. This is called an orofacial myofunctional disorder (OMD).
The good news is that myofunctional therapy may help. Our dental professionals can design a combination of exercises to change your bite, breathing and facial posture, helping to move your tongue and facial muscles into better positions.
How Does Myofunctional Therapy Work?
During your initial consultation at our Cambridge dental office, our dental professionals will assess your specific issue. We will then work with you to create an individualized treatment plan.
This plan will be designed to retrain your orofacial muscles and correct dysfunction. Through these exercises, we aim to help normalize the resting posture of your lips and tongue and establish nasal breathing patterns.
As you work on reforming these patterns, you will become more aware of how your mouth and facial muscles move.
We will also recommend at-home exercises to help you focus on ideal breathing, swallowing, and resting patterns. These exercises can increase your muscle strength and coordination.
Airway Screening
Airway function is directly linked to the balance of orofacial muscles and proper breathing habits. Myofunctional therapy is designed to address oral myofunctional disorders (OMDs) that can affect breathing, swallowing, and posture. Although airway screening is included in our preventive hygiene services, myofunctional therapy is key in correcting dysfunctional patterns that may contribute to airway problems.
When airway issues are suspected, we develop a customized therapy plan to address specific muscle imbalances and enhance function. Our approach centers on retraining the muscles of the face, tongue, and airway to promote optimal breathing and overall health.
Signs of Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders
- Oral Posture Issues: Low tongue posture, mouth breathing at rest
- Breathing & Airway Issues: Chronic mouth breathing, snoring, sleep-disordered breathing, sleep apnea
- Swallowing & Chewing Issues: Tongue thrust, messy eating, difficulty with certain food textures
- Dental & Jaw Development: Malocclusion (misaligned teeth), narrow palate, high-arched palate, overbite/open bite, crowded teeth
- Muscle & TMJ Issues: Facial tension, TMJ pain, headaches, neck/shoulder discomfort
- Speech & Communication: Lisp, difficulty with certain sounds, speech delays
- Oral Habits: Prolonged pacifier use, thumb-sucking, nail-biting, lip-chewing
- Teeth Grinding (Bruxism): Teeth grinding or clenching, especially at night
- Digestive Concerns: Frequent stomachaches, bloating, acid reflux (often due to poor swallowing patterns)
If you begin to notice any of these symptoms, contact our clinic to book an appointment.