Your Cambridge Invisalign® Provider
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.
Signs of Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders
We can help identify the symptoms of OMDs. These include:
- Misaligned teeth
- Tongue thrusting
- Teeth-grinding
- Facial pain
- Speech problems
- Mouth breathing
- Sleep apnea
- Stomachaches
If you begin to notice any of these symptoms, contact our clinic to book an appointment.