5 Questions to Ask About Myofunctional Therapy

This kind of professional practices myofunctional therapy, a form of physical therapy for the tongue and facial muscles. By training or retraining the tongue and these muscles to operate in an optimal and more natural way, muscle memory is developed, which can keep the teeth and jaw in proper alignment as you age. This, in turn, may prevent orofacial myofunctional disorders and a future need for orthodontics. Many disorders can even be treated with myofunctional therapy.

An orofacial myofunctional disorder affects the function of a patient’s mouth and face. This can complicate activities like chewing or breastfeeding. A disorder could be, be caused by, or cause:

• Disordered chewing and/or swallowing
• Stunted facial skeletal development
• A speech impediment
• Malocclusion
• TMJ (temporomandibular joint) disorder
• Poor oral hygiene
• Facial aesthetic issues, like lips that stay apart at rest
• Excessive mouth breathing which can lead to disordered breathing
• Sleep problems

With proper myofunctional therapy, those disorders can be prevented, and a patient will be better able to keep eating, speaking, breathing, sleeping, and developing healthily. There are also cosmetic benefits the therapy can offer!

Sometimes myofunctional therapy is an adjunct to certain orofacial surgeries like frenuloplasty. Other times the therapy can help a patient who experienced late jaw growth or tooth loss. Both children and adults can benefit from the therapy, and it has many other applications too, like treating sleep apnea, preventing headaches, treating TMJ pain/disorder, preventing thumb sucking, preventing mouth breathing, and more. Some patients with facial aesthetic issues, like lips that stay apart at rest, will also benefit from seeing a myofunctional therapist.

Here at Beyond Dental, our myofunctional therapist is Dr. Cory Nguyen. The doctor is more than capable of teaching you the exercises involved in the therapy and helping you achieve better oral and overall health. His goals are to help you:

• Understand the importance of and practice proper tongue position/proper oral rest posture
• Appreciate the importance of and practice continuous nasal breathing
• Understand and perform the myofunctional therapy exercises
• Train/retrain and strengthen your tongue and orofacial muscles, and as a result, achieve better sleep, breathing, speaking, oral posture, etc. while relieving jaw pain, neck tension, and other issues

You can read all about Dr. Cory Nguyen and his qualifications here. He would be very happy to speak with you about your problem and to become your new myofunctional therapist here at Beyond Dental!

Yes, we do! Beyond Dental has two locations in the DFW area for patients in the vicinity and beyond. Please see our Locations page for our addresses and contact information. Dr. Nguyen is available to you at either location.

We invite you to contact us today for further details about myofunctional therapy and our therapist or to book a consultation with the doctor at our clinic. During your consultation, we’ll answer any other questions you have for us about how we can help you. We look forward to speaking with you soon! We serve patients from Dallas TX, Plano TX, Addison TX, Garland TX, Richardson TX, Carrollton TX, and BEYOND!