Hi everyone and welcome back to another episode of Airway First, the podcast from the Children's
Airway First Foundation.
I'm your host, Rebecca St. James.
My guest today is the one and only Joy Muller, an international leader in myofunctional therapy.
Joy has worked in private practice as a myofunctional therapist since 1980.
She graduated from the Myofunctional Therapy Institute in Coral Gables, Florida and had
an extensive internship in oral facial myology.
Joy's background of dental hygiene led the way for further studies and she has taught
and continues to teach the principles of myofunctional therapy to graduate and postgraduate students
at numerous universities as an adjunct professor and as a guest speaker.
You can find out more about Joy at JoyMuller.com.
And now let's jump into my interview with today's very special guest, Joy Muller.
All right, great.
Thank you so much for being here today, Joy.
I really, really appreciate it.
Okay, good.
My pleasure.
Anytime I can educate anyone about my passion.
I love it.
And for those that don't know about you, I'll make sure to include your full bio in the
show notes.
And, you know, I've heard about you for quite some time now and I finally got to hear you
speak a few months ago at an event with your son, Mark.
So for people that don't know about you and your story, I'd like to start there and just
talk a little bit about your journey with your son, Brian, and how that's, you know,
developed into this passion that has now been your career.
Well, started in 1980, actually in 1978, I was a dental hygienist.
I had been teaching at Indiana University and my son, my youngest son, Brian, had all
kinds of airway issues and we didn't know what was wrong with him.
He was born with severe colic and he couldn't sleep for a year more than 20 minutes.
So it was really hard.
And I tried everything.
I knew that there was something going on.
I know it was a very difficult birth.
She was a breach.
She turned in the canal and I tried everything from taking him to every doctor I could think
of, including like male clinic and all different places to try to figure out why he was not
able to sleep.
He had failure to thrive.
They took his tonsils and adenoids out at age three, which they never did back in those
years, but he couldn't breathe, couldn't sleep.
He couldn't eat anything.
He had stomach aches constantly and then it went into headaches.
Constantly, he would wake up with headaches and, you know, I kept taking him to one doctor
after another and then I tried all the traditional and untraditional stuff like acupuncture and
chiropractor.
We tried everything and nothing helped really.
And by the time he was six or seven, he couldn't go to school because his head hurt so bad.
She was real little, whereas the agent, my husband and I were both very tall.
My other son was very tall.
And I just was watching my child die basically.
I took him to nutritionists and psychologists and everyone under the sun I could think of
from physical therapy to everyone.
And finally, he was diagnosed by a neurologist.
They said, perhaps we could do an exploratory brain procedure.
At the time, my husband was transferred to San Diego, California.
I started working in a dental office that did more holistic treatment.
He was a TMJ specialist, a jaw specialist.
And he said, well, before you do that, let me take a look at him.
And I said, sure.
And he said, you know, his tongue is in the wrong place.
And after that, I was like, what?
I never heard of that.
He said, the roof of your mouth is the house for the tongue.
And his tongue is always down.
I said, well, he braced through his mouth all the time.
But I mean, that's all.
I took him to an ENT and allergist.
I took him to a nutritionist.
And no one said anything.
Yeah.
Well, they said, well, cut out dairy.
But nothing helped really.
And they took his tonsils out, but apparently that wasn't enough because he still couldn't
sleep and he still had headaches.
And so he said, I just took a class in myofunctional therapy.
I'm going to give you some exercises to do for his tongue, to get his tongue working.
And I want you to see an osteopathic physician.
And there were only two in the country back in 1980.
And luckily one was in San Diego.
So I took him to an osteopath.
I didn't even know what an osteopath was.
I had a deal with a doctor.
And he said, I'm going to make a little bite, splint to make his mouth a little wider.
Well, I was willing to try anything.
Of course.
Within three weeks, his headache stopped.
And then he started eating.
He would eat two meals at a time.
We'd go to a restaurant.
He'd say, no, I'll eat both meals, mom.
He would just eat like crazy.
And he was sleeping.
And then three or four months later, his teeth started straightening out.
He had this real tiny little mouth with crowding.
I was like, I have to learn this.
I have to learn everything about this.
So I went back to school, studied everything in the field at the time.
There was an institute in Florida.
I went there, then I joined another organization and studied everything.
I started practicing and then I started teaching courses back in the 1980s.
And I've been all over the world going to universities and trying to educate doctors.
But to make a change in our healthcare system is very difficult.
Right.
So I'm happy to be here to share my information.
When I just finished writing a book, it's called, Is Your Tom Killing You?
And that should be ready in about three or four months, hopefully.
I have a lot of co-authors writing it with me.
So let me, without further ado, let me share my screen.
Okay.
And I'll show you some slides that I think people would enjoy seeing here.
So I'm a speaker with Annenberg, which is a nonprofit.
So these are some disclosures.
But actually myofunctional therapy has been around since the 19, early 1900s.
And it's kind of been pushed under the rug because it did not include orthodontics at
that time.
There's a lot of politics involved.
But these are some of the disorders to look for the tension around the mouth when you
swallow.
I'm not actually seeing the presentation just so you know, Joy.
Oh, okay.
Did you share the screen?
You'll need to do it.
It's at the bottom there.
It should say share screen.
Oh, okay.
Let me go back.
Sorry.
Oh, no worries.
Ah, here it is.
Okay, now you can probably see all my scribbles here.
Not that one.
Here we go.
Perfect.
Awesome.
So these are some of the disorders to look for the tension around the mouth when they
swallow.
And that's because Tom is coming forward and in order to stop the food from coming out
of your mouth, it's a learned behavior of tense and the forward head posture, the overdeveloped
chin muscle, these are some of the open bites.
It could be an anterior or posterior open bite.
There's a lot of research now showing that it helps sleep at me on a 50% in adults and
62% in children, which is statistically significant.
Right.
That is huge.
And the tongue is actually not a muscle, the tongue is an organ and it's connected with
basal tissue all the way to your feet.
So it can affect posture and growth and development.
And I will tell you the first time I saw this was when I heard you present.
I did not know that until I heard you speak.
Really?
Really.
And that just, that blows my mind.
So many doctors don't realize it.
No.
Probably the least diagnosed, most important part of your body.
The tongue is actually a respiratory organ.
It's not a muscle.
It has 16 muscles in it and it's related to everything from sleep apnea to orthodontic
relapse, posture problems, all the way up to learning and behavior issues for children.
I know Brian, after his airway was open, he started reading books like crazy.
He was just, was amazing to watch the change.
He could focus.
Yeah.
He could focus.
It also affects nutrition, speech and pain, whether it be headaches or jaw pain.
The muscles of your head and neck are all connected to each other, which it's different
from other muscles.
There's over 58 muscles in your head and neck that are all connected.
And this just shows how, this was a speech pathologist who painted his face so people
can understand how the muscles are all connected.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
So these are just some of the muscles of the tongue.
I'm not going to go into the anatomy too much, but it's pretty involved.
And what is proper oral rest?
Postures, the entire tongue is resting in the palate.
It's that back part that I think is so wild.
The back is important.
The teeth are slightly apart and the hands are away from your face.
So everybody thinks they have to clench their teeth together for a proper bite, but it's
not that way.
The teeth are apart and the tongue is supporting the jaw and the head and neck.
And there are doctors now that believe this, that the tongue is a respiratory organ.
This is a very famous doctor from Japan.
And you can see how it changes the form and function.
If you swallow at least 500, 2000 times a day with four pounds of pressure, which is
like 55 grams per centimeter, which is a lot of force, change the way people swallow, the
skull will change.
I've seen it over and over again and posture changes.
So and we can help in many ways in prevention as well as detection, help with pain.
This is just a video from the Mayo Clinic showing.
When you read air travels down your throat through your windpipe and into your lungs.
The narrowest part of that pathway is in the back of your throat.
When you're awake, muscles keep that pathway relatively wide open.
But when you sleep, those muscles relax, allowing the opening to narrow.
The air passing through this narrowed opening may cause the throat to vibrate.
That causes snoring, which many people experience.
But in some people, the throat closes so much that enough air can't get through to the lungs.
When this happens, the brain sends an alarm to open the airway.
Most often this is associated with a brief arousal from sleep.
The brain quickly reactivates the muscles that hold the throat open.
Air gets through again and the brain goes back to sleep.
This disorder is called obstructive sleep apnea.
So snoring.
It has been like discounted, like everybody snores and it's really normal.
When your child snores, that's danger.
That's an alarm.
They're not getting enough air.
And it's something that you need to follow and watch because it's very dangerous.
I'm going to go quickly through these.
So the open bites can change.
When the tongue is pushing forward, it can change things.
It's a combination of form and function working together.
And you could see how the tongue may be a natural palate expander.
This is hard work.
I like working collaboratively with a dentist that understands forward and with wise growth
and can help.
But this is possible with just the tongue and a child.
So the atypical swallowing is what we deal with.
And we see.
And when you say it's possible, once they know where to use the tongue, where to place
it, it actually works as a palate expander.
It can push the teeth where they're supposed to go.
Yes.
It's hard work for the patient, for the therapist.
A lot of times, personally, I like to work collaboratively with dentists and physicians.
I have a private practice in Pacific Palisades, California, and I work alone, but I do refer
when it's necessary.
This I did just with exercises.
She had an open bite after braces.
And here's a bilateral open bite.
And gum disease, being a dental hygienist, the tongue is pushing against the teeth that
can weaken the bone.
And also, if your mouth breathing, the bacteria is much more virulent and can cause bone loss.
This I like this picture because you can really see this is the house for the tongue.
And if it's not up there, it collapses.
Because of that V-shape.
High narrow palate is definitely one sign of obstructive sleep apnea.
I'm going to show a lot of videos.
But here, I really like this because you can see this is a normal tongue rest position.
This pink part is your tongue.
And you take a bite in the front part of your tongue, pushes against this bone.
It's called a premixilla.
It's a real thick bone.
And then you swallow the food down.
And there's a valve in your throat that says, okay, this is food going down to the stomach.
So it closes the valve into the airway.
But in an abnormal tongue thrust swallow, and that's what myofunctional therapist treat,
the tongue is resting against the teeth.
The tongue collapses and air develops.
Like it gets trapped right here.
Then you take a bite of food and your tongue pushes against the teeth.
And you swallow air that becomes down.
And so you get this condition called aerophasia, where kids swallow air and they feel bloated
after they eat.
They're not hungry.
And this is what we call peristalsis, which is the movement of food going down.
What if it's going down?
It's now confused.
And so there's a backwards movement of the food that causes acid reflex, what we call
GERD.
And it can cause a lot of problems.
Also if a child is mouth breathing, then they can't smell.
They lose their appetite.
And so they become picky eaters when they're not chewing their food.
Because if they're mouth breathing, they're not chewing because their brain thinks their
mouth is their nose.
So they're not chewing their food and they're not getting the digestive enzymes.
The parotid gland has all these enzymes that break food down and they're missing it.
So they have constant belly aches and their sense of smell.
They can't smell the food and they don't want to chew anything.
So they reach for soft food only.
The worst thing you could give your child is the pouches because they're not getting
it.
They're not chewing.
They're not chewing anything.
And the newborn pallidus is soft as a drum and it can be changed by forces of the tongue.
And that's why breastfeeding is so important.
If you're breastfeeding properly, this starts talking about tongue ties.
If you haven't seen this video, it's only a couple of minutes.
Ultrasound of a breastfeeding infant shows just how important the tongue is in obtaining
milk from the nipple.
Although looking at an ultrasound video may be confusing, let's take a closer look at
what is going on with the help of an animation.
Note that the tongue moves not only back and forth but also vertically.
Without both these motions which may be constricted by a tongue tie, breastfeeding may become
difficult and painful.
Antiriotongue tie constricts the tongue motion shown in blue, which is the front part of
the tongue.
The area shown in red is constricted by a posterior tongue tie which limits the tongue's vertical
motion in the back.
When the tongue is effective and painless, breastfeeding occurs.
So I see a lot of children now that are tongue tying and adults.
They're given a sippy cup with a spout, which is the wrong thing.
It's best to just let them drink out of a little cup as soon as they can sit up.
But also you want to avoid pacifiers because that pushes the tongue down.
And soft baby food that teaches the child they don't have to chew anything.
So there's this whole movement called baby led weaning where they chew.
Of course I'm very anti-bottle, very anti-artificial infant milk especially.
What do you recommend for moms that can't be there during the day to feed their children
if they pump?
Are there certain bottles that are okay to use?
I know.
Okay.
It's best for the mom to be there.
But if it's absolutely impossible, I think the mom should have the baby breastfeed before
they leave for work and then if they can come home for lunch, it's ideal.
And then after work to do it or if they can work at home.
I mean, my hat's off to mothers to know what the right thing to do.
The right thing to do is to be a stay-at-home mom until the baby doesn't want to breastfeed
anymore.
But it's hard in the world.
Sure.
And we want them to breastfeed for at least two years, right?
That would be ideal.
No.
And the current thinking is the baby breastfeeds until they don't want it anymore.
It could be as early as nine months and it could be as late as six or seven years if
they have severe allergies.
Okay.
So that's the baby lead we need.
So literally they will guide it based on what they need.
Well, baby lead we need is more on introducing food.
Food.
Okay.
This is breastfeeding information that was given to me by Shelly Marmette who pioneered
and conceptualized the whole field of lactation consulting.
She was the one who first said, we've got to go back to breastfeeding because we're
not doing the right thing by giving her bottles.
It's hard to go back because if you're being bottle fed, the baby has an easy time getting
the milk out.
The baby doesn't have to strain their tongue to go up, but the palate will collapse.
Baby lead we need we talked about is more for eating, introducing solid foods.
Okay.
This is my grandson, you could see he's 10 years old now, but when he was a baby, he
did baby lead weaning.
Oh, wow.
You're double fisting there.
No teeth.
Looking good.
That's what he's doing it.
The mature eating me.
Olive oil straight from Italy.
He still likes lamb chops.
Does he?
I have a feeling you like them because I ate them a lot when you were in my family.
So this is, this looks good, but a lot of doctors are people are afraid their child
is going to choke on the food.
And the truth of the matter is they choke less when they're given the opportunity as
soon as they can sit up, as soon as they have that ability to put something into their mouth.
If you start the baby lead weaning then if you wait till their teeth come in when they're
11 or 12 months old, it's too late because they haven't developed the proprioception.
That's when they choke more.
Okay.
So they start out with just something like a piece of cantaloupe or a banana or something
soft and they get used to moving it around and gumming it enough so they know not to
swallow down the wrong hatches, developing proprioception.
Okay.
But these things are dangerous and when they first came out I was livid against them because
it's processed food even if it's organic.
It's teaching a child that they don't have to chew anything and their teeth will suffer.
And is pureed baby food even necessary?
It was developed in the 1930s for the war effort and I know you had Kevin Boyd on here
and it's totally unnecessary to have baby food.
And this is one of those times I've mentioned it before but if a mom is hearing this for
the first time I'll tell them the same thing.
I said when I heard it from Kevin Boyd, don't do the guilt.
You didn't know.
We used to puree and make our own thinking.
We were doing such a great thing and we were making it ourselves so it was healthy.
We didn't know.
You don't know what you don't know.
You do the best you can but we didn't have blenders so the baby would just reach over
and grab one or something off our plate in the 1920s before all this.
Right.
And it's just different.
And our skulls as a result of it, we're getting some.
And we're not eating the right foods.
We're eating more processed foods.
Children today like pasta.
I know because I have four grandkids and this is what they want to eat.
We go out to dinner.
Pasta, macaroni and cheese.
Smoothies.
Nuggets.
Chicken nuggets.
Everything has to be melt in your mouth or they won't eat it.
And so we have to go back to eating real food.
Meat, fruits and vegetables.
It's hard because we see a lot of chewing disorders.
So don't chew or chew on one side and their face grows funny.
They miss that stimulation so they're constantly putting things in their mouth.
And their muscles are not working right.
Yeah.
So it can cause.
Problems, talk a little bit about sleep position.
Okay.
Which way is correct to sleep?
It's best to sleep on your back.
Not your sides.
When you sleep on your sides, you smash your nose.
Do you have to look at why are people sleeping on their back?
Or not sleeping on their back.
And most of it is tongue tie.
Because if your tongue is restricted, it's going to fall into your airway.
Your back.
So to get the tongue working will enable the posture to be better.
And so the side is not the right way to sleep.
No, because when you're on your side, you're pushing your lower jaw.
And then you're going to have to move your head.
Off to one side.
Okay.
It's best to sleep on your back.
Okay.
If you can't, you can elevate the headboard the size of the brick.
But also you, you want to get your tongue released.
Because if you have a tongue tie.
If your tongue is restricted, it can't go up.
Especially the back of the tongue with a posterior tongue tie.
What happens is.
You choke on food and, and you're, you'll choke on your tongue.
And that's where the snoring sleep apnea comes in.
And so to release the tongue is, is really.
This just shows.
If it lives open.
And open.
That's a little screen underneath.
But if you see this divot, if you stick your curls up,
you can get your tongue out.
And then you can get your posterior tongue tie.
Okay.
Okay. Okay.
Now can you do a tongue pop.
The heart.
See it.
Okay.
Can you put your tongue into your cheek?
See how the lower jaw.
This is one.
Elevate again.
Open the job and open.
Okay. It is just.
Okay. Now relax.
And now pull.
Bring it up.
Okay.
So the big thing is.
We have to look at these problems.
Because if you don't correct it as a baby, as a young child,
you'll have the, the jaw problems and the sleep issues.
This is one of our students who.
Took the course to treat herself.
And she was a little bit more comfortable with her.
You can see how her palate expanded naturally.
And you said four months.
Four months of treatment.
She wasn't done yet,
but you could see how her mandible came forward.
Because her air.
Wow.
Each.
And then you can see how the whole thing is going to be.
And how you can see how a little bit of a lingual of freedom is so
important to treat.
It's.
It's probably the least.
Look that.
Problem.
But it's the most important.
You're listening to airway first with today's guest, Joy Moller.
You can find out more about the Children's Airway first foundation
and our mission to fix before six on our website at Children's Airway
first.org.
The CAF website offers tons of great resources for parents and medical
professionals, including videos, blogs, recommended reading,
a comprehensive medical research library, podcast, and so much more.
We also encourage parents to join the airway huddle, our Facebook
support group, which was created for parents of children with airway
and sleep related issues.
You can access the airway huddle support group at facebook.com
backslash groups backslash airway huddle.
Are you a medical professional or parent that's interested in being a guest
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Then shoot us a note via the contacts page on our website or send us an
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As a reminder, this podcast and the opinions expressed here are not a
medical diagnosis.
If you suspect your child might have an airway issue, contact your pediatric
airway dentist or pediatrician.
And now let's jump back into my interview with today's guest, Joy Moller.
Music
I personally had my tongue released when I was in my 50s.
And immediately I could sleep better.
So just really important.
Why do you think that is something that that it's one of the least looked
at? Why don't we look at it more?
Mostly because doctors and dentists were not taught that in school how to do
it or why to do it.
And so as a result, they're not comfortable.
There's a lot of arteries and all kind of muscles and fibers.
And so they have to take a continuing education course.
Most of the doctors that are doing it have had a child for somebody in their
family that benefited.
But also it can help your posture.
This is four months of myofunctional and a tongue release.
That's amazing. Look at his head. How far back that is now.
Yeah.
That's amazing.
Helps your brain work better.
This is one of my patients who he had an orthodontic relapse.
And when it was finished one year, you could see how his teeth changed
tremendously and his jaw changed.
His ability to do sports was so much better.
He wanted a scholarship for college.
Wow.
Yeah.
Complete scholarship.
So this just shows a little, one of my patients who his father was a
pediatrician.
At UCLA.
And he had been diagnosed with Tourette's.
This is Thomas.
It's just starting myofunctional therapy to be controlled.
2016.
You notice how much time is why you're doing this and what you hope to
accomplish.
I'm doing this to improve.
Got my tics.
And.
Um, improves.
What and reach for my nose.
So when you finish.
So this is Thomas and Thomas is now completely done with myofunctional
therapy.
And can you tell him not doing it.
What does that's are about it? How it's helped you.
When I first started, my head was really forward.
And my eyes were taking almost every three seconds.
And, um,
I was like, Oh, I'm going to be okay.
I'm going to be okay.
So over the, over the time that I've been with joy,
I've really improved.
As you can see right now, I'm.
Blinking with both my eyes, not blinking anymore.
How's your sleep and all this.
Um, so I used to snore.
And, um,
And sleep on my side.
And that affected my sleeping.
Well, sleeping and breathing.
And breathing through nose all the time too. Right.
Yeah.
Can you slowly or chair?
So we can just take a look at your posture. Wow.
He really improved, but.
Older people.
Improve too. You can see this lady. How she.
Always looked sad.
Janet.
And she kept getting.
Looking better.
Wow.
Change the function.
You know,
I'm not sure if I'm looking better.
Wow.
Change the function. Yeah.
So this is one of our exercises.
On your mark.
Get set.
Go.
This is making the lower jaw come down forward and up.
It's working all the face muscles.
Okay.
It's almost there.
Oh, Megan, Dr. B neck and neck.
Oh, my God.
He's a doctor at the university of Pennsylvania.
So these are some of the tools we use.
Myo Munchie, which.
Allows the child to chew. They like it feels good.
And the froggy mouth.
Which is a great product that actually will.
Enable.
The.
Back of the tongue to work.
When it's in there, it's a passive exercise.
It's called froggy.
And can adults use froggy mouth?
Yeah.
Okay.
And then what about the tongue?
Oh yeah. That's, that's a really neat.
Product that is, it helps to stretch.
Cause it goes under the tongue.
And I helped stretch the tongue.
Okay.
So that's a really good thing.
I think it's a good thing to do.
And I think it's a good thing to do.
Those are some tools that you can do,
but the best thing is to,
when you're dealing with, with children.
Okay.
So the best thing is.
To teach the child.
To breathe through their nose.
And.
This breathing, reeducation or retraining is.
It's a good thing.
So when you breathe through your nose,
the air is filtered. It's humidified.
It's sterilized. It's.
It's.
You get more oxygen when you breathe through your nose.
And children don't know that what happens is they go to.
Nursery school.
And they're getting hit with all this bacteria.
And then come home with their first cold.
And their mouth breathing.
And they get better.
Because mommy makes them chicken soup and, you know,
all the good things.
But.
They still, they forgot that their nose is for breathing.
And, and that their mouth is for talking and eating.
So what a mile functional therapist.
The easiest thing to do is to look at a child when they're.
Like this.
And say, did you know your nose is for breathing and smelling.
And your mouth is for talking and eating.
And they right away will close their mouth.
I mean, you have to constantly remind them,
but after a while.
They learn and.
It doesn't take that long.
There are a lot of little tricks that we do.
And they're like, you know, I call them the three D's.
You know, a lot of kids are allergic to dust or they're sensitive
to dust. Maybe they've gone to the allergist and they're just
sensitive to dust.
So you have to teach the mom to get the carpeting out of the
bedroom.
It covers for the pillows that are dust proof.
They're 100% cotton.
Okay.
So you know,
the three D's are dust dairy.
Do a, do an experiment for one month. No, no dairy.
Sometimes that's enough to just break it.
All you're talking all dairy or just cow.
Milk.
All dairy.
All dairy for a month.
Just for a month. They can do, you know,
oat milk or one of the other milk center out there.
So they can do that.
There's great coconut, yoga, coconut things.
So just, just for one month.
Try no dairy.
And so I said the three D's dust, dairy, and animals.
So if they have cats.
Dogs, get them out of the bedroom.
Even if they're hyper allergic.
They carry dust mites.
They don't carry it.
So you want to get the animals out of the bedroom.
For a while, you know,
okay.
I tell me, you know, the animals on farm, they live in the barn.
They don't live in your.
You just have to talk to kids on a kid friendly level.
But then you can do little simple exercises for take a breathing
exercises.
And then they can take a lot of rest.
They can take a lot of rest.
They can keep their lips together.
With their head and count and see how many numbers they can count
or how many steps they can take.
And then when they have to breathe.
They breathe through their nose.
And then pretty soon the brain gets it.
That you have to breathe through your nose.
So it's a really important.
That they use their diaphragm too.
They use their diaphragm.
And they use their diaphragm.
And then they use their muscle that goes around the waist.
What we just teach them to breathe very small breath.
Very low.
So you see your diaphragm and slow.
Do you teach them to put their hands on it?
So they know where it is.
Yeah.
Mom, mom can put their hand on the stomach and make,
make my hands move.
And then they can lay on the couch and put a book on their belly
and see if they can use that book and go up.
But you can retrain the breathing.
It's really important.
That's me at Mayo Clinic and, you know,
a lot of schools are trying really hard to, you know,
isolate the exercises and make them.
And then they can put their hands on the stomach and go up.
Into, you know,
Proper.
So we work in a team with the patient.
And it works.
It should be considered the treatment of sleep disorder,
breathing malocclusion.
What can a parent do?
So.
A parent.
And the child that is the child.
They're trying to find a way to treat children.
For their child.
That is airway focused.
There are quite a few now that are starting to learn how to treat.
Children early.
Okay.
That's really important.
For children.
For an older child or an adult.
Find a myofunctional therapist.
That's the most important part.
For those who want to learn more about the disease.
What can we do to help them get out of bed and get out of bed.
It's really important to learn more about the profession because the
medical profession today.
Is still in the dark ages.
I just, uh,
listen to.
A sleep, research, meeting.
Powerpoint presentation.
There wasn't anything on retraining.
It was a lot of cognitive behavior, things,
but.
I was like, wait a minute.
Yeah, what is that?
There's a reason why I know with my son, Brian,
when he was little, my friends would say,
what's wrong with him?
You need to give him a spanking.
And I'm like, no, there's something wrong with him.
And I want to find out what it is and fix it.
So he has a chance in the world, you know,
to learn and play and make friends and do.
And drive, yeah.
And that goes back to that advocacy thing
that we talked about.
Can we go back a couple of slides?
Because you mentioned something about this multi,
that one, the multi-disciplinary.
How do we get here?
I mean, this is, I know back so long ago,
we split off in med school and everybody goes
and picks their path.
Well, how do we get back?
I mean, the DOs are a dying breed.
So no one else is looking at it holistically.
I know, you know, Virginia Johnson
doesn't have a whole lot of students with her.
So until we get more DOs, how do we get to this?
Well, it's the pediatricians are the ones
that have to change because parents listen to pediatricians.
The pediatricians of all have to recognize tongue tie early.
Okay.
If you recognize it, when the baby is first born
and you release that tongue and the mother's breastfeeding,
it'll make breastfeeding so much more comfortable
and easy to do.
Productive, right.
Yeah, it takes so long to breastfeed a baby if they're tied
and maybe they'll get you, the mother gets used to it,
you know, but it's not the way mother nature wanted it.
And I get this question asked all the time,
why are there so many tongue ties?
You don't know, we think it's,
the skulls are getting smaller and the tissue is still there.
And I always say when you live in civilization,
you have to use what civilization offers
to stay ahead of the problems.
And getting a tongue release can make a huge difference.
Now, if they're not breastfeeding anymore,
you need to do myofunctional therapy
or wait till the child's at least two and a half to three
where they can do some exercises.
Okay.
If you cut it when they're,
say they're one and a half
and they're not breastfeeding anymore,
you got a big chance that it's gonna scar down,
it's gonna reattach with scar tissue.
And so if you can do it at the first five days, you know,
right, if it's too late for that,
then wait till they're two and a half
until they can start doing some exercises that are fun.
The kids like doing myofunctional therapy exercise.
It's hard to find a good myofunctional therapist.
If you go to AOMT,
we have a real good training
that will enable a speech pathologist
or a hygienist or a physical therapist
or occupational therapist to get good training.
There are some people that teach with the IAOM
that have good programs as well.
But find somebody, if you can,
if you can't find anybody,
you can find people online to do it.
I have my own office
and I prefer people to come in person,
but if they can't come, I'd say with COVID,
I'd say three quarters of my patients were on Zoom.
Oh, wow.
You did good.
We did really well.
I stayed open through the whole thing.
But a lot of them are telepractice now
because patients don't wanna drive
and interact with people anymore.
Well, and it's easier too with kids.
It's just easier.
You bring them home from school,
you could do this and then carry on.
The good therapist will make it fun
and play with the child to make it not feel like a chore,
but they can hold things in their mouth while they watch TV.
We teach proper chewing.
So both sides.
Both sides.
And chew it until it's real soft
and then teach them how to gather the bolus
and swallow correctly.
We also teach them to breathe through their nose
and why it's important.
You know, it depends on the age of the child.
If they're in sports,
this will totally improve their sports performance.
So a lot of kids will do it for that.
A lot of kids are looking at how they look,
especially teenage teenagers.
They want their lower jaw to come forward.
They want definition in their face.
And they want straight teeth.
They want their teeth to be straight or to stay straight.
And they want no pain.
They wanna get rid of their headaches.
They wanna be able to go to sleep at night
without crying for an hour in bed and screaming.
I don't wanna go to sleep, you know,
waking their parents up.
That's heartbreaking.
It's a family disease.
It is.
It is a family disease.
It's not just the child.
The repercussions are with everyone.
With everyone and other siblings, everyone.
That's how my heart got involved
because he saw what happened.
Ah.
That makes total sense.
And I will definitely put-
Man, that's Brian had a headache.
Oh.
And I'll put links to the AOMT and the IOMN,
our show notes so people can go and check it out.
And just, you know, quickly, do you recommend
if you have a child,
you know, specifically a tongue tie,
an older child obviously,
an infant's not gonna have this option,
but to do mild functional therapy before and after?
Yeah.
You have to.
Because if you don't do anything before,
and you just cut it, it's gonna reattach.
You're not gonna get as good of treatment.
If you stretch the tongue,
get the tongue stretched to the limit,
and then release it,
then you'll be able to get the better result.
Okay, which makes sense.
And then afterwards, you'll do follow-up exercises.
Okay, just to keep it and make sure-
Yeah, we usually do-
Kind of maintenance.
At least a month of therapy first,
and then we have specialized post-surgery exercises,
and then we go into the regular therapy.
The therapy that I do,
I would see them weekly for about three months,
not that other week for a couple of months,
and then every three weeks,
and we slowly titrate over a period of time
to make sure that it's habituated.
There's-
Okay.
First, we isolate and activate all the muscles of the tongue,
and we go into proper chewing and swallowing,
even in your sleep, how you're swallowing.
And then work on posture, reeducation.
Once the tongue is free,
you can change the first three vertebrae.
Everything, which is amazing to me.
And then-
And once it's done, it's done though.
You don't have to-
These aren't exercises they have to do
for the rest of their lives.
No, no, because it changed the function.
Right, it's just kind of innate at that point.
So just good.
And I know this is a, it's really an opinion,
but we're starting to see, it feels like,
I mean, I know this has been a slow motion.
You know, this started 10 years ago,
but suddenly it feels like this conversation
is being moved to the forefront.
And we're having more conversations about breathing
and airway and sleep,
especially when it comes to children.
Where do you think we're gonna be as far as medicine,
the next five to 10 years?
Well, we have the science now,
and we're getting more and more and more science.
The problem is it takes a doctor 10 years
to accept anything new coming along.
Very good.
They have to hear it again and again.
They have to see it at their conventions.
They have to read it in their journals.
They have to have a child that has that problem themselves.
And then they start owning it.
You know, one doctor at a time is gonna,
but I see eventually,
myofunctional therapy will be its own program.
Right now it's postgraduate training
for speech pathologists, dental hygienists,
physical therapists, occupational therapists, doctors,
dentists, you know, chiropractors.
But it needs to be its own program
and it needs to encompass everything, you know,
the pulmonology, the dentistry,
and it needs to be involved in everything.
And it is kind of on that deotrack
to where it needs to be.
It's its own profession,
and maybe a master's program.
But that takes time.
It takes time to develop a new type of therapy
because we're dealing with the insurance companies,
we're dealing with a lot of resistance
because people are making a lot of money with pharmaceuticals
and making a lot of money with surgeries
and making a lot of money.
Attractive braces.
Yup.
Not that braces are bad,
but you want to get the function and the structure
of working together at the same time.
Before you put on retractive braces
and we pull it all back and just compound the issue.
Yeah, you don't want to extract permanent teeth.
The ideal is to have all 32 of your teeth,
even the wisdom teeth, to have an artist develop.
And eventually they're going to find ways to do that.
For everyone.
We're going to be in a flux, a big change
because of sleep disorders.
Sleep disorders affect so many people.
You know, car accidents and all of that.
So we need to really up the ante here.
Agreed.
So at the end of every episode,
I am in the habit of,
I mean, I know we just did this amazing presentation,
but just to hand it back so that you have the last word
to leave with parents.
Maybe whatever we haven't covered
or just what you think is just the critical important
piece to leave them with.
That the old fashioned way was the best,
you know, as far as breastfeeding
and letting a baby eat off your plate.
And it's changed.
Even if your child is 17 years old,
there's still hope because it's worse now than it ever was.
And I think a lot of it is you're adding computers
and cell phones and texting and heavy backpacks
at waist 60 pounds.
And you know,
heavy backpacks at waist 60 pounds on their back
and then, and they're texting while they walk.
You know,
but the assaults are different now when processed foods
and chemicals and artificial meat and, you know,
to eat real food is best.
And to value sleep and try to support sleep habits
that are good.
Breathing is key.
Key to everything.
Eating.
Eating real food.
Of course, breastfeeding.
When you have baby as long as possible.
If you have a problem with breastfeeding,
it's generally a tongue tie.
And there are help with lactation consultants out there
and people that are doing baby, Maya.
All of them to help prevent problem.
Prevention is the key.
Really.
It's key.
Prevention is key.
It is.
If we can early prevent it.
And then, you know,
support other people, other mothers to get the right treatment
for their children as well.
That's huge.
I cannot thank you enough for coming on and sharing.
I mean, at least I would,
I would imagine other parents will think the same thing,
but it was like just this little mini master class and my,
oh, and I appreciate it. Thank you so much, Joy.
My, um, my website, you know,
and joy molar.com.
Okay.
I'd be happy to answer any questions for you.
Absolutely.
I will put that on there.
Thank you.
I think it's a little bit better.
Take care.
And happy breathing, everyone.
Thank you.