Waterford Dental

Myofunctional Therapy

Welcome to Waterford Dental, where we strive to transform smiles and improve children’s overall health and well-being in Bennington, NE. Led by Dr. Melissa Nensel and Dr. Mason Rasmussen, our practice specializes in Myofunctional Therapy in Bennington. We believe in nurturing good oral habits, proper growth, and healthy sleep for your little ones, laying the foundation for a lifetime of beautiful smiles and well-being.

What is Myofunctional Therapy?

Myofunctional Orthodontics is a holistic approach to pediatric dental care beyond traditional dentistry. It is centered around the concept that the proper development of a child’s oral cavity, including teeth, jaws, and airway, plays a crucial role in their overall health and well-being. Myofunctional Orthodontics aims to create a harmonious balance between all these elements, ensuring your child’s smile looks great and functions optimally. It recognizes that many dental issues are not isolated but often linked to larger systemic health concerns.

Does Your Child Have an Airway Issue?

Is your child experiencing unexplained airway problems? Common signs such as snoring, bedwetting, restlessness, and difficulty concentrating might indicate an undiagnosed airway issue. Quality sleep is crucial for children’s overall health, yet around 40% of kids aged 4-10 face sleep problems, often linked to airway complications. Addressing these problems early is vital, as they can lead to significant health issues in adulthood. Snoring, often mistaken as sound sleep, indicates airway obstruction, reducing oxygen intake and potentially causing behavioral and emotional problems. Children are sometimes misdiagnosed with ADHD when their underlying issue is a sleep disorder.

Oxygen deprivation signs include various behavioral and physical problems, such as teeth grinding, mouth breathing, and difficulty concentrating. These issues, if left untreated, can escalate into conditions like sleep apnea, hypertension, cancer, diabetes, and Alzheimer’s, significantly affecting the quality of life and lifespan. Detecting and treating these problems in childhood is critical, as it can prevent severe health conditions later on. Dentists and Myofunctional Therapists specializing in this field can diagnose and treat these disorders using methods like myofunctional therapy, breathing retraining, and myofunctional orthodontics. Recognizing and addressing the signs is key to ensuring a child’s healthy development.

Our Approach to Myofunctional Dentistry

At Waterford Dental, our team takes a proactive, patient-centered approach to your dental care. We begin by thoroughly evaluating your oral health, including your bite, jaw function, airway, and muscle activity. This comprehensive evaluation allows us to identify any underlying issues contributing to your dental problems.

We believe in addressing the root causes of dental issues, not just treating the symptoms. Whether you are dealing with teeth grinding, jaw pain, sleep apnea, or other dental concerns, our dentists will work with you to develop a personalized treatment plan to improve your overall health and well-being.

What Can Myofunctional Therapy Help Address?

Myofunctional therapy addresses and corrects improper oral and facial muscle functions, collectively known as oral myofunctional disorders (OMDs). These disorders can affect various aspects of a person’s health and well-being. The goals of myofunctional therapy include:

Correcting Mouth Breathing

Myofunctional therapy helps individuals switch from mouth to nasal breathing, the natural and healthier way to breathe. Mouth breathing can lead to issues like dry mouth, bad breath, and poor oxygen intake.

Improving Tongue Posture

Proper tongue posture against the roof of the mouth is crucial for various functions, including swallowing, speaking, and breathing. Myofunctional therapy helps individuals achieve and maintain correct tongue posture.

Correcting Swallowing Patterns

Some individuals have incorrect swallowing patterns, known as tongue thrusts. Myofunctional therapy helps retrain the muscles involved in swallowing to prevent issues like speech problems and dental misalignments.

Enhancing Speech

Myofunctional therapy can aid speech therapy by addressing muscle-related speech issues, leading to clearer and more articulate speech patterns.

Preventing Dental Issues

Myofunctional therapy can help prevent or alleviate dental problems such as misaligned teeth and bite issues by addressing improper oral habits and muscle functions.

Alleviating TMJ Disorders

Myofunctional therapy exercises can help relax and strengthen the muscles around the temporomandibular joint (TMJ), potentially reducing pain and discomfort associated with TMJ disorders.

Improving Facial Esthetics

Proper muscle balance and function contribute to balanced facial features. Myofunctional therapy can help enhance facial esthetics by promoting proper muscle tone and symmetry.

Enhancing Overall Health

Myofunctional therapy is often used in conjunction with treatments for sleep-disordered breathing conditions like sleep apnea. Myofunctional therapy can improve sleep quality and overall health by improving airway function and breathing patterns.

Promoting Long-Term Stability

Myofunctional therapy addresses existing issues and aims to provide long-term stability by retraining muscles and promoting healthy oral habits.

Healthy Start: Building a Foundation for Lifelong Health

The cornerstone of our practice is Healthy Start. This innovative and effective approach addresses a wide range of oral health issues in children, with a primary focus on:

Good Oral Habits

Healthy Start teaches kids to maintain good oral habits from a young age. It involves using soft, removable appliances that train the tongue and guide the teeth into proper alignment. The tongue is a powerful muscle that plays a crucial role in jaw growth and development. We establish healthy habits that last a lifetime by training the tongue to be in the correct position during sleep.

Proper Growth

Proper growth of the oral cavity is essential for ensuring that adult teeth come in straight, with enough space, and for maintaining a healthy airway. Through Healthy Start, we help guide this growth, allowing for a more harmonious and functional smile.

Healthy Airway and Sleep

Uninterrupted, restful sleep is vital for a child’s growth, development, and behavior. Healthy Start promotes nasal breathing, which is key to achieving healthy, restful sleep. By ensuring your child breathes properly at night, we contribute to their overall well-being.

Minimized Need for Retainers

Unlike traditional braces that move teeth after they have erupted, Healthy Start focuses on guiding teeth into their proper positions as they emerge. This guide often eliminates the need for retainers for life, simplifying your child’s dental care journey.

Is Healthy Start Right for Your Child?

Healthy Start is suitable for children of various ages, but the ideal time to start is between 3-5 years. Starting early allows us to address and correct bad habits and ensure that appliances are in place before the first permanent tooth erupts. However, children of all ages can benefit, and we will tailor our approach to meet their specific needs.