Co2llaborative Care + Research currently has a waitlist for new patient inquiries (excluding infants). Please call 250-438-2273 for more information
youth + adults
( AGES 9 + UP)
hello and welcome
“Success in any endeavour is about the full release of human possibility”
-Steve Macadam.
After years of our body adapting to undesirable habits of how we breathe, swallow, and chew, the body forms with adaptations to asymmetry. We may not realize there is another possibility for us and the impact of alignment on our oral and cranial development is real.
Myofunctional Disorders
"Orofacial Myofunctional Disorders (OMDs) affect the functions and muscles of the mouth and face. OMDs can cause a variety of effects either directly or indirectly. From problems breastfeeding, stunted facial skeletal growth and development, disordered chewing, swallowing, speech impediments, malocclusion, temporomandibular joint movement/disorders, poor oral hygiene, stability of orthodontic treatment, facial aesthetics, and more. Many people mouth-breathe more than they should. As a result, the muscles and the orofacial functions tend to adapt to a disordered breathing pattern, which in turn creates many OMDs." The Breathe Institute
What our team looks for.
Eyes that are unlevel or show the whites beneath the iris. The eyes relate to an important butterfly-shaped bone that connects with all other bones in the skull. If the eyes are unlevel, this is a signal to assess what else is out of balance.
Ears that are unlevel can be a sign of the temporal bones of the skull being positioned in ways that create strains in our skull. The socket for our TM Joint is also formed in this bone. Unlevel or flared ears may be an indication that the TM Joint is also affected by asymmetrical positioning. This may show up as a one-sided jaw click or even pain.
Shoulders that are uneven may indicate spinal asymmetry, which can result from a problem that rises up from the lower body or down from the head. Our Care Team includes bodywork healthcare professionals for this reason. We are all connected, not just as a society, but as a whole-body form. Since the airway runs in front of the spine, twists and bends in the spine may also affect the path of our airway.
Mouth indications of low tongue posture. We look for signs of the tongue sitting low in the mouth or between the teeth. Without our tongue at rest fully in the palate of our upper jaw, the forces of muscles of our cheeks have nothing to stop them from pressing in on our upper jawbone and teeth. If we use our cheeks to swallow or our lips pull in tight, we can be affecting an inward pull of our teeth with every swallow (up to 2500 times per day). Low tongue posture and swallowing with our cheeks and lips can create the appearance of teeth that tip towards the inside of our mouth. We will also usually see a high-arched shape to the roof of mouth, which makes us wonder how you might be breathing. The roof of the mouth is the floor of the nasal cavity. Therefore, a narrower jaw will mean you have a narrower nasal cavity, which may make nasal breathing difficult for you. If this is the case, and especially if you breathe heavily and exercise with your mouth open, the force of the muscles against the jawbone, combined with a narrow nasal cavity will continue to reinforce this effect on your jaws and breathing. The longer this goes on, the smaller your upper jaw will be in relation to adult teeth that need more room than baby teeth. Any sign of crowding of teeth, especially if the lateral incisors (just off the front centre teeth) are crowded behind the two front teeth, we have concerns about how your tongue posture is helping to develop your airway and breathing habits.
Tongue + Lips attachments to your jawbones. If the top lip has a tight pull, it may have our upper lip to form in a reverse-u shape. This makes it difficult for our lower lip to close up to it. It also may have made open mouth posture, and mouth breathing, a physical habit.
schedule your myofunctional care online
Getting Started
We require some important information about you and/or your child's health prior to the initial appointment. Please create a login on our patient software and fill out your child’s medical and dental forms. We will also send you separate questionnaires relating to sleep, feeding and any of your concerns.
It may feel as though some of these questionnaires overlap at some points, so please make note if you feel you have already answered that question, and we will refer to that section.
Making Our Evaluations
We use the 2019 Validated Grading System to assess the Functional Range of Motion ratio of your tongue. We have studied this for several years now and are highly attuned to note the compensations your body may have allowed in order to compensate for a restricted tongue or lip tie. This might mean having downturned corners of the mouth or raised lower front teeth (especially in a curved shape), tense muscles of the chin, a bottom lip that curls over itself, a jaw swing from center on opening our mouth, or even sticking our jaw out as we open. One common compensation is that the floor of our mouth lifts up when we lift our tongue. This means that the tissues lifting from below the chin into our mouths are pulling on everything connected to them lower down in the body. If we see a high-grade tongue range of motion and one shoulder higher than the other, we become suspicious of what else our body systems are doing to adapt to this all through our lives.
In addition to our thorough health and dental history review, we will combine our observations with the images and videos collected during our visit. This will allow Dr. Pada to discuss her recommendations for treatment. We will also recommend other colleagues we would like to work with for your overall health.
Our Care
"How are you going to give a “one size fits all” solution to a multifactorial problem?"
-Dr. Soroush Zaghi
Health, symmetry, and function through collaborative care and research is our strategy when it comes to our patients. Therefore, our approach to your Myofunctional Care individualized with several methods of treatment and therapy available to you. This includes:
-
Microbiome Testing
-
Oral Lesion Monitoring
-
Fascia Release and Craniosacral Therapy
-
ALF Appliance
-
Guided Biofilm Therapy
