From Dental Hygiene To Myo

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My name is Angela Richwine, and I am a retired dental hygienist. I've been in the dental field for over 30 years, and, um, I stepped out of that role to become a myofunctional therapist. So the name of my business, and I just recently rebranded to, it's called Renew Myo, but it used to be called Central Virginia OMT, and the OMT stands for Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy. It's a mouthful. Yeah. And we-- my practice is located in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Awesome. Can you take us back to the beginning of your journey? What originally drew you into dental hygiene, and then how did you discover myofunctional therapy? What a great... Oh, wow. We're really, we're really going back. Throwback here. When I was, uh, 19... I graduated high school in, at a young 17. Went off to college for two years and played sports, D1 athlete. And then my parents moved from Florida up to Virginia, and I was in college in Georgia. And I, I knew that Florida was, wasn't really my home anymore, and I just had a sense of not really f-feeling like I belonged anywhere. So I, I stopped attending college and moved up to Virginia where my parents were, and went back to school. But prior to registering for finishing my first two years of, of college I worked at TGI Fridays as a 19-year-old. And one of the hosts or one of the servers there, she was a dental assistant. And every single weekend that I worked with her, I always had questions. I always had questions. And she's like, "Angela, you know what? You keep on asking me questions. That's all we ever talk about. Can't we talk about anything else?" I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Okay, sure. But what about bleaching our teeth?" And, and all sorts of things. I was 19. So that was over 30 years ago. And so she's, she says, "You know what? Why don't you just come to my office, just apply. They'll train you on the job, be a dental assistant, and then you'll find out more." So I did. And then about six years, mm, excuse me, four years as a dental assistant, one of the hygienists said, "Angela, you really should be a hygienist. You really should." So I said, "Oh, okay." So I went to hygiene school, graduated, and then became a dental hygienist. I got married to a Marine, and that moved us out to the West Coast. I took my boards out in California. I worked out in town, also on base. Came back to Virginia, did a couple other moves, started having children. And it wasn't until our firstborn, we have three boys, but it wasn't until the firstborn did I realize and recognize how many myofunctional disorders this poor little baby had. And I was a new mom, and I had no idea what was going on. And none of my doctors could help me. And they said that he went under, uh, general anesthesia twice before he was three years old. And one was to put ear tubes in. Another was to probe his eye tear ducts and-- because they just kept on getting clogged. Well, it was his anatomy. It wa-- He was a mouth breather. He was a horrible... he did horribly latching breastfeeding, and I was always-- And then I was in pain. I saw stars. Nursing my child was supposed to be a great bonding experience, and it just wasn't. It just was not. So child number two comes around, and a completely different experience. So something was going on, but I didn't know what because I was a v- a young mom of two kids and a husband who was on deployment. So I had no idea what was going on. When my now ex-husband came home and he was with the kids, I went away for a continuing education course in Virginia, and we were stationed in North Carolina at this time. And I had two kids under the age of three, and we ended up, I ended up taking a class that introduced me to myofunctional therapy. So I've been learning about myofunctional therapy for about, mm- 19 years. And it's just been a wild journey learning about it and all the research that is now coming out supporting breastfeeding moms and the airway and people not sleeping, and not just insomnia, but snoring, teeth grinding. And that brought me and my dental hygiene-trained mind like, this just isn't right. But we're, we're not taught this in school. We're just not taught. We know what a tongue tie looks like, and that's that restriction under the tongue that goes all the way to the tip of the tongue, and you just can't lift the tongue. You can't really... Your, your functional movements are very limited, and that was my child, and nobody caught it. His life has just been an awakening for me. And for all of those years that I was in the medical offices back to back, I wanna be there now, and I am there now, like literally holding hands and crying with moms, helping them get through and navigating to the correct providers who can help them and their children thrive and grow and not have these sleepless nights and these, poor growth patterns and myofunctional disorders. Yeah. And that's, that was a long explanation to your- little question, but that's where I started. Um- Mm-hmm dental hygiene and moving from coast to coast,

A Mom Looking For Answers

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and then, and how it really led me into myofunctional therapy was really my own child- taking that CE course. I feel like, I felt like at that time that she was talking directly to me. And all of these little red flags that nobody saw, but I just knew something wasn't right, something was wr- wasn't right, and I just went to doctor after doctor, and they're like, "No, let's put him on this medication and that medication." So- Yeah yeah. And then how did it feel when you finally found the answers to, what you had been or what you knew, you know, something wasn't right with your child? How did it feel, you know, when you found the answer? The answer came by the third child. Mm. And the third child was 10 years old. Wow. And or I'll ref- I guess I could go back a little bit, but I noticed only these things in my oldest son. My middle son, he was he-- Have you ever seen people stick their tongue out of their mouth and they can touch their nose? Yeah. Okay. He was one of those. And my oldest, he could create... Have you ever seen anybody who could make their tongue into the shape of a clover? Yes. Okay. That's my son. So he's like, "Mom, if I get a tongue-tie..." He's 22 now. "If I get a tongue-tie release am I never gonna be able to do this cool party trick?" And he just graduated college. Wow. But no, he has not had a tongue-tie release yet. Um, but it wasn't until my third child. He's, uh, 16 now. Wow. And he, he got an expander, and I had to push the orthodontist out of his comfort zone and put a second expander into- Mm his mouth because he outgrew the first expander. But in my eye, knowing what I knew, it wasn't-- His palate was not wide enough for his tongue to comfortably rest in it. And that's what we want. Yeah. We want that tongue to rest comfortably in the palate. Mm-hmm. And not my oldest child, nor my youngest, but I'm glad that I was able to help the youngest one- get through these things- Yeah the way that I couldn't help my oldest, 'cause I just did- didn't have awareness. Mm-hmm. Nor did the providers that I saw. Yeah. And for someone who has never heard the term myofunctional therapy, how would you explain what it is and what kinds of concerns it can help people address?

What Myofunctional Therapy Treats

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Yeah. Thank you. Myo means muscle, so myofunctional, the function of the muscle, and orofacial is the mouth and the head, so the face. So all of the muscles above your collarbone. Myofunctional, the function of the muscles supporting the mouth and the face. So we work with those who have mouth breathing, snoring, sleep apnea, tongue ties, tongue thrusts. We have a lot of, um, speech and language pathologists who are in the field as well, um, and with the knowledge of orofacial myofunctional therapy. And it's, it's really coming down to allowing the individual to breathe well, sleep well, and to be able to have that attention span that mouth breathing just doesn't allow you to have because you're not-- your body is not inhaling through the nose, which is your body's natural filtration system. And being able to have proper function of the facial muscles supporting the mouth and the airway, that's what's going to help our bodies continue to thrive. What are some symptoms that you see or you treat when Something is not right Mostly mouth breathing. Mm-hmm. We have a lot of parents who are now becoming hyper-aware of mouth breathing and also snoring. There are parents who will say, "Oh, what a cute little position that, you know, little Johnny is sleeping in the crib," and the body is, uh, the back is arched- Mm or and the head is arched upward and backward, or maybe the child is sleeping, "Oh, listen to that cute little snore. Oh, it's so sweet." And it's not something that we want our children to be doing. Mm-hmm and, you know, there are a lot of families who will say, "Oh, yeah." You know, mom will say, or the grandmother will then say, "Oh, yeah, you did that, and you turned out okay." And yeah, but you've had a lot of compensations that you've grown into and learned how to adapt to over the years. And, you know, do you have a crick in your neck, or do you have back pain, lower back pain? Are you walking on your toes? Are you just sleeping and tossing and turning at nighttime? And that's also something that we hear a lot from our parents is the tossing and turning or maybe even bedwetting. Bedwetting, I've, um, clients who are 10, 11, 12 years old who are still wetting the bed, and they shouldn't be. And then we also see adults who are still sucking their thumbs, and it's, it's the nervous system that has not been able to rest and reset because the sleep is not good. Mm-hmm. And we want that sleep. So there's a lot of red flags that we see in the practice, and a lot of it comes to, down to the mouth breathing, poor sleep patterns those bedwetting, thumb sucking or digit sucking. Some kids suck on, you know, their index finger or their middle finger or just the thumb. Or maybe they need the pacifier. It's overextended use of the pacifier, which then forms the mouth in an inadequate way or shape to where the tongue just does not fit in the palate even more because it's becomes a high and narrow palate. And then we need to somehow stop that habit so that the mouth can reform. Yeah. Now, there are some orthodontic appliances that can be used, and there are some, uh, other devices that can be used, but the number one thing that we need to look for is can this child, and now adult, because of those adapting to those com- compensations over the years, is the airway. Mm-hmm. We just need to breathe through the nose, the device that was given to us on purpose. Mm-hmm. It's the body's natural filtration system. Yeah. And then what are some of the orthodontic devices that can be used to help with that?

Palatal Expanders And Tongue Ties

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Great question. Wow. So we can start super young, under five, for orthodontic appliances, and those can be fixed in the mouth, meaning that they can be glued onto the teeth. And yes, they can be placed on baby teeth. We do not have to wait until the adult teeth have grown in. And these devices are either going to be a growth guidance device or maybe a palatal expander. The-- There are a lot of devices, types of palatal expansion devices, uh, that require manual turning with what's called a key or a screw or maybe a wrench or something that that orthodontists and now dentists who are trained in palatal expansion devices, now they are offering their patients these as well. I don't know if you can hear in my mouth, I, I'm speaking kind of like with a little bit of a lisp that I have a palatal expander in my mouth, and this is because this is now my sixth device- Wow orthodontic device, and I am mid-century years old that I I'm finally doing this for me because as a mom, we always put our kids first, right? Mm-hmm. Family always comes first. Moms always get the back burner, and that's okay. But this palatal expander that I have in my mouth is not removable. It's fixed, as in the bands are cemented onto my back molars, the upper back teeth, but it's also screwed into my palate- with tads, and they're little anchor- anchorage devices so that when I turn this palatal expander, it will separate my maxilla, and the maxilla has two bones, and that's your upper jaw. And it's split right down the center of your nose, all the way down between your two front teeth. And if you think about Your tongue. So if you put your tongue into the roof of your mouth- right now, it's like, um, kind of a little bit of a rounded area. Okay. So think about, take a deep breath in through your nose And your tongue is up there, uh, up in the roof of the mouth. You share that bone with your nose. So the floor of your nose is also the roof of your mouth. There's one thin piece of bone there. Okay? And that's where those TADS, those anchorage devices, are screwed into. So when you separate, the entire maxilla separates, and then that's a suture split. Your cranium, your head, the skeleton has 22 bones. Each and every one of those bones moves, even the ones that are part of your eye socket, and you have several in there, and everything moves. The thing that that I see a lot with orthodontists is that they'll put a palatal expander in on the upper, but nothing will be placed on the lower And what we were told, uh, there's some research on it, but, and clinical understanding that the mandible, the lower jaw, will grow and follow the direction of that maxilla, but that doesn't happen to everybody, and it's limited to the function of the muscles, which is when the myofunctional therapist needs to come in and help out with this. But the mandible will only grow so much and so far if there's a restriction like a tongue tie. So we don't want to release a tongue tie until we have space in the palate, in the maxilla, so that the tongue will be able to know what to do and where to go after we release the tongue. So that's where your myofunctional therapist comes in, because we help to train the tongue and strengthen those muscles and understand where the function of these, all of these muscles, what they're gonna do and where they're supposed to go. Mm-hmm. So that after the tongue is released, it's just this whole freedom- where this tongue is like, "Hey, let's-" Yeah. go on a carnival ride. Let's go here and there and everywhere." And no, we need to make sure that it's, it's functioning and that it's healing the right way. Mm-hmm. We want, we want proper wound healing. We want that tissue to have the least amount of scar tissue as possible. Mm-hmm. So your myofunctional therapist helps you with that. I really veered from your question. I get on one topic and I just wanna keep going. That's okay. No, I-- And then my next question was gonna be, you work with, you work in tandem with other healthcare professionals to treat certain conditions or symptoms. What are certain conditions or symptoms that you do treat with other healthcare professionals?

Building A Whole Care Team

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Yeah. Great question. So if, say that a I-- we receive referrals- Mm-hmm from healthcare providers from maybe an otolaryngologist or an ENT provider. Mm-hmm. Maybe an orthodontist who has, um, the awareness of how myofunctional therapy can help with, um, without-- so that there's no orthodontic relapse for, say, maybe an open bite. Where an open bite is when the back teeth will touch, but the front teeth don't come together. It-- you could stick your tongue straight through, or maybe imagine biting into a sandwich- Mm-hmm and all you get is bread. You don't get the inside of the sandwich, right? How unsatisfying is that? And that's an open bite. Um, so an orthodontist, dentists will refer as well. Um, but if a patient comes to us, to my office first, I'll be able to see what's going on and to see if I need to refer them to an orthodontist- Mm-hmm um, to create more space. Or maybe a dentist who provides these palatal expansion devices which can go all-- my oldest client is s- 70 70 years old. And and we're doing palatal expansion on them. Which is wonderful. You're never too old in that you're cleared by the dentist- Mm-hmm um, by taking clinical by just gathering all the data. Yeah. We take X-rays one that's called a CBCT. It's a cone beam, like an MRI, kind of a CT scan. Mm-hmm. And that's taken in, in the dental office. So the dentists are a huge collaboration with myofunctional therapists, ANTs, orthodontists. We have a lot of body professionals who like occupational therapists, physical therapists, craniosacral therapists. We have speech and language pathologists as well. Uh, body professionals are a big deal, especially when it comes to toe walking tethered tissue, primitive ref- reflexes and it's the whole picture. Mm-hmm. Uh, I w- I would love to be able to say that if you have a tongue tie or a myofunctional disorder, that it's, yeah, one s- one stop and boom, you get this, this, and this. But that's not how it is, unfortunately, and there are just far too many specialties out there that can play a part, like a, a piece of the puzzle. It's so interesting how when something isn't right in one part of our body, our body tends to compensate in different parts that we wouldn't ever expect. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sleeping is just a big deal, too. Yeah. Such a big deal. So there are still many healthcare professionals and families who aren't familiar with myofunctional therapy.

Why Airway Awareness Lags

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Why do you think there's still such a big gap in awareness? I think it all stems from the healthcare curriculum. Airway awareness is just not taught in healthcare curriculum. So- Mm-hmm we can't really, uh, put blame on the physicians out there. However, when they attend their annual conferences, more and more professionals, healthcare professionals, are getting up on the podium and delivering information, research. It's up to the participants sitting there listening to believe it. Mm-hmm. And to actually absorb it and not push it away. And to have- Yeah that open-mindedness to be able to say, instead of, "Well, I didn't learn it in school, so, you know, this is pseudoscience. This is false information," because it's not. It's not. There are different levels of research, and the top researchers are making sure that everything is validated. It's, it's out there. It's out there. It's not pseudoscience. We just have to be open to understanding it, accepting it- Mm-hmm and then understand it, and then learn- Yeah uh, more about it. And what I've found in our profession, in the airway profession Mostly in dental, and then it has stemmed off into more body workers and more ENTs are coming on board. There are more and more orthodontists that I'm seeing, is we, as in the those who are aware of the airway more and more and trying to help other healthcare providers see this, I get doors closed on me all the time. I'm knocking on so many doors, and it's just whether or not they're ready to say, instead of saying, "Oh no, don't answer. Everybody quiet in the room." It's saying, "Come on in." Mm-hmm. Because we know that all you wanna do is help these, everybody in our community. And what's the why? And let's find the root cause of why instead of slapping medication on it. Big pharma really is driving so many physicians into just saying, "Okay, well let's treat this symptom." Mm-hmm. "And let's treat this symptom." And it's... they don't have the time to really sit there with a patient and listen. It's, and it's, it's something that we just don't do. It's like let- writing letters now. We just don't write letters anymore. It's, we just don't really sit there and listen to... we don't hear what they're saying. They're saying, "Well, I'm not sleeping well. I'm having a hard time falling asleep." "Okay. Well, here you go. Here's some Ambien." Why aren't you falling asleep? Have you had a sleep study? What can we do to figure out the why? What are your vitamin levels like? What are you depleting? What, how is your diet? What... You know, these are the questions that, that myofunctional therapists and body professionals are asking more and more. And I feel like... and a lot of airway providers are asking this because they see the big picture. And they wanna find the root cause. But, um, I find that we are, as a whole, I think it stems from our curriculum, and more textbooks are starting to be written, and more education platforms are coming out there for these healthcare providers to say, "Okay, I think it's time." Yeah. The seeds have been planted, and that's just what we wanna do. And as a myofunctional therapist, all I wanna do is get the local providers in my area educated on this so that I don't have to keep referring my patients, you know, an hour to two hours away. Yeah. And that's what I have to do to get the treatment that they deserve. So education is a big passion of yours.

Common But Not Normal Signs

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What has the educational side of your work taught you about where the healthcare field is headed? Wow. So in dental hygiene school, it took four years to, to get my dental hygiene degree. And, uh, a lot of people think, "Oh, yeah, well, you just clean teeth." No, there's so much more about it. Um, I volunteer at, uh, VCU Dental Hygiene Program, and I am on the American Dental or the Virginia Dental Hygienist Association platforms. I've volunteered on other airway platforms to get into different schools to... for dental hygiene programs, to be able to at least talk to these new hygienists and graduating hygienists, as well as the professors there, the signs and symptoms of what we can see in the dental chair. But it just doesn't even stop there. The education that we can give as those who are educated in this now, that we can offer our knowledge as a starting point to not just those who look inside of the mouth, but those who look at the whole body. Because if you have these imbalances in the body, then one shoulder's gonna be higher than the other. Maybe your head is tilted one way or the other. Education is a, is a pretty big deal to just be able to recognize so that... we know in the dental field that if you look into the mouth and you see the tongue has these imprints on the lateral borders of the tongue, those are called scalloped borders. Anybody can see them. Anybody at all. Like, if I were to open my mouth right now- Mm-hmm. and you were to... Like, if I were to just yawn- Mm-hmm and you would see these scalloped borders on my tongue, you'd be like, "Oh, well, that's an interesting," not tattoo on your tongue, but that's an interesting little shape that you have on your tongue. Yeah. That's not... It's common, but it's not normal. So being able to have that awareness- Yeah and educate m- the healthcare professionals, but also those body professionals and the speech and language pathologists, I think it just comes down to offering the easy, recognizable signs and symptoms- Mm-hmm that anybody can see. So I think these and I- I'm gonna veer again. I l- I keep on veering from your questions, but I think that going back to the moms- there's social media platforms now where moms are coming together. Moms are asking questions. Moms are doing the research, and thank you, Dr. Google. I use that term just generalized because there is research that you can look up, and there's articles, and there are questions, and there's information. And then these parents who have had consultations with multiple doctor's offices they're, they will say, "This office did nothing for me. They wanted to give me medication. Another office said that I needed a sleep study or that my child needed a sleep study, and then they said, 'Let's do this next, and let's do this next,' to find out the why, why, why. Let's rewind, rewind, rewind." And there are some offices that say, "Oh yeah, let's just put medication on it. You'll feel better, you know, two days from now." Or, "Let's wait and see," or, "He'll grow out of it," or something that parents have a little bit of a gut feel of, "Mm, that wasn't right." Yeah. So social media has really played a pretty key factor in educating parents on these signs and symptoms, and I think that they are becoming more and more aware sooner than their providers. And some providers, when my patients come in to talk to me, they're like, "Oh, yeah, I brought up, you know, mouth breathing and bedwetting, and we were told Little Johnny's gonna grow out of it." And then they Google. And then or, AI is providing this plethora of information. Yeah. And these parents are becoming more and more aware. Mm-hmm. And those are the parents who come into the office without seeing their provider and/or maybe asking those providers, but they ran into a brick wall. And so then they come to us, and we spend that time with them, and then we send them to our vetted providers who have that open mind and who have taken those courses. Mm. Who have learned from those who have all of this research and education about it. But getting it into the classroom and into curriculum- Yeah boy, I don't know. I don't know. I might be six feet under by the time that happens. Oh, man. But I sure hope not. Yeah. I really, really feel like the education and the information is out there. It ju- we just need to get it into curriculum. Yeah. That's the next step. And what are some of the things you wish that other healthcare providers were more aware of? Like the, maybe the more common but not normal symptoms. Yeah. Common but not normal. Yeah, I think I just I keep going back to the snoring. Mm-hmm. Mouth breathing on, in children, ear infections, spitting up all of that liquid gold that mom just dispensed from her body, and the, the growing and thriving. Pediatricians especially- I think can really recognize these things first and foremost. Yeah. Yeah. Catch it early. Yeah. Yeah. And dentist, dental offices, because once that first tooth comes in, goes to go get your children's teeth checked, make sure everything is okay. Mm-hmm. Everything, uh, the mouth looks okay. Check the tonsils. Check the adenoids. Why is this child drooling, spitting up? Why is their mouth breathing? What's the obstruction? Is there an obstruction? Yeah. Can they-- Why can't they breathe through their nose? So we have to f- yeah, we have to figure out that why, and it starts those, those are the young and early signs. Mm-hmm. I would say maybe for teenagers would be dry, cracked lips. Mm. That's a sign of mouth breathing also. Or red tonsil area, or maybe Allergies. I know in the state of Virginia, I know I had so many allergies moving here from Florida, and then California was great because it's dry air all the time. I had no problem out there. I moved back to Virginia, and I had to go see my allergist and get on, you know, a five-year plan of getting- Wow immunotherapy shots, injections in my arm, every week, every week. Wow. And then extend it to once a month, and then extend it. So yes, for five years. And then the symptoms returned, not quite as heavily, but I had to go back for another two years. So seven years total of immunotherapy for myself. Wow. And I go back to where I said this is my sixth orthodontic appliance in my mouth right now. Because I was a thumb sucker. I had an open bite. I was a mouth breather. I had tonsil stones. Hmm. Tonsil stones you see these a lot in people who mouth, who breathe through their mouth. Um, and diet is a really big thing that parents can notice as well. Soft foods that are easy to digest. People who have a high-preservative type of diet, not fruits, vegetables, and meats, and chewable. Like really, you have to chew your food. Yeah. Those easy-to-melt-in-your-mouth foods, they're not using their muscles. They're just not using their facial muscles, and so we don't use our facial muscles. If we take away a, a, another tangent, if we remove out... So we have, in our body, we have the skeleton, right? Mm-hmm. Around the skeleton, we have all of this connective tissue. Mm-hmm. And we have the nervous system, and we have the blood circulation, and we have this really cool spiderweb-like connection, connective tissue called fascia. And this fascia supports the movement of the muscle, and it has to be hydrated, and we have to keep it nice and healthy, or we might have some sort of, um, tension in one area of the body. So then this fascia pulls into that one side- Mm-hmm and then you have these compensations everywhere else. It's like, um, say that you sprain your ankle- Mm-hmm and then you wanna try to avoid putting pressure on that foot, so you use the other side of your body- to compensate while that foot heals. So the fascia adapts to that, and we want to If we were to remove the body of the fascia, the muscles, the skin and all that, the skeleton would not know where to go. So muscle always wins, no matter what. Mm-hmm. It's not the skeleton that drives the way, it's the muscles and all of the connective tissue that work together to move the skeleton. So if we have gut health problems, then it's going to show up in our mouth somewhere somehow, or somewhere in our body. When I say mouth, I think immediately of enlarged tonsils, which, or enlarged soft tissues, period, because it can happen in our nose, and then we can't breathe through our nose, so then our mouth drops open So when we breathe through our mouth, our mouth, our facial muscles are then elongated, and then we're not chewing our foods. We want softer foods so that we don't have to chew them because it's more work. And if we don't have to work hard, why should we? It's easier. Let's find the easy path. So our diet in today's society has just decreased. Yeah. It just hasn't. I mean, we think about the Neanderthal days, and they kept all of their teeth, all 32. The human body is supposed to... We're supposed to have our wisdom teeth. Interesting. We're, right? We're supposed to have them. Our jaws are supposed to be forward, and we're supposed to have all of our teeth in line, but we don't. We just don't. Yeah. And genetics over the years has just, epigenetics just really has played a big key factor- Mm-hmm in that growth and development throughout the generations, and we fall into that pattern of quick and easy and on the go- Mm-hmm and soft digestible foods. Yeah. We're just not chewing our foods anymore. It's so interesting. There's so many different parts. Yeah.

Planting Seeds Through Social Media

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So you've spent decades looking inside people's mouths as a dental hygienist and now as a myofunctional therapist. How has doing this work completely changed the way you notice things when you meet someone or watch them talk, breathe, or eat? I invite everybody to sit with me in Central Park or to sit with me, you know, at a bus stop or something and people watch. I love to people watch. Um, and I think about how, what is it that I can do to help somebody? And I see somebody like a friend of a friend, and I'll just say to my friend, "Hey, you know, I'm not in the position to say anything to them, but have you ever noticed..." And then I'll, I'll rattle off. Mm-hmm. "Have you ever noticed that they or their children or, something or may- uh, or maybe a family member even, you know, I see that your brother or your dad needs to take a lot of naps throughout the day. Why do you think that is?" "Well, they just, I don't know. They were up, playing on their games or um, I don't know, maybe they had a lot on their mind or they've never been a good sleeper or something." "And have you ever thought about that why? Or have you ever, have you guys ever considered-" Knowing that, you know, we have our food pyramid, but we don't have a sleep pyramid. Or do we? And, you know, we have to think about anybody over the age of 25 should get anywhere between seven to nine hours of sleep every night. Seven to nine. Do you? I mean, it's n- I don't, because I'm always working and my brain is rattling all the time. I'm, I'm- Yeah I'm constantly thinking, so I have to dump my brain at the end of the day- Mm-hmm onto a piece of paper, and that way I can sleep better at nighttime. But I feel that We can, as a society, notice things, help people by just bringing something up- Yeah and planting seeds. And I think planting seeds, if they're planted more than once, then there may be an opportunity or a moment where they recognize that seed, and then it starts to sprout, and then they go to the internet, or they start to look at things on their phone instead of playing Candy Crush or, you know, whatever games are out there. And I believe that planting seeds is a really big deal. I feel like planting them on social media is even bigger. Mm-hmm. Being a part of social media pages that can help these moms. And I wanna, I wanna add something that it's not just the moms, it's those-- It's typically the moms who will come in to see us. Um, the moms have the gut feeling. Yeah. They just do, and they wanna say, "What's wrong with little Donnie?" Mm-hmm. And, you know, it's not that anything's wrong with them 'cause they're innocent but they're-- We wanna help these moms. I wanna help these moms because nobody was there to help me. And I have dedicated now my education to helping and to being able to get these moms into the offices and talking to the correct professionals who will look at the whole

Insurance Barriers And Access To Care

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picture. My goal is to be able to go global with a nonprofit And I need all of these professionals to jump in on it too. Yeah. I do. To get into these schools as young as possible- and have a quick screener. And there are validated screening tools that teachers can use, that every single healthcare provider can use. Their assistants can use them. These screening tools can be just key to helping these children. I think the, the world of insurance is really limiting to so many families. Insurance drives the healthcare providers, and it's so sad to see this. Mm-hmm. And healthcare providers know this, but their hands are tied. Yeah. Many of them, what I've seen, are breaking away from insurance companies and being a, a cash only practice, and that's what mine is as well. And We, you know, a lot of providers will provide a super bill so that patients can go ahead and submit it to their insurance companies, and then they'll receive a reimbursement, hopefully. But insurance, a lot of my friends say and peers say insurance, gosh, it's just the biggest scam out there. And I mean, I pay for insurance but I, I d- I do in case I'm in a, you know, severe accident and- Mm-hmm I need that hospital healthcare insurance. Yeah. But I pay cash myself. I pay cash for my providers because insurance is not going to tell me who I can and cannot see. Yeah. And I don't want somebody to say, "You can't sleep? You're having a, you have insomnia? You have a hard time falling asleep? Here's your Ambien." No, thank you. Yeah. I really wanna know why. Mm-hmm. I wanna know why I can't sleep. What is it going on? Is my D3? Is it my, Bs, Ds, ABCs? It's what's the why. Yeah. Who is that provider who's going to help me? And those are the providers who I send my patients to. Yeah. But we wanna be able to make this accessible to everybody. So education, just whatever we can do to get out there, that's what I wanna do, is to be able to provide not necessarily services for free, right? Or mission, mission work. That's not what I wanna do. I want these parents to at least be aware of the why. Yeah. And then their what's the next step? And, thank you to AI. Thank you to other providers who offer services to families for free as well. And I feel like we just need to... Uh, have you... Do you remember that song "We Are the World, We Are the People"? Yeah. I'd like to get out there and just make the world a better place. Yeah. Absolutely. But we have our hands tied due to due to, excuse me, insurance. Due to providers who won't see and hear, and it's a big deal, but it's little by little, it's planting those seeds. Yeah. And how often is it that a patient comes to you and has been either told that they're, there's nothing that can be done for their symptoms or, you know, they're just put on a prescription? I see that every day. I take a for those who are listening, it's-- I just took a really deep breath because that is what we see every single day. And those are the, those are the parents who may have maybe seen something on, you know, one of the mom social media book pages. Mm-hmm. Uh, Facebook pages or Instagram or something. Or maybe, maybe they're at a play date and a mom says her-- or is talking about little Susie's therapy sessions. Or, "Wait, what? She's seeing a, a who? I've never heard of that. What is that?" "Oh, myofunctional therapy. Oh, that is..." So a lot of it is training and retraining the facial muscles to be able to support the airway and to have growth. So awareness. Yeah. Talking. Parents getting out there. Uh, the, the parents who are unaware, who are told there's nothing that can be done, the moms who have that gut, that gut feeling, those are the ones who don't stop. I stopped because I believed my providers. I was one of those parents who stopped and gave my kids, well, my oldest, medication, and I regret it. I regret stopping. But I was a busy mom who didn't sleep, and a husband on deployment. And I was raising these kids, I was in survival mode. Yeah. So I understand. My social media page, pages are on education, and there's a lot of information that my team, I talk to my team all the time and we outline everything that's going to be posted and there's a sequence in order on purpose. And I just ask my patients, "Please share this with your friends." I'm not looking for business, per se, but if I can help another family, if you can plant the seeds with me, then we can help more people. Mm-hmm. So play dates are a big thing. Them reposting on their Instagram stories- Mm-hmm or tagging somebody or, you know, sharing it at Thanksgiving meals or something. Yeah. That is sharing. Sharing is caring. Yeah. I think that's the great thing about social media is that you can reach so many different people in just, you know, one platform.

Why She Rebranded To Renew Myo

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So you recently went through a rebrand from Central Virginia OMT to Renew Myo. What inspired that change, and what does the name Renew Myo represent for you and the direction you, you want to take your practice? Oh, I love this. Uh, Renew has so many meanings behind it. Refresh, rebirth, start over. My brand started, Central Virginia OMT started just before COVID, and it's just where I was located. And I took my first myofunctional therapy course just before COVID oh gosh, November or December of n- uh, 1990. No, no, no, no. 2009. And, Wait. Oh my goodness. When was this? No, that's incorrect. 2019. Boy, I'm, my math is so not good right now. That that we-- I felt the need to start something, and it was just in my home. And and then I went through a divorce and started anew. So I bought a new home. Mm-hmm. And I opened a new office, and then all these great and wonderful opportunities came to me, and I don't know if that would've happened. So it was a renewing of myself. Finding myself again as a stay-at-home mom, but also as a hygienist, because I did work part-time. Yeah. But everybody else always came first. Yeah. You know, what is it that what is it? I never left the house. So renewing my, my, my mindset- my vision, and helping others outside of my own family. Mm-hmm. Outside of the military and those who I was voluntold to be around. And not that's a bad thing. Because I, I was given so many experiences in, in life. I love my life. Mm-hmm. But I had been approached by a lot of, um, up-and-coming myofunctional therapists who wanted to learn, learn. "Can I-- Can you mentor me? Can I come in and watch you? Can I shadow you? Can you help me with this? I-- my child, my husband, my this, my that, can..." It-- The word mentorship really came about a lot, and there's only one of me, and I also needed to help my patients, but I also needed to be a mom, and it was really tough for me. So some of the ladies who had come to me really showed so much passion in this wanting to learn. They were sponges. They are sponges. And I just, I started to talk to them, and I started to help them, and we would meet regularly, and I just said: "You know, this is really taking a lot of my time, and this is because I'm becoming a little bit busier with work. Why don't you start to see some of my patients? We'll start low, slow. We'll-- I'll do the assessments. I'll see what happens with these patients and then I'll, I'll work through these cases with you, so they're gonna get two therapists in one. I will mentor you through this case, and the patients will know that I'm alongside." Okay, great. And these ladies have already... They're not straight from dental hygiene or speech and language pathology. They've already taken a couple of myofunctional therapy courses. Mm-hmm. They needed guidance in how to incorporate all of their knowledge. I was there once. I get it. So then they joined my team. So my team has we have our patient coordinator. She is my backbone. I don't know what I'd do without her. And then we have our two ladies here in Virginia, uh, the Northern Virginia area, and then, uh, we have one who's in Alabama. And- Wow. Mm-hmm, and she came to me from from the internet, and she saw me, and she's like: "I really like your educational content." And so we talked, and we talked, and we talked, and I helped her through some things, and I said... You know, she's in Alabama. My brand says Central Virginia. So it was time. I got a sign, and I'm a, I'm a praying woman, and I prayed over it a lot, a lot, and I, I just said, "All right. Show me, show me some options here." Yeah. And I was shown some options, and I rebranded to Renew Myo because everything was new. Everything was coming up From a place of struggle, hardship. Not hardship in a hard way because- Mm-hmm I never really struggled. Being married into the military and, and having you know, a husband who loved the children. So it was, came from a, a good struggle. Um, but to find newness, rebranding was not something that I second-guessed. Mm-hmm. It was happening. And so Renew Myo came from a sense of refresh, starting, starting over. Yeah. The sun is shining. Let's grow. Let's get to, let's renew others now. Let's see what we can do to reach other healthcare providers. Let's grow the information. Let's get out there to the parents. Yeah. Let's not let them struggle the way that I struggled, the way that a lot of my peers as parents have struggled, the way that they see their patients struggling. What type of education can we provide? And that's, that's where ReNew came from. Awesome. And so you recently had your grand reopening as well. Can you tell us a little bit about that? We had some local celebrities come to the ribbon cutting who- Mm-hmm spoke, and they were so kind. They brought tears to my eyes- Oh knowing that that they see the difference that ReNew Mayo is offering to the community. Um, my dear friend who's, um, our state senator, she spoke. We've known each other for years and years. Tara, she's just an incredible God-fearing human being, and who is always wanting to do the right thing for not only her constituents, but for everybody. The, you know, everybody. And, uh, so she came and supported, and the mayor came out and said some super kind words as well. My one kid who's in college, who's at William Mary, he couldn't come. Oh. Um, my other one was out of town, uh, and he couldn't come. Yeah. Um, but he did show up that morning, gave me a big old hug and said- Aw "Mama, I love you and-" Aw. sending you good luck." And so the ribbon ceremony... and then my youngest son, he was there and he brought one of his friends. Aw. And that was sweet 'cause he's one of my, one of my sons, one of my surrogate sons. And I had a couple of-- I had some friends there who have just been with me throughout my journey as well, my ReNew, my entire ReNew journey. Uh, and we shared a lot of baseball games and bleacher seats together, and those moms also know the struggle that comes with momming and holding down the entire household. Yeah. So they are a huge support. We had a lot of local people come out as well. Beautiful balloon display by local balloon artists and florists and a charcuterie board. Really had some, some great support. Had- Yeah some of my dentists, my favorite dentists who I do refer to, my referring providers. A lot of them came to support me as well. So the love, the support, the smiles on everybody's faces, it just reignites The passion that we all have in wanting to just do the right thing for our community. And, in healthcare we call these offices and these businesses practice. We call them healthcare practices. Because n- it's not cookie cutter. There is not one thing that is cookie cutter about healthcare, which is again, going back to insurance, nobody's the same. Nobody is the same. Right. So, um, we have just such a great airway community out there and, um, there's just so many humans in this world who need help. So we just need to embrace each other, support one another, and, um, renew that passion in healthcare- Yeah for everyone. Awesome.

The Future Of Airway Focused Care

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And then looking ahead, what are you most excited about for the future of myofunctional therapy? We are seeing more conferences popping up left and right, more airway platforms. The more that people are becoming professionals, dentists, ENTs, body professionals, the more educated that they become, the more they wanna share. So more and more platforms and conferences are popping up left and right We see more orthodontists at the American Academy of Orthodontics conference talking about airway, talking about expanding the palates, talking about changing that skeletal growth. The extraction of teeth and shortening the face is becoming more of a topic of conversation than it ever has been before because extra... There's, um, a term coined by Dr. William Hang, Dr. Bill Hang, extraction retraction regret syndrome- Mm ERRS. And, uh, when you take out premolars, when you extract, not you, but yeah- Yeah orthodontists or dentists or sur- oral surgeons, when premolars are extracted we're not bringing the face forward. We're shortening it by pulling those front teeth back. What is not being shortened is the tongue. Where is the tongue supposed to go? Yeah. Huh. Forward? Up? Wait a minute. You just removed some of that space. So no, the tongue can't really go up. It can also go back into the airway, and you're not gonna swallow your tongue 'cause it's tethered, but it's going to become an obstruction on most people, and that's what we see a lot. Mm. So, the awareness at these conferences, more and more of these healthcare providers who are becoming more educated on airway are trying to share the word to more healthcare providers so that we can do better in healthcare. And that's where I see the future going is just more platforms, more education, more collaboration between not just doctors. They, these physicians pediatricians, MDs, ENTs, they... We're seeing more collaboration between them and dentistry. So we're seeing dental and medical finally collaborating, and we're talking to one another, and we're not nitpicking against each other. I mean, I do see that still, but it's, it's you're not right. I'm right." Instead of hearing that, we're saying perhaps what I'm seeing could be part of what you're seeing, but maybe we can meet in the middle instead, and maybe we can try to find a common ground." Mm. And so we're starting to see more of that common ground, which is Super helpful to the patients and to the myofunctional therapists especially. I kind of feel like the myofunctional therapists are in the center of a circle. We're, we're right in the center. Yeah. And you know, who knows? Maybe orthodontists think they're in the center, or maybe dentists think they're in the center. I think I'm in the center. I mean, maybe podiatrists think they're in the center and they're like, "You're toe walking? I'm gonna send you to a tongue-tie specialist." But the the myofunctional therapists, and because I'm here representing myself and all the other myofunctional therapists, if we have a patient, a mom, who saw that closed door from their pediatrician or from their medical doctor saying, "Well, yeah, you know, let's just wait and see. Yeah, go sleep on it for two more weeks and come back if the..." "Okay, well, two weeks, that's why I'm here. What next, doc?" Yeah. So we see those and we see the, "I have nowhere else to go. Can you please help me?" Okay, I'm gonna put myself in the center of this little circle, and I'm going to have my little attachments to my tethered cords over to the orthodontist and to the ENT and to the body professionals, my occupational therapist for primitive reflexes, my physical therapist for the muscle movement and, you know, tying the whole body together. I feel the healthcare in the future is growing. Yeah. We're going to-- We are collaborating more, and we just need to keep going. Yeah. Keep that momentum. That's right. Awesome.

Where To Connect And What’s Next

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And for anyone who wants to learn more about Renew Myo, your work, or the resources you provide, where can they connect with you? Oh, well, Renew Myo. So we can start with Instagram renewmyo, R-E-N-E-W-M-Y-O, .com. And, uh, uh, just Renew Myo, and we're on social media. We are on Facebook. There is a LinkedIn page, but I really do nothing with that one 'cause I don't know, I just, I just haven't jumped on that bandwagon yet. I should as a businesswoman, as a small business owner, I should, but I haven't. So Instagram, Facebook, um, reach out to us. Uh, Jen is an experienced patient coordinator. She has medical background, so she is gonna answer your call and be able to guide you, and then I come into the picture, and then one of the others on staff will be able to help as well. Awesome. And as we wrap up, is there anything you'd like to add that we haven't touched on today? Oh, wow. I did write a book. It hasn't been published yet, and it's going to be a part of my nonprofit, and it's called "Sprout," S-P-R-O-U-T. So it's a s- it's not a surprise anymore. I just announced it. But I went into collaboration with a dentist on Long Island, and he is years and years and years experience in airway, and he is an educator as well. And he and I collaborated at the World Dental Sleep Society in Baltimore this year in 2026, this summer. And while everybody was out on the dance floor, he and I had the laptop open, and we were just rattling on and on, and, you know, we had all of our sleep surgeons and specialists and such saying: "What are y'all doing?" "We were s- we're supposed to have fun. We just finished a conference. This is the end of it. What are y'all crazy people doing?" And here we are brainstorming, coming up with the logo, the name, the everything. I am so excited to announce it more and to come out. We just are finishing all of the legalities with it, but it's called "Sprout," and, uh, I'm looking forward to announcing and sharing my book with everyone as well. And to get into the education, the public school, let's start screening for airway for these children. Let's give them the opportunity to breathe and sleep and thrive and grow, because that's what we want. We want our children to be... I mean, they're gonna be taking care of us one day, right? They're gonna be the ones making decisions and leading the way, so let's give them the lifestyle that they deserve, that, that opportunity. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much, Angela, for joining me on "The Alimond Show" today. I wish you the very best in all that comes your way in the future. It's been a pleasure sitting here with you, and thank you so much for having me.