Mr. Myo (Daniel Drew) & Jen discussing palatal expansion, tongue ties, breathing, root cause myofunctional therapy

In this episode I get to interview Daniel Drew (SLP and Myofunctional therapist) Mr. Myo!  He has been on his own expansion journey in adulthood due to sleep issues. We get to chat about it from our professional lenses and also a personal lens.  He had a procedure called MARPE (Miniscrew-Assisted Rapid Palatal Expansion).  I, too, had a surgical device with screws inserted in my maxilla, and now we both have braces.  

He is a wealth of knowledge in the myofunctional world and aspect of speech therapy and BREATHING.  He is trained in Buteyko Breathing method.  He works with people virtually and in person for myofunctional therapy, speech therapy, swallowing, and more:    http://mrmyofunctionaltherapy.com/  

As you will see he is a delight to chat with and his heart is just pure gold!  If you have a child, teen, or you yourself are delving in the world of breathing, sleep issues, tongue ties, and all things myofunctional ~ he is a must know and follow!!!! 

He has so much amazing content on socials:

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Mr_Myo302

Instagram: mr_myo302

Thank you Daniel Drew, CCC-SLP/L for being on the podcast and doing the very important work in this world.  

Find your host, Jen McNerney:

https://jenmcnerney.com/
https://linktr.ee/heartrootedhealing
https://www.facebook.com/jenslpNET
https://www.instagram.com/heartrootedhealing/
https://www.tiktok.com/@heartrootedhealing

Transcript

PJ McNerney: 0:00

Warning, listen to this podcast at your own risk. Side effects may include joy, feeling, content, illumination, newfound senses of purpose and wellbeing. Courage, realizing you are not alone.

Jennifer McNerney: 0:18

Welcome to the Ripple Effect. I am your host Jen McNerney, sharing the unfolding stories that made us and healed us.

0:29

Wanted to introduce my very next guest on the ripple effect podcast. I have Daniel Drew here with me today, who is an SLP and myofunctional therapist. And we have both been on a similar palatal expansion journey. And so I have been following him for a while on Instagram, and finally got the kahunas to be like, Hey, would you record with me? I want to get this information out to people. So thanks for being here. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, it's going to be awesome talking. Yeah, we almost had a little pre podcast going on when we were just kind of connecting. And again, I think I recently saw you getting your, screws out and I was like, Oh, it like brought me right back to, um, my whole, my whole journey may be different than yours, but, I'm so interested in asking, like, how did, what was your why in coming in SLP in the first place? I just got to hear that story, a little backstory of, like, what, because it's not a really I think it's niche, right? Like, I knew I didn't even know what I went to school in 1990. I graduated in 99 from I'm dating myself here. But, I didn't even know what speech therapy was like I went to I knew I wanted to help people and I shadowed somebody. And I was like, yeah, I think that's what I want to do. So what was your journey with like being an SLP and your pivots career wise too? Yeah, I was, I was in a similar like situation. I, I entered like undergraduate and I was like, all right, I know I want to do something that involves helping people. Initially, I was, a phys ed major and then, quickly changed into adaptive physical education and then quickly changed to speech therapy. And actually one of my professors was a male, which, which helped because when I entered that, graduate or undergraduate program, I didn't realize that speech pathology was, uh, like 90%. Oh my gosh. There were three males in my whole graduating class. The numbers are increasing significantly. Which I'm glad. I am so glad it is. I know now as a professional, like how many years later, I know, I work with so many male speech pathologists, like in the school and in the medical setting. So it's we're not as, we're not as, like unicornish as we used to be, but, I, I had a cousin who had what they might call Asperger's at the time, I guess, and so that was one thing that piqued my interest was, working with students with autism, but as things like progress, you enter the field, you work in this one setting and then you get some experience, you work with, Other populations and, yeah, so, so you went on the hospital track like pretty quickly when you were doing your coursework. Um, yeah, I'd say I, my first 2 years out of graduate school were in the school system, like a public school and, And then I got a PRN position at a hospital, which I've had ever since. And that was kind of like my into the medical setting, if you will. and then after that I did an inpatient rehab working with like primarily strokes and Parkinson's disease, neurological. issues and, yeah, and then I was like really into dysphagia or swallowing difficulties, functional, the physio, yeah, the biomechanics of it. So tell me how much of your own healing journey has like, um, Pivoted your career into more of the myofunctional and like I saw on your website, you do a breathing technique. You're in the know about how much sleep impacts almost every aspect of how we function and showing up like neurologically or even our metabolism or all the things, Yeah. Tell me a little bit about when you knew that you needed to go for expansion, a surgical device and all of that. So, um, know thyself, right? I mean, you kind of, you have to, in order to understand other people's, craniofacial development and the symptoms that they're, Going through you have to kind of understand your own facial development and look back at your pictures of your teeth in your mouth when you were a child and like, uh, the things that the dentist. Or the orthodontist said or did or missed. Yeah, or missed. I mean, it's just because they're the system. Yeah. So I had, I had four premolar extraction when I was in about fifth grade. I had braces in fifth grade. then I had braces again, my senior year of high school, didn't know that I had a tongue tie until I was probably in my twenties or didn't really come to grips with it until I was like in my thirties. And then after I have a tongue tie release and realize, like, know that I should have had expansion as a child and myofunctional therapy as a child, versus,, perfectly good teeth extracted and which that happens, that is so common. And I don't, I don't think there's as many airway. I go to an airway orthodontist that are in the know about, you don't just. You know, it's a lot of Western medicine. Your gallbladder is not functioning. Let's just pull it out. Let's just take it out or, you know, let's just take these teeth out. They're not needed. It's just, it's just a band aid same with this. I thought the CPAP is a band aid and, um, so did your, did the tongue tie? cause I mean, now I understand I had such a bad posterior tie that like. Then my jaw, it just was in utero. So my jaw doesn't have any framework to form and it's just like the void, the vacuum of a high palatal, very narrow arch, very, I had tilted teeth. So like when you see people, what are some of the telltale, signs? What would be on your questionnaire for maybe a kid coming to you for myofunctional therapy, needing to work on the tongue or after a tongue tie release or whatnot? Well, I guess, yeah, it depends on the symptoms that the parents are really concerned about. Like a lot of people ask me about feeding. And about what's what's normal with that and I'm like, well, I might just ask is your child use their hands like to poke around at food? Can they like get food that's stuck in their teeth? Do you notice that it's always stuck in their teeth? And I'm like, and so for you, your your tongue tie was making your teeth go crooked again. So you'd have the you'd get them straight with the braces, get them off. And then it would all just Well, that and my teeth were so close together from orthodontia that they, I mean, my, I was the typical retraction contract. Like I had a really, really small mouth and I had lingual scalloping. So you can see the ridges on the sides of my tongue, like pretty pronounced. Um, what else? I mean, would you teeth grind at night? Do you think you were teeth grinding? I had always been told that from dentists and recommended mouth guards, but not really explained why I was teeth grinding. And then of course, like looking at the research now, it's Oh, okay. Cause of nasal obstruction, not really like stress during the day. I never grinded or clenched my teeth. But at night I was told that I did and didn't, I didn't perceive it. Never went with the mouth guard, never wore the mouth guard. Yeah, okay. And then, so you, when did you get your tongue tie, so you got your tongue tie released before Expansion? I did too, as well. And it made my, um, I started aspirating on my on my saliva at night because now my tongue's like, we have all this range of motion, but my mouth was so small that it would just like flap back and cause me to aspirate and choke at night. That's interesting. Yeah. I didn't, did that's maybe a downside effect if you. Well, I think, you know, it's, it's, it's one of those things. That's why my whole PSA right now is you have to go to somebody in the know about my functional therapy. So like sometimes it doesn't warrant to do the tongue tie release before the expansion because of that issue. It actually made my issues worse, but I didn't know I was just maybe taking a few. tethered oral Thai courses, just in okay, this is something that pertains to me. I have to keep my speech license, even though I wasn't really practicing speech therapy at the time. I would just go to things that were pertinent to my kid's journey or mine and healing. Um, but yeah, I just, so did you get yours released before the expansion or I did? Yeah. I did, I took a myofunctional therapy, like an intro course. it was one of the, I think it was Christine, Christy Gatto's course. Okay. She wrote a really, really good anatomy and physiology book that went with it. and I took this course with, my colleague at the time, Lauren Reinhold. She was a RDH. So I learned so much just from her too, because RDHs have this. Immense background, especially when they're trained in myo, like in just understanding teeth. For listeners that don't know what RDH stands for. I get a lot of, I get a lot of moms that listen to this, that are trying to like help. Dental hygienist. They're in the know about a lot of stuff. So she, I was teaching her, I feel like more about adults and swallowing and complex cases medically with that. And she was teaching me so much about, childhood Mayo and, how the steps need to work and or the phases of treatment, And, let's see with, that course. I went through the therapy with her. Yeah. She was looking at my function, telling me which exercises to do, and when I felt ready, I went to the, our, the doctor in our office at the time, Dr. Ryan Robinson, he was. Excellent, precise surgeon and so he did my release. And the thing that I love to tell people the most at the end, because my background again is in speech therapy. My best friend, Alejandro from Puerto Rico, Spanish speaking, I couldn't roll my RS my whole life. I could not trill roll my Rs. And I tried, I tried Spanish courses, but that week after my release, I'm like, I still can't do that. I'm jealous. I'm chilling my R's, I'm cartwheeling in the office. I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing. Which, um, I, can I share a quick side story about that? Um, you know, like when you're, you're in this profession. So my, my, I have a set of twins and, both have tongue ties. My Abby, her twin brother's name is Liam. She'd been in speech therapy. She got hers released when she was. Seven. So I felt all the mom guilt about this because she gets her tongue, even with the swelling, it just released and clear as day Liam after the release. I mean, and it makes so much sense because obviously you have to put your tongue right there behind your teeth to make the L sound or the R's. They're both glides. They're both in a similar manner in which you make the, and I'm like whole, like my speech. Therapy brain was like, I'm like, how many of these kids are we just band aid doing articulation therapy, wasting a lot of time and money when we're not getting to the root. I have so many R students that have tethered oral tissues or L students and I just see more and more every day and I'm like, okay, well this, I understand why you've been in speech therapy for so long. And it's so frustrating for those kids to be in speech therapy for that long. Mm hmm. It is like it does, especially as they get older, they recognize it. They understand, that they're being pulled out of class and you know that the way that they speak is different. And not everybody gets these tongue exercises or these words that they have to practice weekly. So it's like, it is kind of a stigma and it shouldn't necessarily be thought of that way. But when it is, like you said, it's disappointing when there are these structural limitations that unfortunately many people haven't been educated about. And sometimes when they have, they don't want to see it because they hear about the ways to remedy the situation, right? Surgery. What therapy? I need another type of therapy. Things like that. And then that's where the education and you, so you were able to trill your R's after the, like the day after, like right away after the release or like, when did you even think to try? I think it was like four or five days when the swelling, the swelling went down. It was like odd after my release. I didn't expect to feel so much of a, um, a pain in sublingually versus like, like intra orally like, yeah, unfortunately for me, I had had so many horrible cases of strep throat that I was like, Oh, I'm I was like born for this pain, like, because it felt so Like you said, it was a weird, it was an interesting pain. And then I had, I don't know if you had this, I'm more in tune to like emotions, like I'm a serious, like empath, or I also just taught to stuff it all. I had like, I was crying. My husband's like, are you okay? I was like. bawling, but it was like years of just stored emotions that like all got released. It was like, yes, there was a physical pain of the laser, but it was more for me. I don't know if you had a weird, like cathartic release. I kind of felt more like that when I had the marpi removed than I did the tongue tie release after 11 months of a piece of steel being in the roof of my mouth. I, I slept so well that night, after it was released, and I was a nervous wreck going in, and, the doctors that, I work with, man, they are like therapists in and of themselves, aren't they? Like, Yeah, they know. They do. Like, they don't get into that work without, like, an awareness that is, Deeper than just I had a lot of yeah, I had a lot of physical of a release like after the tongue tie like release. It was um, it was my tongue days after that. I noticed such a significant improvement in mobility. I could press the middle of my tongue up. Independently. And I'd never been able to do that before cause it was actually held down. And I thought that that was interesting that the tongue, like traditionally lifting up the tip of it, but like the middle part, being able to push it to the roof of the mouth, I was able to do that and my neck, I'd been this person who'd always had to turn my body fully in the car, rather than being able to turn my neck. And now I'm like an owl. I can turn my neck, like almost. Like the degree, I think they measured it with the gynometer at the time, but it was a significant improvement from where it had been. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Mostly fetal symptoms, but it was nice to, it was definitely like kind of cathartic after years and years of being like, you know, tongue ties aren't real or, I don't know. Or, or I mean, how many, this is, I don't know how frustrating this is for you. How many,, okay, so I have four kids. We all, and my husband also has a tongue tie. We have like the genetics, for, the just midline issues., it's midline issues. Those like, I mean, I have a line down my tongue. So, like, you can tell I had midline. I mean, there were, like, obviously hindsight now. I know, I, I know more now. Know better, do better. I'm still learning. There's still things that I'm like, oh, um, but I know a lot of things. Pediatricians will take a look at the tongue. They'll just how long does a full myofunctional assessment take? Because I want people to know it's like mine took 45 minutes and my kids, like they were prodding poke, like measuring, doing the range of motion. But for a pediatrician to like, I'm like run. If your pediatrician is just like. Looks in the mouth 30 seconds. Oh, no, there's no tongue tie that's a huge red flag. You need a new pediatrician or you need to go to a specialist. I don't know. Do you do you have parents are like, well, the pediatrician said there was no tongue tie or Oh, yeah, that's Yeah, that's a common occurrence is, like a kind of a slight battle with an ENT or not. I mean, it's, it's really just, I haven't met and spoken with that doctor yet. No education. It's not that they're doing it maliciously. They're just doing it because they don't know. Right. They don't know. Yeah. I mean, there's the visual signs, right. Of a tongue tie, like the heart shape and like certain things, but really looking at the function, not just if it's. Child can stick their tongue out. I mean, I had so many students who were just like highly, I had a four year old who was like highly unintelligible, couldn't lift his tongue to behind his two front teeth, at all, multiple students at the same daycare who I was working with who were trying to use their fingers to lift their tongue up to do it. So like being able to write a letter to that ear, nose and throat doctor talking about the very specific. difficulties that this the child is demonstrating and how I feel that they would benefit from a more in depth like look at are these tethered oral tissues as well as continuing with like therapy in order to improve the tone and you know do what we can before preparing them before even a really a release yeah so So on your journey, like with the myo and the education, you're like, Oh, I have all these. Things like when was your like big light bulb moment where you're like, oh man, I probably need to like look at an expansion device or whatnot. That's a good question. I mean, I had or was it or was it a lot of little like aha moments. It's kind of like a lot of little aha movements and moments and it's like, how far are you willing to go in order to improve your health and like. I tended to go for the lowest lying fruit first, and I encourage people to do that. Least restrictive. Like, yeah, like, Yeah, like, I started working on my nasal hygiene as soon as I learned how important it was. Wearing nasal dilators, breathe right strips, but nasal sprays, like the clear, and Buteyko breathing, breathing exercises. Things like that. And the therapy, like the oral motor exercises for tongue placement, those things are like, it's low lying fruit, it's not going to cost you a thing, it's not going to harm you in any way. and then,, educating people on that, about that and how, just in general, like the signs of sleeping issues. learned about, like I were a whoop band, like a continuous heart rate monitor. Oh yeah. And so with that, I also got a sleep study and found that my A. H. I was like 2. 2, which is not perfect, but it's not that bad. Um, but you know, if, if I reported still having symptoms, my doctor wouldn't give me any recommendations and my PA, my, my primary care physician didn't, he was like, Oh, okay. This is, this is great. Um, I kind of begged to differ, but like, I mean, I don't have sleep apnea. Thank you. Um, but I didn't, yeah. And mine, I, I I paid for every we paid for everything out of pocket or used our HSA at the time. Um, because I, I like could have fought insurance maybe but I didn't like I wasn't diagnosed with sleep apnea. I would had been going into my sleep study, I've been going into REM sleep at odd times. Like, it was very irregular, like, it just looked chaotic, like, my sleep cycle, and my heart rate, and I knew enough about, like, heart rate variability, my, I went on a Lyme disease journey and healing from Lyme, and so, like, uh, found chiropractors, body work, blah, blah, blah, blah, um, it was the tongue tie, um, was kind of, like, The last thing I worked, I looked at the tongue tie and the expansion. Um, and I got some grief from the holistic community for doing such an invasive surgery. Um, because they, they, they literally, I had Laforte, they cut right here and here and chiseled down the palatal suture line and. I know about metals, like I had to detox from heavy metals, so like I had to do a lot of emotional work of like, I'm knowingly putting these titanium screws into my bone. And I had to just settle a lot of things because of I'm like, no, but I so wholeheartedly knew that I, when I saw the CBCT scan and how, and where my airway restriction was, and I knew I had to do something,, it's wild that they could be, they were like, have you had a lot of head injuries? Like just from looking at my scan, they could see, I'm like, Oh yeah, I like, you know, it used to be celebrated that you'd go up for a head ball in soccer and, you know, like probably get a concussion. Like, I, I don't, you know, I can remember seeing stars on the soccer field. having a concussion and their neuroinflammation. I don't know. Did your insurance cover it? Could you argue that it was medically necessary? The, uh, the mark, the expander? No, no, I did not go that route. Even, even just getting my sleep apnea test from my primary care physician, I had to, answer the questions in a particular way in order to qualify for that. And I had health insurance at the time. So I went through that route to get that sleep test. But, no, with the Marpi, I, I didn't, I understood that it was private pay, but I also understood that you get what you pay for and. I've yeah, honestly, I can't complain at in any way about like my experience at like the office. And, the person who did my Marpi, Dr. Mariana Evans, like I've worked with her with my functional therapy clients and she worked with my best friend, and his journey from moderate severe sleep apnea to now mild sleep apnea. Still not perfect. Still hasn't gotten his tongue tie release. Alejandro, this is for you. You need to schedule with me. Now that, especially now that he has the room, he won't have, now that he has the room, it's gonna make a world of difference. Like, you know, my cranial sacral therapist will argue that my journey was perfect. The past is perfect. One of my mentors has always said that, right? The past is perfect. That based on how I was presenting in my body, so much of the the jaw is related to your pelvic floor. And so I had, there was just different things and the body workers are beautiful and they can kind of like, your body's telling a story. Always. I've learned that. So it's just, so your friend, absolutely, you're going to feel like a million bucks. Like my whole posture changed after the tongue tie release. Like I had rounded, that's another thing, rounded shoulders., yeah,, I looked at pictures that I don't even recognize myself. Do you feel like that too? Like where you look at picture, like my whole facial structure, people are like, I look like the lights are on because it does feel like the lights are on. I didn't realize I like what oxygen to the brain, the brain is so good for you. I mean, I'm looking back, I get these pictures on my phone all the time. I'm looking back and I'm like, wow, look at how narrow I was. And, I think the thing that was like the one of the light bulb moments was actually I was on vacation in Puerto Rico, with my girlfriend and I had the expander for not that long, but I was starting to turn. And actually that's when I split was when I was on vacation. Wow. The sleep that I got that night was amazing. But then also I was, I was feeling so good with the breathing that I was, I was maybe in this like. Euphoric state that I was like doing hill sprints outside of our Airbnb. I was like, Oh my God, this is going to take me to another level. Like I feel amazing. That's the swimming. I mean, just it was being able to breathe is it's life. I mean, breath is breath is life. Like my, I have a deviated septum, like as you did, or I found that I did with, um, with the CBC. And when I expanded, it's somewhat corrected. My deviated septum, um, on the left side and my, I had no airflow through my left nostril. And I didn't even know it until I was in my thirties that it was like actually that bad. And the improvement. I was just, I could, I could finally breathe through my left nostril after 30 or more years of feeling like or not even knowing that I couldn't breathe through. One of my nostrils entirely. And, and I wanted to ask, did you, you're a sharp guy, obviously you're SLP. Did you ever have brain fog or just feel like a little like off? Um, I don't know what the word is, but I mean, with my Lyme journey, brain fog or autoimmune stuff, which I, your immune system without getting the rest and digest and the sleep and going into the parasympathetic, you just can't heal when you're in a state of constant cortisol or overwhelm or like, think about when you're not getting the oxygen when you're asleep. That's like death. That's survival. your your autonomic nervous system takes over and not your parasympathetic the rest and digest. So in a constant state of like hyper vigilance to keep your body alive. It'll do things like the teeth grinding because it's trying to get oxygen to the brain. there's one camp that's like, you have a parasitic infection. That's why your teeth grinding. I'm like, not always y'all. I think it it's compounded by a lot of things. Sometimes the root is cause I had the dark circles under my eyes. Um, what else did I have? I was a bed wetter growing up, which, which I didn't know that that was a sign of not getting oxygen to my brain or we were chatting a little bit before we hopped on. I don't know the exact why this happens, but a lot of Tethered oral tissues or tongue tied kids are bedwetters. I don't know why that is, but yeah, it tracks for one of my symptoms. And, so I don't know. You doesn't sound like you had brain fog, but did you feel sharper? Like I don't, I don't feel like I've, I've really experienced like a brain fog per se. Um, I would say that like I tend, I tended more so towards the sympathetic side, like really easily revved up hard to calm down. like pretty much throughout my life. And it wasn't until like my thirties in reading and like learning about meditation and then Buteko breathing that I Understood that it's a switch that you need to kind of practice turning on and off, especially like if you're in a sympathetic state throughout the day, it's gonna be really, really difficult for you to switch into the parasympathetic when you're sleeping and then like actually getting good, high quality sleep. When I went through myotherapy and like the tongue placement and then expansion, I feel as if it's easier for me to flip that switch now and calm myself down, versus being like in this hyper, Hyper. Revved up. Disregulated. Yeah. I mean, I felt like that was a big, we, we were, we couldn't really name it, but after we got our tongue tie release, it was like just that generalized anxiety sort of went away. But you think about the cranial nerves for your tongue and it's like the vagus nerve 10, like it's your whole. Like VAGAL TONE. I mean, it's all related. It's all important. And I just think I find it so fascinating to hear the, the changes, the biggest changes that, um, people are like, your eyes are brighter. Like there's things that I don't notice, but people are like, you just look more embodied and present. And I'm like, yeah, because it's like, I guess it wasn't in an awareness because I didn't know any different. I mean, I've always had a tongue tie,, and I didn't get mine released till I was the ripe young age of, 45. So, so I, it was just like, It's just a different awareness that you have, um, when you just were like putting up with symptoms and signs for so long. Mm hmm. Isn't it insane how the body compensates? Totally! The body is designed to compensate, and I love thank you bodies for doing that, right? Until it doesn't. Until it doesn't very well, right? And, then you run into the issues that we have like in the hospital settings where there's so many people that have now at this point, so many chronic conditions that are being treated individually by these medicines. Yeah, we're this specialist or this specialist. Yeah, you can't take it all away because then that's going to put that person at risk. But at the same time, that person should have been given better education, better access to like root cause treatments. And maybe that's like, that's an economic problem too, right? And it's a whole, whole, whole host of problems. But, working in the hospital now, my, my treatment approach is a little bit different. I, I want people to understand that there's other options for people to look into their sleep, look into ways that they can treat their sleep and their breathing. Because that's going to contribute to the resolution of a lot of their problems. The breathing. The breathing. Yeah. And, it's just, it's, I'm hopeful, I'm hopeful. I am hopeful too. And I don't, I don't mean, I don't want to make this a political podcast, but I am, there is a paradigm shifting with like the Maha movement. I would say I'm a big Maha mom. I mean, I like, we have had, we have, we've done the Western medicine route and we've now had the thing that's healed us from anything chronic are these root cause. Treatments and modalities and it's more natural. It's more. It's free. Many of these things are free. So I get it why pharma would be very threatened by these simple root cause modalities that get to the root and our bodies are innately designed to heal. So asking the body what's impeding that. That's why I like love doing muscle testing, applied kinesiology to just like functional neurology. What is, you know, yeah, what you were saying about cranial nerve testing. I think that that's, that's a really, really interesting thing that speech therapists can start to do. And I took, yeah, I took a course that. Pairs a laser light, a low level infrared, the quantum neurology, and I met with the chiropractor and he's like, I've been wanting to like meet with speech therapists that would take this coursework. I was like the only one that was like, yes, sign me up. There's something to it. Um, for sure. And I think, yeah, go ahead, testing the cranial nerve function, right? Identifying areas of disorder in the specific cranial nerves. Okay. And then specifically treating those nerves, like I, behind me, I have a hygge, like a red light. And you mentioned earlier, vagal nerve stimulation, simply things like humming. Yeah, there's ways to like reset your nervous system that are free and simple. Turning your head to the left. Resetting with the light like you can shine it on the conception governing vessel the meridian system like this is all my jam and I'm like, finally, like the telepathy tapes and if you haven't listened to those yet, I highly encourage It's like these, uh, non verbal autistic, they like to be called non speakers, but we were learned that they're non verbal autism or regressive autism. They're actually so there, Daniel, like they're tele, like all the things that I study about meditation and consciousness, like they're like the geniuses. They just don't, they have a dysregulated body and they can't get into their bodies. And we've been treating them like they're incompetent. Like. I don't know. I mean like the goals I wrote like and they can actually like spell. I think you saw my post about the letter board. I just am excited that to, to chat with you and like know that you're using a light in the hospitals like you're like this like. I don't know. Are you like a ninja on the download with the system, like going in and, or are you able to, I wish I were bringing the hoogah into the hospitals. The hoogah is only for private clients. Unfortunately, like, uh, you know, anybody, anybody saying, Oh, I'm going to bring like a red light into the hospital or something like that. You might be looked at like a woo woo type of speech therapist. And also like, I, I'm hopeful that, you know, within the next, let's say four or five years that this, these alternative, Types of therapy or actually more like means I think it's happening. Like this is why I am so hopeful. The paradigm shift, the telepathy tapes is helping me heal professionally and personally because I started my big journey, um, into meditation and into the. Um, because of the nonverbal autism, I would be like, I'd show up and of course it was like in my thirties and I was just not a very regulated, uh, individual part, you know, whatever, living in California, I'd show up and, fake it, but they would feel it, my dysregulation, and I was like, God, I got to clean up my energy. This is like impacting these kids. And now after listening to that, I'm like, yeah, you were right. Your, your crappy poopoo energy was so good. Like dysregulating them because they're that sensitive to the unseen and energy and emotions and they can read and feel our thoughts and feelings and, um, much like horses. And so I was like, what a full circle moment because I was, I'm going back to maybe working with these non speakers, but now I don't really care. Like if Asha doesn't, I'm like, I don't understand why Asha has an issue with the letter boards, but doesn't matter. Pick and choose your fights is kind of where I'm at. Like I was indoctrinated, pretty much by my, graduate program that oral, non speech oral motor exercises were, were like, you know, there's no circumstances and, it comes full circle because now I'm a proponent of them and I understand where, you know, my professors were coming at the time, but that's exactly what graduate school is for is for, you know, it's for the venting of these different ideas and the competition of ideas and unfortunately the competition of tethered oral tissues, like it wasn't loud enough at that time, but it's becoming louder and it's becoming a part of the coursework for graduate students and. The shift is happening. Yeah. I mean, I remember, um, yeah, just the whole autism and, you know, um, I, I have spoken out about this and past podcasts, but the reason we found like natural, Root cause modalities is, my kids got vaccine injured and I, I am very loud about it. I get shadow banned on many of the platforms because you start to speak about that. So I am very happy that, uh, RFK Jr. hopefully, I mean, it looks like he's going to get appointed, but, will bring light to some of the safety studies. I'm not anti vax. I'm an ex vaxxer because we started ordering studies where my husband's very, um, uh, methodical. Thotical is software engineer, so he looks, he looks at, he's my spreadsheet guy, and I'm the, spontaneous one. No, I just feel like this is what, intuition, going all on intuition, and he's got to have data, which is good. It's, and he's very intuitive himself, but data, and he, we ordered a study. We paid 40 for not just the abstract, And we were like, oh my gosh, there's no placebo with vaccines and we were like, how does the world like, how are people not seeing this? But it's by design. I think there's just a indoctrination. It's a, it's just what we're taught. I don't think that these doctors were like malicious. I think they're just in a system that Yeah, it's it's centralized science, unfortunately. And when there's, I'm a, I'm a big crypto guy, or I shouldn't even say that I should say Bitcoin specifically, right? Like decentralization and like the centralization of medicine, what has CEOs and these people who are bureaucrats that are like, puppeteering of everything. When if science were able to be decentralized, like separated from the money and from the special interests, I think that we would get a lot more important information. Yes, absolutely. Public trust would be increased as well, because everybody just says now, with research, all right, follow the money, and you know exactly why they did this. You know, yeah, you follow the, and when people are like just waking up, and I feel like I've been on so many Rabbit holes. And people do think I'm like a conspiracy theorist, but I'm like, well, wait, like, but nobody will admit like, Oh, well, well, you know, that information actually tracked. And I study beliefs and consciousness. And I'm like, I understand, like, I get it. But I often say if they don't know where to start, just look at Who's funding what the studies and follow the money. That's always going to lead you to the conflict of interest and the truth. And, you know, so in case studies are important, case studies are so important. You are important. If they like you are a case study, I am a case study of that. Subjectively and objectively safe and effective, right? Sure. And I, and I mean, I, I use, it's not like I didn't like I had to up certain supports. I use my lights and my lasers on my, like, Frequency tools. I use Western medicine because there was no, I wasn't going to be able to meditate my palate into expansion. I mean, I, I wanted that to happen, but that didn't, I tried that. Um, and I wanted to be able to like, maybe do the more, the removable device. And like, I, you know, I got the information and then made the best and highest good decision for myself. Um, because I'm like, I. More senior and more knowledgeable about my body than a specialist that I go to or a doctor And I think like that's the reminder for the mother's intuition. A lot of times moms are getting gaslit and dads caregivers go with your gut always like like, you know, not every path is gonna be the same but we are case studies like I can't even there's things I think I now take for granted that but we're pretty profound after going through expansion, I use social media to document some things and just like watch and I look back at pictures and I, I felt like I don't usually wear my rubber bands, but since I was interviewing you, I'm like, it's cool. I can wear my rubber bands. He's probably got his rubber bands on too. Um, how long are you in your braces? I, uh, that's a good question. I, I kind of play it by ear. I think maybe another two or three months. I have, um, another technical surgery, in a couple of weeks to remove two of the screws. So my, my, my Marpi, was the first that Dr. Evans had did that had eight tads, like eight screws. Oh, wow. I had four. That's a lot. My, my friend before, he had gone through his MARPE treatment. He had two separate expanders implanted, which was, according to them, much less comfortable, but, they had learned from years in the past that, okay, we can design this one with two, two rows of. four, tats going like horizontally, if you will. And, unfortunately for two of them, the front two, yeah, there's the screws broke at some point during the, during the expansion. So they removed them and, the whole expander got removed a couple of weeks ago, which was amazing. Oh, it was like, I couldn't, I, there was a point where like, I had to keep reminding myself the why, why I was doing it because I was like, I was ready to pull the whole thing out of my mouth. It got to a point where my body was like, I did a lot of body work where it's okay, this is going to sound woo, but. Like, there's a natural rhythm that your teeth have, like a cor like, they do a little dance, as my cranial sacral therapist would say. So, like, I have to sometimes tune in to the dance of the cerebral spinal fluid. Like, we just have a circadian rhythm that our body, and the sounds out there, but the body workers that are, like, tuned into the, like, subtle energy. Um, but my body was okay with the device until it wasn't. And it was like almost like it rejected it. And it was like, I had to be like, we have to get this out now. Like now I'm starting to see, um, parasitic overgrowth because of the metals or like just, I was starting to feel like going out of homeostasis because of your body's designed to start, attacking foreign objects, like anytime it'll encapsulate it with like biofilm. So the, so I, I was okay with it until I wasn't okay. Yeah, I think I've made a hard part around maybe five or six months when I was like, I cannot wait for this thing to get out of my mouth and like some rough weeks and days. I had some, and I still have some craniofacial pain, cause my muscles are Still working on adjusting. When you change the relationship of your maxilla, these muscles all have to adjust. All of it. Yeah, like, and, um, yeah, I still go to chiropractic and my cranial sacral therapist. I'm going to a Mayo. facial release course in Sedona just because your issues get stored in your tissues. And as we're like recalibrating, we have to release things and reset back, whatever, homeostasis, whatever that looks like. So have you ever done, um, float therapy? Or Yeah. Where you're in, where you're in the tank. Yes. It's like gas. So that's some good stuff. So that's one thing that I did for like body work or that I've done monthly and that I found was really helpful before and after. Um, like a lot of my get back to that, like the in insertion, the, adjusting to, the adjustments when your teeth are like really hurting. Yeah. Um, wow. And then after the removal. Um, just complete darkness, complete calibrating, laying on your back, focusing on your breathing. Yeah. Yeah. That's simple. I love that. Yeah. I mean, whether it be pain, recovery, sleep, meditation, working on being more creative or like, Yes. I love that. I love it. And I will say that, don't you have a bit more empathy for like, I don't know. These kids that come in, or these teens, or these adults, like, where we've gone on our journey, we've been through the trenches of the,, the things, but also we're on the other side of a lot of it. To be like, it's gonna be worth it. Like, this is what, this is what I noticed, I think that's so wonderful that you're, you're not just, preaching to these individuals, you're in it. You're in the trenches, doing the work. One of my favorite things last year was, I actually got to go to this, high school cross country team. and speak with them about Buteyko and nasal breathing. And I got to do these different activities with them and just talk with them about, like, how they can learn to breathe better to improve their sleep, which will improve their recovery. And like, so lining up all these high schoolers in the gym, and doing like breath hold exercises and seeing like how long they can hold their breath before they feel like the first urge to breathe in. Like that control pause, from the Buteco method, it's like teaching them about that and then having their coaches be like, Whoa, like I didn't realize how important, like this could have been for our, our. Or runners like. Yeah, that's awesome. Like, so you did, were you a runner in, in, did you do sports in school? Yeah, I did. I did track and cross country and actually probably the first thing that really got me into myofunctional therapy, was I read the book, the Oxygen Advantage. Okay. I don't know, by Patrick Macco. And I'd been a runner for forever and. I was all of a sudden like getting headaches and not really realizing like what why I couldn't run for very far and I was like cramping in my legs and I read the book and I was like I'm supposed to be breathing through my nose and slowly and then I like paid attention I was like as soon as I went out for my run I was breathing like quickly and I was breathing through my mouth and I was like all right I need to stop that let me just stop that right now and I just exclusively breathe through my nose and I was like I'm only gonna run as you Like fast as I can, while I'm breathing through my nose, I ran seven miles after that, and I was like, like, is that, is that what was it? Was I hyperventilating, have I been hyperventilating my whole life? Because I just wasn't aware of this, of how powerful you're breathing. Wow. That's awesome. And then that book takes you into, Patrick McCown is just the guru regarding breathing and. He reading his books and watching his lectures was. Like what made me look at myself and be like, Oh my God, like this could have all been different if I had known a myofunctional therapist. I never even heard about myofunctional therapy until I was in my thirties. How is that? that's a great segue, thank you for all the content you put out there, like educating people on your social media. I think I'm always like, yes, like more people need to see this. So it's Mr. Underdash Mio 302. I was wondering what the 302 was and you explained in your video on your website. It's Delaware. Delaware. I live in Delaware, and this is all going to be in the podcast notes, but you're mrmyofunctionaltherapy. com. Correct? Yes. www. mrmyofunctionaltherapy. com. And I want people to know that, yeah, you work with people virtually all the time, right? Telehealth because, because it's breathing, it's giving them exercises, in a lot of. Yeah, so yeah, it's like simple consultations if you're just interested in learning about myofunctional therapy, but then it's also more in depth, like consultations were all right, let's do the analysis and let's come up with a treatment plan. I wrote, I do Buteyko breathing sessions virtually. And then probably most importantly too, as I refer to other providers who are also knowledgeable, depending on what it is that your symptoms are, physical therapists. if I can't, I'm not a surgeon, so I can't do MARPE, right? No, I know. Somebody who I trust because they did it on you. And just having that network of providers to kind of just help people like, hey, reach out. Oh, and that's one other thing I was like, you know, sometimes I'll just get downloads of like, oh, I want to ask him this. I want to ask him this. What are some, if people are like new to like, do I even have a tongue tie? And finding the right professionals, I think. There's a lot of kids that will get okay, your palatal suture line closes somewhere in your teenage years. I think it's like 12 to 14, 15. I think there's a range there, but it is in your teenage years. So making sure that you Find an airway orthodontist. What are some of the other, what do they call themselves that are in the know about sleep apnea and sleep or even sleep disordered breathing? By the way, it may be cute that your kid is snoring, but it is not. It may be common, but it is not normal, right? It's indicative of airway issues. Um, what are other ways that people can learn? Like, what are some of the, I guess, let me ask, what would people look for finding the right professionals? Obviously they're going to know about you now, but it is so niche. Like, what are the terms to look for, like a speech therapist that maybe, is it myofunctional? I mean, when it comes to a provider for me, somebody who doesn't look like they're pressed for time, that they're not looking at their phone or their computer. I have a dedicated amount of time with this provider to talk with them about my symptoms. They are talking with me about my symptoms and not discarding them, they're actually talking about, all right, tests, evaluations that they would look into or potential referrals that they'd look into to address those symptoms. And, ultimately, do you feel like this is a genuine person, do you trust this person? Like, uh. So, again, it's going back into your, yeah, so, like, your inner, your inner guidance of, like, does this feel aligned? Yeah. Yeah. When you're looking for a provider, it really depends on like we're a healthcare provider. It depends on what symptoms that you really want to address. And myofunctional therapists are not too common to come across, but airway orthodontists or, sometimes it's the, sometimes the tongue tie releases. There's the guy that I went to only specializes in the releases and he has a laser, very knowledgeable, but I don't even think he'll work. He won't release it unless you are working with a myofunctional, which you will want somebody to do that. Like want somebody that makes sure you have the knowledge and the care pre and post operation. Understanding that it's not just. and then everything's done, there should be pre therapy and post therapy. anybody who's gone through the Breathe Institute's courses with Dr. Zaghi is a person that I would trust. any, yeah, any person who, who has a lot of experience with the procedures, the surgeries. And, so for example, with, my surgery, for my tongue tie release. The doctor, because he's evolved over time, he didn't use a laser, he just used a scissor suture method and a very, very like fine, like a finely grained technique. And so the less invasive is generally the better, but when it comes, and that's kind of, the research is evolving, and Dr. Zaghi is the person that I follow through most of the research. In terms of what protocols they're following in terms of the amount of therapy before the therapy after as a speech therapist, like I can't we can't advise people on tissue healing, but I recommend that the entities be or the people who are performing those surgeries are likely going to be educated on. Like the healing process, the tissue healing process healing. Yes. Yes. And then our goal is in conjunction with that to make sure that the person's doing the stretches, right? Right. After the procedure, because And I didn't have that. Like I had to go straight up intuition. Cause we don't, it sounds like you had providers that have done this before. I just, went off of intuition I literally there was nobody doing this. Like I literally had to just go and interview different people and just go straight off of intuition. and he was great, but he didn't even really understand why I was doing it. But I just, again, like you said, I think you gave really good, framework of what you're looking for when you're choosing a provider or a surgeon or a orthodontist. To me, it's so important just the time and just knowing that person's, you're not a number. If the most sensitive to me, to me, it's if I go to a doctor's appointment and they ignore me, I'm not, but heard about it, if you will. But when I hear that parents go to an appointment and they mentioned, my son has speech issues, he's working with the speech therapist, Mr or whatever they want to call me. And then the pediatrician says, no, their speech is fine. to me that, that's the wrong thing, to push aside. This mother has concerns about her child's. Speech or feeding, right? And they're working already with a speech therapist. And he's saying that there's something going on. Why would you dismiss that when the mother still has these concerns about their symptoms? That's nothing that I would ever do. And that's, I recommend second opinions when that occurs. knowing that a second opinion could be another pediatrician who's going to say a similar thing. Until we break them until they understand that, listen, I'm moms keep coming to me. I'm concerned about vaccines. I'm concerned about tongue ties. I'm concerned about this. The more parents and like moms in particular are going with their gut, it just gives me high hopes. Yes, and I feel like the mothers were generally the ones that are like the spearheading this whole paradigm shift. You're a mother of four. You know your children better than any doctor ever would. The doctor could spend the next five years with your kids and you would still know more about them. They're yours. They came from you. I don't know how much more to emphasize that. Well, for being who you are. And I'm sure you're, you're like, Just this beacon of light for some of these moms, because you're actually listening to them wholeheartedly, you know, the truth had a frequency for me when I would work with the autism and they would literally, I would ask like when the eye contact when it's almost like when did they start to regress? And it was almost always after those well visits. And I, and I was taught that there was no way that Andrew Wakefield, he's a kook, he's a, you know, and I, I was vaccine hesitant and my husband was very, you know, Whatever, like more fall in line with the system, the conditioning. And so we, it was our journey. I'm so grateful. Those injuries got us to chiropractors got us a whole different way of viewing our health. Know better, do better. I just know I trigger a lot of people because it takes a special mom. It takes a special mom to admit that, you know, what. I didn't know it then and I did injure my kids and it's, and, and you know what, I'm doing better now, but there's a lot of people that won't even go there as moms because it would just, it's almost like you, you get red pilled on a lot of things and not, and not a lot of people are willing to do that. And. You said like fall in lin I was posting on instagra that were like directed t guilt them into getting t And I was like, whoa, whoa, this is not what's supposed to be happening. Like, this is like, well, yeah, already guilty enough. Like we had, we had totally, we don't need a commercial telling them that they're being a bad parent, that they need, that they're neglecting their children by not like scheduling a vaccine appointment. Like no wonder a quarter of Americans right now are not taking the COVID vaccine or only a quarter are taking it. It's because of stuff being shoved down our throats, right? And, uh, and parents like gas lit and guilted. And that's, that's what happened. We had to have a big wake up call. Like our kids were like both ends, high fevers. Like, and we called the nurse line after and they're like, that just means the vaccines are working. And I was like, every part of my body was like, the mama, the mama bear, I'm like, none of this is normal. And we are very grateful that they didn't die in their sleep that night,. We get called names and we're crazy. We're woo or, whatever. But anyways, I'll get off that soap box. And, thank you so much for your time today, Daniel. Like thank you for having me on. It was awesome talking with. A fellow expansion. Yes. There's more of, I feel like there's more of, of us, there's more of us out there. I, I know that I left the profession for a while and I'm like ready to just go back in there ninja with all my tools and not care if it looks weird or woo, because I know it works. Yeah, you're treating people, individual people, and you know, everybody is an N equals one. Everybody is a case study and everybody needs individual evaluations and therapy. Yes, absolutely. The get to the root. Yeah. So thanks for all you do and I will have it all where people can find you and how great that you can support some of these people in myofunctional therapy and, I'm looking forward to listening to. Can you remind me again? It's called The Telepathy Tapes by Ky Dickens yes, I blew through. I don't know why that one. It was like, it just spoke to my soul. And I my husband's like, Are you okay? I'm like, No, just I'm listening to a podcast. I listened to it in two days. And then because it was just so profound, and I think, yeah, I think it'd be in a line with like your journey and just like who you are and how curious you are about getting to the root or, yeah, I think you'll like it. I'm looking forward to a future conversation. Yes, let's do it. More of the ripple effect podcast. Yes. I needed a new podcast to add to my, my playlist. So thank you. Thank you for being another fellow SLP. Yes, go, go speak the speech therapists that are like, you know, wearing those capes and doing the things. So thank you for all you do. And we'll chat. We'll chat again, maybe podcast part two. Awesome. You take care.

PJ McNerney: 1:02:36

All content by Jennifer McNerney and guests are for educational and informational purposes only. Listeners acknowledge said content does not constitute medical or professional advice or services. This podcast is for private, non-commercial use Only guests on this podcast do not necessarily reflect any agency, organization, company, or potentially even themselves.