Oral Myology

Oral Myology or Orofacial Myology is the science involving the muscles of the mouth. This includes muscles in the tongue, the throat, the lips and cheeks, the face and neck, as well as the muscle attachments such as tendons and the frenums (the stringy bits under your tongue and lips).

Treatment usually involves diagnosing a problem and training and exercises to develop ideal oral posture. This is usually the cause of crooked teeth and the reason straightened teeth relapse after orthodontic correction. Therefore it can be a vital part of any orthopaedic or orthodontic treatment.

One example is a "tongue-tie" or short lingual frenum. This restricts the ability of the tongue to rest on the palate (which it should), and then the upper dental arch becomes too narrow and crowding occurs. Sometimes it can also effect the way the lower jaw grows,  it can grow downwards at a steep angle, creating a long face with the chin too close to the neck.

The most common problems that we treat are mouth-breathing, tongue-thrusting and thumb-sucking.

In adults undiagnosed problems such as a tongue-tie can lead to chronic pain. We have included 2 examples.