Tips for getting started with tongue-tie and myofunctional therapy with Richard Baxter & Sarah Hornsby
Are you a dentist who wants to start screening for tongue-ties and implementing frenectomy procedures into your practice or a hygienist who wants to get trained in myofunctional therapy? Find out what Sarah Hornsby, RDH, OMT, and Richard Baxter, DMD, MS, recommend when it comes to getting started in these areas of their overlapping fields. They offer their three best tips for success and share their thoughts on the latest research when it comes to tongue-tie and myofunctional therapy.
About Dr. Baxter (tonguetiedacademy.com)
Dr. Richard Baxter is a board-certified pediatric dentist who has performed over 4,000 tongue- and lip-tie releases. He is a nationally recognized speaker on tongue-ties, and author of the best-selling book, “Tongue-Tied: How a Tiny String Under the Tongue Impacts Nursing, Speech, Feeding, and More.”
It wasn’t until after Dr. Baxter’s dental education and pediatric residency program that he discovered his own tongue-tie and his daughters’ tongue-ties. Now, he’s on a mission to help educate providers and parents so that they can get the right treatment sooner.
About Sarah Hornsby, RDH, Myofunctional Therapist (myfaceology.com)
Sarah Hornsby graduated with a bachelor’s degree in dental hygiene from Eastern Washington University in 2008. After practicing as a hygienist for only one year, she began to explore complementary modalities to help her patients achieve optimum oral health. She discovered the then little-known field of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy and pursued training with the Academy of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy (AOMT) in early 2010.
She studied under leaders in the field such as Barbara Green and Joy Moeller, and in 2011, she enrolled in Sandra Holtzman’s training program through the International Association of Orofacial Myology (IAOM).
Sarah opened her practice, Faceology in Seattle and began seeing patients in 2010. In 2014, she transformed her practice into the world’s first fully-online telehealth myofunctional therapy practice. She has been working with patients from across the country and around the world since then.
In 2015, Sarah opened MyoMentor, a new branch of her business designed to support hygienists and dentists who want to learn more about myofunctional therapy and understand the symptoms on a broader level to help their patients. Over 150 hygienists and dentists have gone through her mentoring program.
Although Sarah has become a speaker, teacher, and leader in the field, it’s her journey through recognizing and treating her own oral myofunctional symptoms that makes her so passionate about the field and spreading the message about this critical component of the dental health and overall wellness equation.