People of all ages can suffer from OMDs, which can interfere with eating, talking, and breathing. Muscles in the mouth and face grow and develop; however, any interruption will affect how they do so. Many people who have an OMD also have problems breathing through their nose, sleeping, talking, and chewing, or just one of these.
Often, somebody will be suffering a complaint, but it is actually an OMD. For instance;
- Eating and drinking can be messy or a challenge with a tongue coming out of the mouth often (this is not the case for babies).
- Finding it difficult to breath nasally and can only manage all or some of the time through the mouth.
- The tongue comes out of the mouth when talking, eating or even doing nothing.
- Lots of drooling.
- Dental problems and/or crooked teeth.
- Finding it difficult to create sounds like “sh”, “ch”, “s”, or “j”.
- Unable to close the lips for longer than a few seconds or during swallowing.
- The tongue lies on the floor of the mouth and has limited movement.
We cannot always say why somebody starts having an OMD issue, but it may start as a young child or during our adult life, but help is there to ‘reboot’ the brain and regain some or all of the muscle use by reteaching them how to work correctly together. It’s not hard to make changes, but how do you know you are doing something wrong until you are shown to do it right?
