About Me
Joselin Pacheco
Joselin is a lifelong learner, who enjoys reading, gardening, hiking, and most importantly, quality time with family and friends.
She obtained her dental hygiene degree from UC San Francisco over 20 years ago and has loved providing preventive care for her clients.
Joselin Pacheco
Joselin is a lifelong learner, who enjoys reading, gardening, hiking, and most importantly, quality time with family and friends.
She obtained her dental hygiene degree from UC San Francisco over 20 years ago and has loved providing preventive care for her clients.
Joselin learned about orofacial myology in one of the many dental classes she has taken. She participated in an in person, 4 day extensive OMT class from the Academy of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapist (AOMT), and has taken classes from MyoMentor and the Breath Institute.
Joselin’s passion to learn and keep up with advancements in orofacial myofunctional therapy will provide her patients optimal care.
Read about Joselin’s personal orofacial myofunctional disorder (OMD) experience.
Joselin's (OMD) Experience
“You dont know what you dont know” and then once you know more you cannot overlook it—this is what happened to me.
My exposure to orofacial myofunctional diseases (OMD) made me see how many of my chronic health conditions are attributed to the poor tongue posture and lack of tone of my tongue. As a child, my orthodontic treatment included extraction of premolars and wisdom teeth to correct my overbite and crowding. I attributed my recession and dentinal hypersensitivity to the orthodontic treatment. I attributed the severe wear on my teeth and sensitivity to the ongoing bruxing.
During the 28 hour intense AOMT course, I could not perform most of the exercises due to my tethered tongue. I learned that being tongue tied caused my facial muscles to compensate everytime I eat and swallow. The chronic fatigue is likely due to my tongue’s lack of tone and improper resting position which makes me a mouth breather both during the day and while I sleep. I have been told I snore so I definitely have a form of Airway Obstruction and Sleep Disorder Breathing. The acid erosion of my teeth is probably due to undiagnosed acid reflux caused by my improper mastication, swallowing and air consumption.
A predisposition to OMDs is a genetic trait. I started analyzing my children and saw that they too have OMDs. My children have experienced bed wetting to an older age, restless sleep patterns and chronic fatigue. The oldest experienced colic and very slow growth. He was a very picky eater and had strong biases toward certain textures. Breast feeding them was challenging– they nursed longer than “normal”, falling asleep at the breast and needing to nurse often. Nursing them was painful and caused infection to the areola. Their facial appearance has been impacted by their OMDs–they have a narrow face with poor definition of cheekbones, crooked nose and teeth, and tired eyes.
My parents and siblings also have many similar OMDs signs and symptoms; snoring, chronic fatigue, recession and acid erosion on their teeth.
I so very much wish this knowledge and awareness had come earlier to me to get help and correct the OMDs my children have. My goal as a parent has been to help them thrive to their fullest potentials; without restrictions or compensations. But I am so very grateful that we will improve our overall health with our myofunctional therapy.
Orofacial myofunctional disorders are very prevalent but orofacial myofunctional therapy can help improve our health and quality of life.
