Erika Kaine Bottalico, RDH, OMT

My name is Erika Kaine Bottalico, RDH. My passion for dentistry started when I was a little girl running up to see my favorite dental hygienist and dentist. I decided to pursue a degree in dental hygiene and graduated from Allegany College of Maryland in 2008. For many years, I had very little awareness about the importance of proper oral rest posture, swallowing patterns, tongue-ties, bruxism or nasal breathing. Come to find out, I wasn’t alone as a healthcare provider with this lack of knowledge and training. It’s something that’s never talked about, but perhaps myofunctional therapy is the missing link.

When parents would tell me, “I can hear my child grinding their teeth in their sleep,” I would simply explain that even kids have stress and that they were too young for a night-guard due to their changing smiles. If a patient’s chief complaint about their smile was crowding, I’d tell them that it was normal for teeth to shift towards the middle as we age.

“What the eye doesn’t see and the mind doesn’t know, doesn’t exist.” D.H. Lawrence

This couldn’t be truer for me after my brief introduction to orofacial myology in 2019 at a continuing education course. In April 2020, I was invited to join the first virtual course offered by the world renowned Academy of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy (AOMT) to further my studies on this fascinating subject. Simultaneously, I began to notice my 5 year old daughter starting to show signs of disrupted sleep patterns, enlarged tonsils, and mouth breathing. I was very concerned about her interrupted breathing when she slept and the more I was learning about myofunctional disorders, the less I could unsee what I was seeing with my dental hygiene patients and with her. I knew I needed to dive deeper and I’m so thankful I did.

With patients, I began to notice restrictive tissue attachments and how it affected more than just gum recession and dental sensitivity. I observed dysfunctional swallowing/tongue rest patterns and how that was contributing to spacing and open bites in patients. I started to see how cavities and gingivitis was evident in nearly every patient that was mouth breathing during treatment, or had an open lip posture at rest. This was only the beginning because I knew that telling people about their situation would certainly shed some light on their chief concerns, but that was not helping to fix the problem.

In 2022, I decided to open Chesapeake Myofunctional Therapy in hopes of helping children and adults achieve better health through better orofacial myofunctional habits. Even since my introduction, I’ve truly immersed myself in myofunctional therapy! I’m obsessed about taking additional training such as Baby Mouth, Toddler Mouth and countless courses through AOMT, IAAH, Airway Health Solutions, Airway Circle. I look forward to hearing from international speakers several times a week on the importance of airway health, myofunctional therapy, sleep health, and the connections with the body as a whole.  My goal is to be a valuable resource for parents and patients and look forward to helping anyone that might have not thought about their mouth and the orofacial complex as a whole being the possible root cause of their problems and symptoms. Working and collaborating with like-minded professionals and patients is critical to one’s success in their myofunctional journey. I hope I get to be part of it!