Discover the Importance of Choosing the Right Team
Recommended Providers
Tired of being forced into the traditional medical “silos” that push you towards a conventional, one-size-fits-all approach? Dr Mindy’s recommended providers prioritize comprehensive, holistic care that focuses on YOU and your body’s unique needs.
For any oral health, craniofacial development, breathing, and TMJ issues, the importance of working with an integrative team is invaluable.
When there is an issue in one of these areas it is important to realize that it is never an isolated issue. Disease and inflammation, improper development, dysfunction, and/or pain always arise with compensation patterns. If something is not quite right in one part of the system, then the body is forced to find ways to compensate around it in other areas of the system. Proper comprehensive treatment involves not only finding the root cause of the pathology, but also engaging the proper provider team to address all of the related issues.
Just one example of this is when a tongue tie is at the root of toe walking in kids. Remember, the tongue is at the very top of the Deep Front Line fascial (connective tissue) chain that runs through the body all the way down to the toes.
Take for example,
the case of this 9 year old boy who was still a pretty significant toe walker. He was in the hands of a very knowledgeable body worker who, regardless of proper manipulative protocols, was unable to resolve the toe walking. Understanding the deep front line fascial connections, this chiropractor was clever enough to look under the boy’s tongue. What he saw was a suspected tongue tie, so he sent him my way. My evaluation revealed a Grade 3 restriction with compensations at rest and in swallow function. Releasing the tongue tie alone will not fully resolve this boy’s issues- but the appropriate comprehensive care team will! In less than a month, with the proper timing and integration of care, the normal curvature to the cervical vertebrae was restored, diaphragmatic breathing improved, oral balance improved, and the toe-walking completely resolved!
The proper integrative combination of the tongue tie release, the oral myofunctional therapy to retrain the tongue and surrounding muscles from proper balance and function, AND the body work with a bodyworker (osteopath, physical therapist, or chiropractor) to work out compensations further down the line—– all three of these things were essential to this boy’s success.
Again, this is just one small example of the importance of integrative care. The need for an integrative care team holds true for so many other things. To name a few…
- Dental decay and periodontal disease are not isolated issues. They are indicators of a more global inflammation and/or poor nutrient distribution that are often related to other systemic issues throughout the body, whether realized or not.
- Crowded teeth are not “just genetic”. They are the indication of poor craniofacial development that stems from epigenetic origins (poor breathing patterns, inflammatory nutrient poor diet, pathologic habits, poor rest and functional balance, etc). Straightening the teeth without consideration of the cause(s) will only allow the root issue to continue under camouflage.
- TMJ dysfunction is always multifactorial, and can be related to not only a bad bite, but also an unstable airway, poor breathing, poor posture, imbalances in muscle chains throughout the body that can relate to issues anywhere down the chain- the neck, the lower back, the pelvis, the knees, the feet.
DR. MINDY’S RECOMMENDED PROVIDERS
Here are some of my All-Stars that I work with daily to assure that my patients are getting the comprehensive care that they need to keep “all systems go”, in the words of NASA. Rather than a siloed conventional medicine protocol based approach, these practitioners have a patient-centered case-based approach.
Bodyworkers
(Osteopathic doctors, Physical therapists, Massage Therapists, Chiropractors)
Dr. Katherine Heineman, DO
Osteopathic Care, PLC
Dr. Heineman’s medical school specialty was osteopathic treatment. Using therapeutic and very specific manual techniques, her focus is to achieve and maintain craniosacral balance which also brings balance to the autonomic nervous system.
yourosteopathiccare.com
Jon Schultz, DPT
Optimum Performance Physical Therapy
Jon has had additional training with the Postural Restoration Institute, PRI. This makes him a tremendous asset for a full functional approach to health, understanding the relation of the bite, the breathing, and the proper and balanced function of the body. He is great withTMJ patients, with balanced core and breathing, and with athletic injuries and rehab of all types.
optimumperformanceptiowa.com
Core Physical Therapy team
Core Physical Therapy
Multiple providers there are very knowledgeable in achieving balance in the body, with the understanding that balanced breathing is at the core of the body’s balance. They are very knowledgeable in body work associated with TMJ treatment, with tongue tie release, and with craniofacial balance.
coreptiowa.com
Pediatric and Adult Oral Myofunctional Therapy
Amy Goecke, RDH
Apex Dental
My very own favorite Oral Myofunctional Therapist with many years of experience and success. She is my #1 Stunna for achieving both rest and functional balance in my craniofacial development patients, and she plays an invaluable role in obtaining the best release of restriction in my tongue tie patients. She was trained by the world renowned myofunctional therapist Sarah Hornsby, and she has continued to stay abreast of all of the latest techniques since then.
Oral Myofunctional Therapy at Apex Dental
Movement and Functional Specialists
Katy Kass
PLANKT DSM
Applied kinesiology and Neurokinetic therapy. Using manual muscle testing to correct dysfunctional movement patterns behind pain and injury, Katy’s knowledge of the body and its functional connections blow me away. With a technique to find inhibited muscles and retrain the nervous system to resolve the compensating patterns, she is an MVP for patients with pain and/or muscle dysfunction.
pla-nkt.com
Ryan Esdohr
Superhuman Lab
Massage and Manual therapy for sports injury rehab, PEMF. While he is not someone that I need to routinely use with patients, I find it necessary to include his name here for anyone with a musculo-skeletal injury, whether it be sports or life. His history of working on professional athletes and his professional development since then have made him a huge asset to my own family. He very effectively rehabbed me through a dentistry-affecting forearm overuse injury when I built our chicken coop from scratch in 2020. He has done the same for my son with injuries involved with his rigorous 16 hr/wk gymnastics training. He has saved my husband, as well, when he has experienced musculoskeletal tweaks in the gym. Could not recommend him more for injury rehab.
ryanesdohr.com
Functional and Integrative Medicine Providers
(Physicians- MD and DO, Nurse Practitioners, PA’s, Chiropractors, etc)
Dr. Lori Miller, DO (and team)
Holistic Health Iowa
A physician with a background in conventional medicine, Dr. Lori found her way into functional medicine well over a decade ago, with a desire to treat the root cause of maladies rather than simply throw drugs and surgery at them. She is my personal functional medicine doctor and I can attest to her absolute wealth of knowledge in functional health. I know that her office schedule is packed, but I know that she has trained the other providers in the clinic so I’m certain that they are just as awesome.
holistichealthiowa.com
Nikki Barkhaus, RN
Wholistic Health Center
With years of experience as a nurse in conventional medicine, Nikki discovered a passion for functional and root cause based health through personal experience. She is a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner with experience in nutrition response testing and metabolic reset.
wholistichealthctr.com
Pediatrics
Infant Lactation Consultants & Craniosacral Therapy
ENT
Photobiomodulation, Red Light Therapy.
Innerspace
Brandy Gilmartin
Photobiomodulation— the enhancement of the body’s healing and inflammatory reduction ability. Read my blog on PBM for more understanding of how this treatment modality can improve pain, inflammation, healing, overall wellness. If you don’t have a device of your own, I highly recommend that you start here.
innerspacedsm.com
Sleep Apnea Oral Appliance
Dr. Chris Gipple, DDS
Silent Sleep Iowa
Recognize the name?! He was one of our own- an amazing dentist for Apex- for over 5 years. With a passion for helping patients sleep that outgrew his patient for general dentistry, he has given up dentistry to solely focus on oral sleep apnea appliances for patients who choose to treat apnea with this rather than a CPAP. If you fit this category, I cannot recommend Dr. Chris more highly!! If you’ve had a sleep study, you’re ready to role. Even if you haven’t yet had a sleep study, make your first appointment with Dr. Chris and he can help get you set up with the appropriate sleep physician to have it done.
silentsleepiowa.com
Dentists who put your comfort, confidence, and whole health first.
725 S. 51st Street, West Des Moines, IA 50265
515.224.1618
Monday–Thursday, 8AM–5PM
