The GROW Program

Guiding facial, dental and neurological growth through creative solutions to complex problems

Many things we need can wait. The child cannot. Now is the time his bones are formed, his mind developed. To him we cannot say tomorrow, his name is today.

Gabriela Mistral

Dr. Tenholder is passionate about helping children grow to become the very best version of themselves. By utilizing the gifts of modern science with the benefit of highly individualized dentally focused treatment decisions, we can help our growing children have the best possible faces, smiles, airways, brains and bodies.

We welcome patients into our office that are looking for more than a simple “snip” of a tongue tie or the quickest, easiest way to straighten their child’s teeth.

Our ideal patients are those that are seeking meaningful solutions for the often-complex issues that may prevent their children from growing, breathing, learning and functioning at the highest possible level throughout their lives.

Many pediatric patients come to our office for routine dental care. Others come to our office for tongue tie evaluations and/or treatment and evaluation of impairments of craniofacial growth and oral neuromyofunctional deficits.

We commonly find that these children have symptoms that include discomfort under their tongue as well as picky eating, swallowing difficulties and tongue restrictions. Many of them have had tongue tie surgeries to try to help these issues, yet the previous treatment that initially seemed to be helpful has now created complex long-term challenges of oral aversion and craniofacial pain. This condition results in discomfort while touching the floor of the mouth which indicates a restriction in the interface between the oral musculature and sublingual fascia.

This restriction is not uncommon among patients yet is commonly misunderstood and improperly addressed by many providers in the realm of addressing patients who are “tongue tied” or who are dealing with airway related issues. It can also be a result of a scar created through the surgical process of treating a tongue tie.

Children and adults can appear to have a visually significant structural anterior tongue tie that does not seem to be impairing oral function. However, the development of the upper and lower jaws can become impaired as a consequence of the invisible fascial restrictions that are preventing a more ideal growth pattern. Craniofacial and neurological development can easily occur in a suboptimal environment due to mandibular entrapment by the maxilla as well as unknown causes of muscular, neurological and fascial restrictions that are invisible to the naked eye.

Individualized treatment plans include addressing all potential underlying causes of neurological and structural restrictions prior to considering any surgical or aggressive approaches to care.

Our recommendations may include the use of daytime and nighttime dental appliances aimed at allowing facial and neurological development during their most active period of growth -- from the ages of 3-12 and while they are sleeping. As an adjunct to the dental appliance therapy, we often recommend a laser assisted tissue release called Oralase. This gentle and non-invasive therapy allows improved gliding of the muscular-fascial interface as well as for the reduction of pain and improved neurological connections for improved function. The tissues treated with this non-surgical high level laser therapy include not only the muscles of chewing and swallowing, but also those that control airway function.

The overall goal of our treatment recommendations is to intercept problems as early as possible in a child’s life to improve the function of the mouth, brain and body to support a more ideal growth vector. We aim to provide options for a very sophisticated, individualized, gentle, natural and functional approach to care while doing our best to avoid future potential complications requiring surgical and/or further aggressive orthodontic/craniofacial developmental interventions.

This is admittedly a unique and multifactorial treatment approach that has been carefully developed and not commonly found in the pediatric dental and orthodontic communities. Therefore, there are often many questions that may arise as those unfamiliar with the approach strive to learn more about the many facets of health being addressed by this conservative and reversible therapeutic intervention.

We invite you to learn more about these procedures by visiting the educational websites developed to support the patient, parents and providers involved in the process of addressing the complex neurodevelopmental, dentofacial orthopedic and functional needs of the growing child.

We look forward to answering any questions that you might have and hoping that we can help our patients live a healthier, happier life.

Where to begin?

Becoming a new patient at our office may be a little different than at other offices.

To better help us to serve the needs of you and your family, please visit the following webpage and complete the necessary forms prior to scheduling your new patient visit.

The Synergy New Patient Experience