Professional Impact- Joy Lantz

Joy’s interest in OMT started on a very personal level. She knew in her gut that something was wrong with her oldest child, who suffered from feeding challenges, terrible reflux and a tongue tie that initially went undiscovered. Her other two children both battled with sleep challenges, as well as ADD and thumb sucking. After joining the International Board of Lactation Consultant Examiners, she realized the value of early intervention in her OMT work. 

“Because I work with muscles so much, I talk about how the muscles speak to the brain and the brain speaks to the muscles. If the brain is in a place where it cannot get that input, it can’t understand what we’re asking the muscles to do,” she says. “When we’re communicating in a loop, that pathway happens a lot easier. Movement is really a big piece of the puzzle.”

This realization set in once Joy attended her first workshop at Thrive Therapy. When her daughter started to show severe signs of anxiety in school, and after seeing so many specialists without answers, she found Elizabeth. She took in the foundational concepts of primitive reflexes with RMTi Level 1 and 2, and she immediately sought to learn more. Joy has since taken six workshops with Thrive. 

“I could not get enough,” she says, on how the work complimented her OMT practice. “I knew I wanted to learn about primitive reflexes, but I didn’t really understand the why until I went to Elizabeth’s workshop and then it hit me in the face. Why didn’t anyone teach us about this stuff? You have these cases where patients get stuck and can’t move forward. It’s kind of that missing piece for patients to be able to push through. It brings awareness to things that we needed brought to the forefront.”

Joy refers to her OMT work as neuromuscular re-education, and through RMTi, the reinforced connection of the brain may be further supported. When a client case came in with an infant suffering from severely low muscle tone and a suspected tongue tie, her intervention was thoughtful and foundational. Joy messaged Elizabeth and embraced a collaborative approach to her work with the patient. The ability to understand and appropriately screen for active reflexes allowed her to weave rhythmic movement into her treatment plan with impactful results. She’s been able to layer that insight into her practice work across for her patients, and their families too.

“If I have a young OMT patient, and I notice he’s having a hard time sitting still or paying attention, we can do these easy movements. It’s amazing to watch a patient’s demeanor and how they can just shift and pay attention to what needs to be done,” she says. “When they’re able to hit those myofunctional goals and grow in what they’re able to do is a fantastic win. These movements are so easy- it’s like this little magic secret.”