Professional Impact – Gerri Huffman

A large percentage of the patients Gerri treats are children who are struggling to breathe, showing challenges like ADHD, sleep interruption and sensory dysregulation. She also treats adults with similar challenges including TMJ pain, chronic headaches, and sensitive teeth. As a certified OMT, Gerri’s approach helps patients understand that their challenge to nasal breath, to reduce stress in their facial muscles, to eliminate thumb sucking in their child or grinding of their own teeth is multi-factorial. To be effective in their treatment, she needs to look for the root causes of their symptoms. Why is her patient mouth breathing, grinding their teeth or sucking their thumb- is it just a habit, life stress or something deeper – the brain not getting enough oxygen? Determining and treating the root causes usually requires the aid of other health care professionals.

Gerri and Dr. Lowery developed a strong working relationship with other like-minded health care professionals through the study club, Breathe and Beyond, founded by Dr. Lowery in February of 2024. This cross-disciplinary study group of speech, physical, occupational and orofacial myofunctional therapists along with functional doctors of osteopathy, chiropractors, a pediatric sleep physician and other dentists collaborate their thoughts as they share patient cases and therapeutic techniques.

When Gerri first heard about RMTi and Thrive Therapy through another colleague, she knew that Elizabeth Hickman had some valuable knowledge to share with the Breath and Beyond study club. After listening to Elizabeth share the RMTi concepts, the buzz afterwards was “oh my gosh, we need to take her course!” Because of Gerri’s familiarity with primitive reflexes deepening, she took Thrive’s foundational course of Rhythm, Movement and Play. The following month, she dove in RMTi’s Level 1 and 2 workshops. She was personally motivated to support her granddaughter’s challenges as well as her own through rhythmic movement, and reflected on what she wished she had known raising her own children.

Gerri now incorporates RMTi concepts in her work, and encourages patient families to take Thrive’s courses. Huffman recalls a young patient who could barely enter the office for an evaluation. He had strong oral responsiveness and fear paralysis. By implementing the reflex work, the team was able to truly dive into their supportive care.

“Many people have trauma or fear paralysis when it comes to going to the dentist,” says Huffman. “Working in the practice, I look at children coming in, and I now screen for reflexes that are active or not fully mature. I incorporate that as part of my screening plan. I examine how those reflexes will impact whether we’re successful or not in helping that child with what we do and incorporate it in my treatment plan. Most parents are open to anything that will help their child.”