🎙️Host: Jen Brown, COO of Babylon Dental Care
🎙️Guest: Michelle Sands, Airway Health Department Lead, Babylon Dental Care
Jen Brown: Welcome to Be the Category of One. I’m Jen Brown, leadership coach and COO. This podcast is about growth, mindset, and leading the way by choosing to stand apart in how you think, how you lead, and how you serve.
Welcome, Michelle. I’m so excited to have you here on episode two.
Michelle Sands: Thank you for having me. This is exciting—something new.
Jen Brown: Yeah. How did you survive the snow?
Michelle Sands: Um, not very well. It’s a lot. It has me rethinking all of my decisions to live on Long Island during the winter. I’m actually fantasizing about that beach house or being a snowbird. That has now become my ultimate goal—to figure out how I’m going to be a snowbird, because I need to fly away when it snows like this.
Jen Brown: Yeah, it’s definitely not fun. I was on vacation and had to come back a little later, but I had that decision of whether I should extend it past the snow. I decided to come back a little bit before it but ride it out with friends, which was great because I was a guest and wasn’t expected to shovel. I was down in Florida and the whole time I just kept saying to everyone, “This is a lifestyle enhancement.” Now I get it.
Michelle Sands: Luckily for me, I have my husband and my two grown sons. They did all the shoveling in shifts. I was in the house making comfort food. And our dog is not a fan of the snow; he just hid there. He was like, “It’s cold, I want to come back in.”
Jen Brown: Welcome, Michelle Sands. You are our Airway Health Department lead, and you’ve been doing some really amazing things, especially over the last six months. I’m very excited about this department’s growth. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about your journey with Babylon Dental Care? Give us the long version.
Michelle Sands: All right. So, “Once Upon a Time.” I’ve been with Babylon Dental Care for 15 years this year.
Jen Brown: That’s insane.
Michelle Sands: I started as an experienced hygienist; I’ve been a registered hygienist for over 30 years. I practiced chairside and held many different roles—leadership, training—but hygiene is physically taxing. I was reaching a point where I had to rethink long-term options. I was wondering about consulting or something different when there was “divine intervention.” I was blindsided with a breast cancer diagnosis. I had to stop practicing chairside hygiene immediately to get into treatment.
Jen Brown: While that experience was horrible for you, we all got blindsided. We were at a leadership retreat in Long Beach and you got the phone call. I remember lecturing and you got up, and my heart sank because I know it’s not like you to get up like that. When you came back, we had to take a long pause. We were all blown away.
Michelle Sands: I only remember bits and pieces. I remember beautiful floral arrangements and having the support of Jackie Cooper, our Clinical Director. She sat and held my hand. Life stops completely in that moment. This was after a routine mammogram that was actually negative. I had felt a lump, but my doctor said the mammogram was clear and I was fine.
Jen Brown: If I remember correctly, you listened to your body.
Michelle Sands: I did. I went to my gynecologist and she said, “Let’s take a further look.” She ordered biopsy testing. I’m glad she did because it came out positive for breast cancer and positive for spread into my lymph nodes. I walked out of that leadership meeting and went to my car. The support that followed me out—Sally, you, Jackie—everybody was like, “We’re going to get you the help you need.”
Jen Brown: People really showed up for you.
Michelle Sands: It was very powerful. I drove home—over an hour drive—and don’t remember any of it. Fortunately, I had an incredible team of doctors, and I am looking at this year as five years cancer-free.
Jen Brown: That’s beautiful.
Michelle Sands: On the other side of it now, it has shown me a different path. When I couldn’t practice chairside, Dr. Brown—who had been practicing dental sleep medicine—asked me to run the sleep department. I had no idea what it took to be a director, but it was fulfilling. It occupied my mind through chemo, radiation, and surgery. I don’t think I missed work until my big surgery.
I started connecting the dots between symptoms and treatment options. I remember sitting in a symposium in Florida next to dentists from other states. We heard a doctor talk about tongue-ties. I’ve been a hygienist for 30 years and I thought, “Aren’t tongue-ties obvious?” But they don’t teach you the different evaluations in school. A dentist next to me said, “You should become a myofunctional therapist. There aren’t enough out there.”
I started educating myself, and I realized: this is the answer to why people have so many problems with snoring, mouth breathing, and sleep-disordered breathing. I’m now retired from chairside hygiene and focused on airway health and myofunctional therapy.
Jen Brown: I remember when Cliff came home and wanted to do this. I was the marketing director then and was tasked with building the website. Back then, no one had information on it. He was handing me pamphlets from every event he went to. At that point, it was very snore-related.
Michelle Sands: Snoring was the first tick into that conversation.
Jen Brown: But no one would admit to it then. We had to do funny spins on snoring because if you said “Sleep Apnea” or “OSA,” people shut it down. Before COVID, I was invited by the MTA to attend a conference regarding conductors falling asleep while driving trains. I was the only person representing a dentist. Then COVID hit, and it was a game-changer for sleep. People were locked in their homes dealing with a spouse snoring 24/7.
Michelle Sands: Now I’m out there talking about it, especially for children. If your child is sleeping with their mouth open or snoring, there is an airway issue that needs to be addressed. It impairs how that child’s facial and bone structure develops.
Jen Brown: That freaked me out when you said that at dinner.
Michelle Sands: If it’s not caught early, the face starts developing longer, the chin more receded, and the head rests in a forward posture to compensate. In our practice, we have a full team—pediatric dentists and hygienists—recognizing these signs. Our pediatric dentist is now having those tough conversations with parents.
Jen Brown: Why is this not part of a routine exam everywhere?
Michelle Sands: There just isn’t enough education out there yet. Sometimes providers have to seek it out.
Jen Brown: So if I come in for hygiene, can a hygienist tell me if I have a tongue-tie?
Michelle Sands: Hygienists cannot diagnose a tongue-tie, but they can recognize a tongue restriction and have a deeper conversation. We are in talks about getting a laser so our periodontist can perform “releases.”
Michelle Sands: A tongue’s proper rest position should be in the roof of your mouth, from the tip to the tail, when you aren’t speaking or eating. A restriction keeps it low. When you swallow thousands of times a day with a low tongue, you use other facial muscles, the lips, and the neck to compensate. This leads to TMJ pain, clenching, and tightness in the neck and shoulders.
Jen Brown: What does it do for sleep?
Michelle Sands: It shows up as sleep apnea or sleep-disordered breathing. If you go to a pulmonologist, they might push you toward a CPAP, but they aren’t necessarily looking in your mouth for a tongue restriction. We see many patients who can’t tolerate a CPAP, and we’re the first to tell them they have a tongue thrust or a low tongue rest posture.
Jen Brown: Real quick, high-level, what are the steps a patient goes through with us?
Michelle Sands: It’s collaborative care. A hygienist screens existing patients for airway disorders. We offer home sleep testing. Post-COVID, nobody wants to go to a lab. AI is now making home sleep tests as accurate as lab tests. You can do a study in your own bed with a simple device.
Jen Brown: I know you tested my dad. He was worried about the technology, and I told him he could either do it with you or go to a strange sleep lab where they watch you all night.
Michelle Sands: We guide the patient. A lot of our sleep patients are retired and not as tech-savvy. They don’t know how to download apps, so we sit with them and help. We get referrals from ENTs, pulmonologists, and even ophthalmologists who diagnose sleep apnea from “floppy eyelid syndrome.”
Jen Brown: What does the treatment look like?
Michelle Sands: We might recommend a mandibular advancement appliance—a sleep appliance—and add myofunctional therapy to work on those airway muscles. It’s customized. If there is no room for the tongue, our orthodontist might intervene to create space.
Jen Brown: How long does it take to get a device?
Michelle Sands: We use digital records—no more impressions with a tray full of goop. The turnaround for a specialty appliance is usually four to five weeks. We don’t just deliver a piece of plastic; we follow through. We retest the patient using our screening device while they wear the appliance to make sure the airway is open.
Jen Brown: Where do we do the myofunctional therapy?
Michelle Sands: In the office with me. It’s one-on-one. But it is completely compliance-based. You have to practice the exercises two or three times a day at home to correct habits you’ve had your whole life.
Jen Brown: I’ll be in the “no talking zone” doing my exercises.
Michelle Sands: You can practice in the car! The younger generation already knows about this through social media—they call it “Mewing.” It’s a myofunctional move where you form a suction to the roof of your mouth with your tongue. Students are doing it in classrooms to get a more chiseled jaw.
Jen Brown: It’s full circle talking to you. I think you going through what you did gave you a greater presence for the platform you now have.
Michelle Sands: Divine intervention led me to where I’m supposed to be. One last thing: mouth breathing is not normal. It’s a stressful, exhausting form of breathing.
Jen Brown: Let’s go through some exercises at the next staff meeting. I also want to mention that we pioneered testing for our entire staff.
Michelle Sands: We practiced what we preached. We screened everyone in the practice so we can better walk patients through the experience.
Jen Brown: We are Babylon Dental Care, but we have a specialty practice within it called Silent Night Therapy. The website is www.sleepbetterny.com. You can take a survey there and we’ll reach out to help.
Thank you for your time today.
Michelle Sands: Thank you for having me!
