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News. Karissa is now a qualified OMT! 'Orofacial myofunctional therapist'

Tue, 13 Jan 2026 11:28:00 GMT

OMT is an emerging therapy

With close ties to Chiropractic, Speech Pathology, Physiotherapy and Dentistry it is studied and practiced by a variety of professionals with a special interest in this area.

The study of the ways the muscles of the mouth and face function is called orofacial myology. If there are dysfunctions, the treatment to correct these is called orofacial myofunctional therapy

How do you know if you need OMT?

Signs and symptoms of someone who may have an Orofacial Myofunctional Disorder (OMD) may be individuals with a:

• Tongue thrust (when the tongue thrusts forward between the teeth when speaking or swallowing)
• Open mouth breathing at rest
• Breast feeding difficulties
• Trouble chewing or refusal to eat foods that need chewing
• TMJ dysfunction or other jaw problems
• Facial pain
• Tongue tie
• Snoring or other forms of sleep disordered breathing
• Drooling
• Misalignment in their teeth (crooked)
• Clenching and grinding of teeth (bruxism)

How does OMT help?

Just like going to the gym to do sets of exercises to build up muscles in our body, OMT works through exercises that retrain the muscles of our face and mouth to ensure muscles are positioned correctly and that there is adequate strength, range of motion and endurance to sustain the position.

• Mouth Breathing: We aim to shift to nasal breathing.
• Tongue Thrust: Train the position of the tongue to sit functionally in the palate.
• Improper Swallowing & Chewing: Developing mature patterns.
• Speech Issues: Improving clarity by correcting muscle coordination.
• Habits: eliminating thumb sucking or prolonged pacifier use and correcting development.
• Sleep Issues: Reducing snoring and sleep apnoea.
• Facial Development: Supporting proper jaw and facial growth and orthodontic outcomes.

OMT involves coordinating with other professionals in similar fields aiming to get a functional outcome, such as a dentist using Orthotropic protocols, and dentists or ENT that corrects Tethered Oral tissues such as tongue and lip ties.

For me, in practice it has helped me to see chronic cases through new eyes and see new possibilities of solutions. I have identified so many more tongue ties, having learnt how to recognize them in more than infants and seeing and understanding the far-reaching effects of tethered oral tissues on an individual’s facial development and health outcomes long term.

Can there be benefit in an adult having a tongue tie release? Absolutely

For more information have a look at the Myofunctional Centre website.

https://themyofunctionalcentre.com.au/

If you want to know how I can help with your sleep disordered breathing, or TMJ dysfunction or a new look at chronic neck pain, please book in for an OMT assessment.

Yours in Health
Karissa ��

Chiropractic Through Pregnancy

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 02:32:46 GMT

Structure, Change & Growth

In pregnancy chiropractors are concerned with optimal overall nerve activation, including a balanced autonomic nervous system, with an emphasis on growth and development in the parasympathetic state. We also have a structural focus in optimising a well-balanced pelvis, including the bony structures and the ligaments and musculature that holds them together. The most optimal muscle and ligament tone and bony structure placement allow the baby room to develop without restriction to the forming cranium, spine and other skeletal structures.

With proper foetal positioning, there is a significant decrease in dystocia (difficult birth).

Key elements for spinal health in pregnancy.

Get checked

go see your pregnancy trained chiropractor .

2. Sitting posture

Sit on your sitting bones!! not slouched back in the couch, jamming up the sacrum that is essential to move with ease through the birthing process. Lean forward so that the baby’s heaviest part, the spine, comes to the front of the womb, for an optimal anterior presentation. The most painful, difficult labours can come from a posterior or spine on spine positioning and your posture while pregnant has a big role to play in preventing this.

3. Exercise

Walking, bike riding or swimming are great ways to stay fit and stimulate the baby’s vestibular system in the womb. Move briskly for at least 30 mins every day. Even walking around the outside of your house ten times!

4. Nutrition

Eating healthy vital foods, ensuing adequate vitamin intake without overdoing the supplements, everything in moderation, except toxic substances. To ensure optimal outcomes give up the smokes and alcohol and fake sugars that are neurotoxic to the foetus.

5. Breathing

The parasympathetic nervous system tone can be increased with slow rhythmic breathing into the belly. Not necessarily very deep breathing, just breaths that raise the tummy while the chest remains still. In through the nose for 5 seconds and out through the nose for 5 seconds, to maintain this rate of breathing for at least 5 minutes to set up your day and to end it to help you rest. It can also help you reset after a stressful experience in your day to reduce the impact of that event and lessen how much cortisol gets released, if you can do it as soon after the event as possible.

Know that you are doing the best you can with what you have and be at peace with that

Live long and grow with grace,

Karissa

Spinal Health, Helping You Live Long and Grow Gracefully

Tue, 07 Oct 2025 05:25:49 GMT

Every day ‘nearly’ at least one if not more of my elderly patients comment, ‘don’t get old’ or some variation of the same expression.

Yet I also have elderly clients with far fewer aches and pains and with gratitude for their age. I often at this point think of the life that was lived before they found themselves in my office, wishing for their younger body.

I see patients of every age at infancy, the youngest being less than 24 hours old on its way home from the hospital through young kids to teens and so on, I can see patterns that I am correcting in infants in the older patients I see, wishing I had the opportunity to see them younger. I think that if an individual looks after themselves from a younger age, they will age with more grace and not be in so much discomfort in their latter years. This theory disregards random injuries of course, illnesses and other hereditary factors. Let’s get on with the focus of this discussion, the spine.

The Spine and health.

The spine is a bony housing for delicate, yet resilient nerve tissues. The spinal cord coming from the base of the brain gives rise to the peripheral nerves that create the communication highway from the body to the brain and brain back to the body.

The spine also creates a vital structural link from the legs and pelvis to the rib cage and arms and head, to hold it way up there as we walk around, with the aid of our muscles.

The structure of the spine governs its function both in protecting the nerve structures and in creating optimal efficient posture and movement. There is a complex relationship between nerve function from the level of the brain to our motor system and joint and muscle activation and back the other way, chicken and egg style.

Chiropractic accesses this system by adding a force to the spinal joints that both assists them to move better (often immediately) and stimulates the nerves back to brain to create healthier pathways of function and reduce pain pathway activation. Repeated activations and mobilisation create healthier nerve function that controls posture, and better movement ongoing. Coupled with activity, this can help the body function with greater vitality and health and keep movements smoother and pain free longer.

Spinal Health is essential for overall wellbeing, from infancy to elderly at every stage of life.

Neglecting spinal health can lead to long term discomfort and chronic issues, and with better practices we can create a healthy spine at every stage of life.

Stay tuned as we examine spinal health from infancy through childhood and teens and adulthood and growing with grace into our latter years.

Yours in Health,
Karissa Stallwood

Your Posture = Your Health

Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:37:19 GMT

Did you know the shape and function of your neck directly impacts the flow of blood to your brain?

A person walking with good posture says, “I own this space, I have purpose” They look more alert and more ‘with it’. As studies show that brain blood flow and neck function are correlated, this may in fact be true. A good neck curve and posture have been shown to have many health benefits.

A study in 2012 (cited below), looked at the flow of blood in the brain, measured with SPECT, and how this was associated with neck pain and dysfunction, measured by Neck Disability Index scores. What they found was that there was a significant difference between subjects and better neck function and lordosis (proper curve) was associated with more blood to the brain, specifically in the parietal lobe, which takes in all the sensory information from the rest of the body and environment, and the frontal lobe, where our movement, personality, humour and decision-making happens. 1

Other Studies have found:

There is a relationship between neck pain and forward head posture, in adults and older adults. 2
That an improved neck curve also improves neck pain in patients. 3
That it is cervical lordosis that is associated with neck disability and pain and disc degeneration more so than forward head posture. 4
Severe forward head posture increased the activities of the accessory breathing muscles and decreased the forced vital capacity. (our ability to breathe). 5
F orward head posture and neck muscle and joint activity can be part of the clinical picture in vertigo and dizziness. 6
Correcting the cervical curve improves brain blood perfusion. 7

Now we know it's important, how did we lose our neck curve? More importantly, how do we get it back?

The maintenance of the curve of our neck is a result of the health and action of the muscles that hold the curve, and this muscle tone is a function of the nerve supply to the muscle. The quality of the nerve flow to the muscle depends on the quality of feedforward of nerve supply from the joint and muscles of the neck back to the brain. It is a loop.

Poor information starts to flow through this loop after an injury, or persistent poor habits such as slouching and looking down at a book or phone. (Or forced persistent poor postures required at work) All these things alter the conditioning of the muscles. If you don't use it, you lose it.

Typically, when you lose your neck curve, what you are losing is your neck extensor tone and your deep neck flexor tone. According to one study's result, patients with the loss of cervical lordosis have reduced neck muscle strength, especially in the extensors. These findings may be beneficial for optimizing cervical exercise prescriptions. 8

A combination of neck mobilization, Chiropractic adjustment and exercises can improve neck function, muscle tone and coordination and ... the neck curve. Professional (Qualified) help is a must, and a Chiropractor , Physiotherapist, Exercise Physiologist and Osteopath are all trained to assist. 9

Yours in Health,
Karissa Stallwood

References

1. Bakhtadze MA, Vernon H, Karalkin AV, Pasha SP, Tomashevskiy IO, Soave D. Cerebral perfusion in patients with chronic neck and upper back pain: preliminary observations. J Manipulative Physiol Ther. 2012 Feb;35(2):76-85. doi: 10.1016/j.jmpt.2011.12.006. Epub 2012 Jan 16. PMID: 22257946.

2. Mahmoud NF, Hassan KA, Abdelmajeed SF, Moustafa IM, Silva AG. The Relationship Between Forward Head Posture and Neck Pain: a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Curr Rev Musculoskelet Med. 2019 Dec;12(4):562-577. doi: 10.1007/s12178-019-09594-y. PMID: 31773477; PMCID: PMC6942109.

3. Lee MY, Jeon H, Choi JS, Park Y, Ryu JS. Efficacy of Modified Cervical and Shoulder Retraction Exercise in Patients With Loss of Cervical Lordosis and Neck Pain. Ann Rehabil Med. 2020 Jun;44(3):210-217. doi: 10.5535/arm.19117. Epub 2020 May 29. PMID: 32475094; PMCID: PMC7349041.

4. Lee HJ, Jeon DG, Park JH. Correlation between kinematic sagittal parameters of the cervical lordosis or head posture and disc degeneration in patients with posterior neck pain. Open Med (Wars). 2021 Jan 22;16(1):161-168. doi: 10.1515/med-2021-0219. PMID: 33585691; PMCID: PMC7862998.

5. Kang JI, Jeong DK, Choi H. Correlation between pulmonary functions and respiratory muscle activity in patients with forward head posture. J Phys Ther Sci. 2018 Jan;30(1):132-135. doi: 10.1589/jpts.30.132. Epub 2018 Jan 27. PMID: 29410583; PMCID: PMC5788792.

6. Sung YH. Suboccipital Muscles, Forward Head Posture, and Cervicogenic Dizziness. Medicina (Kaunas). 2022 Dec 5;58(12):1791. doi: 10.3390/medicina58121791. PMID: 36556992; PMCID: PMC9786116.

7. Katz EA, Katz SB, Fedorchuk CA, Lightstone DF, Banach CJ, Podoll JD. Increase in cerebral blood flow indicated by increased cerebral arterial area and pixel intensity on brain magnetic resonance angiogram following correction of cervical lordosis. Brain Circ. 2019 Jan-Mar;5(1):19-26. doi: 10.4103/bc.bc_25_18. Epub 2019 Mar 27. PMID: 31001596; PMCID: PMC6458772.

8. Alpayci M, Şenköy E, Delen V, Şah V, Yazmalar L, Erden M, Toprak M, Kaplan Ş. Decreased neck muscle strength in patients with the loss of cervical lordosis. Clin Biomech (Bristol). 2016 Mar;33:98-102. doi: 10.1016/j.clinbiomech.2016.02.014. Epub 2016 Feb 27. PMID: 26970701

9. Chau C, Chu EC, Huang KH, Tam D, Cheung G. Remission of Dowager's hump by manipulative correction of spinal alignment: a case report. J Med Life. 2023 Jun;16(6):957-962. doi: 10.25122/jml-2023-0026. PMID: 37675179; PMCID: PMC10478669.

Children's Brain Cancer Centre

Mon, 08 Jul 2024 06:27:56 GMT

Our new fundraising goal from July to December 2024 is to raise money for these beautiful children.

Blue for Blokes Friday

Mon, 04 Mar 2024 05:26:55 GMT

Raising money for men's health

From February this year, In Touch raised money for men's health on Fridays. Any client attending the clinic on Fridays helped us towards this important goal. The total for the 5 months raised was $264.50. Thanks go to all our Friday clients.

World Spine Day

Mon, 09 Oct 2023 00:47:38 GMT

Move your spine for World Spine Day

Did you know that at any given moment, an estimated 540 million people suffer from lower back pain globally? To help Australians reset and refocus on their spinal health, we're encouraging people to ‘straighten up’ and ‘find a chiro’ this World Spine Day! Celebrated on 16 October, this World Spine Day theme is Move Your Spine - advocating the importance of fostering healthier spinal habits by living an active lifestyle. For more information, visit www.worldspineday.org.au #WorldSpineDay #MoveYourSpine

Breast Cancer Network Australia Fund Raising

Sun, 03 Sep 2023 23:40:10 GMT

Update of our Breast Cancer fundraising for 2023.

We raised a total of $293.50 in 5 months.

In Touch donates 50c from all clients who visit on Fridays to the BCNA to help this very important cause.

Biggest Morning Tea 2023

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 01:12:07 GMT

Biggest Morning Tea 26th June 2023

In Touch Chiro held a biggest morning tea to raise funds for the cancer council on Friday. We had a goal of $300 for the day and we were very pleased to exceed this by raising $380 on the day. In Touch staff would love to thank our clients and families for helping us to achieve this. With a special thanks going to Karmilla from Kamilla's cakes for the yummy treats we had for sale.

Online ordering for all your supplement requirements

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 22:44:31 GMT

Book a nutrition appointment with Karissa now to start your ordering at home.

Exciting news from the practice.

We are now signing up clients onto the Bioceutical, Megagenics and Bio Concepts websites, so you can shop directly from our suppliers. Once Karissa uploads your medical requirements, you are free to reorder your prescribed products at your leisure. Ring now for a nutrition appointment and get started on your journey to health.

2022 Christmas post

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 04:26:19 GMT

Who else feels like 2022 has gone in a blast??!

Chiropractic Adjustments have you feeling great to enjoy family time, achieve at work and feel your best- However, it is not the only consideration for your health. Other factors at play include great nutrition with a healthy diet, mindset, and your connections with those around you.

The team at In Touch had a blast at the Smile 4 Biz Gala dinner, getting together with likeminded people that believe in supporting each other and our teams within our businesses. Please support this worthy cause as we will be continuing to.

2022 saw us increasing our hours and changing them so I can have opportunities to connect with my family, so thank you for your patience while I have been figuring it out. We have also been exploring new options with our nutrition range to help support your health goals and we have been having a bit of fun on the way. Please do come in and get your adjustment leading up to the silly season and also, think about what you are putting into your body. (Hydrate after the drinks) Make sure you plan to connect with your friends and family and consider adopting someone for Christmas if circumstances mean they cannot!

Yours in health with a handful of wellbeing, and a sprinkle of fun.

Karissa (alias Dr K) ��

A big thank you

To those that donated goods and gifts to our Giving Back campaign, run with the Australian Chiropractors Association with gifts and food for Christmas collected to go to the QCWA for distribution. Every little bit counts to those in need.

Is grass fed beef better for you?

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 23:05:02 GMT

Grass fed V Grain fed !

Were you aware that making a decision on eating meat that has been finished on grass or grain, impacts your health and the aches and pains you may get.

You have 3 main areas of health that you can make a positive impact on; Physical, Mental and Nutritional and yes each area influences the other quite profoundly.

Chiropractors make an impact on your physical state, including nerve pathways that then can affect mental state and I am still interested in the nutritional profile of my patients as your nutrient profile can have an impact on how effective my adjustments are.

If that nutrient juice isn’t there to fire up the nerve pathways we are activating, or those protein building blocks aren’t there to help rebuild, and remodel our muscles, ligaments and joints - it can impact on the effectiveness of our treatment.

There are a few key nutrients I focus on in practice, as they are often amiss in our patients due to our culture and food heritage as well as food production methods.

Magnesium , Vitamin B's involved in cellular energy and Vitamin C involved in collagen Repair and Fatty Acids like DHA/EPA, omega 3's and Omega 6's.

The one I am going to comment on today is the fatty acids and how beef growing/production effects the fat profile of the meat we eat.

Meat, and the fatty acids in the meat and the other Vitamins in the meat that are quite different depending on the methods of growing and producing the meat and that can increase or decrease the amount of inflammation we experience.

Please comment on your knowledge or thoughts on what I am sharing today, please tag a butcher into the conversation, and any beef producers and graziers, I would love to hear from you.

Meat, that is finished on grain,

Has less Vitamin E, 10 times less, and less vitamin A,

Both grass and grain fed have good levels of CLA - conjugated linoleic acid - animals get through the grass and it gets into the fats of the meat.

The fats in the meat from grain fed beef is completely different, the last 30-60 days of being fed grain, dramatically changes the omega 3 and omega 6 content of the meat.

The Omega 6 to Omega 3 ratio in grain fed beef is much higher at 16:1, than grass fed at 1.4:1. Lower amounts of Omega 6 being the healthier option. It is this ratio that is important in inflammatory pathways, cellular stability and mitochondrial function (our cellular energy producer)

The fact that fish oils are so high in Omega 3 is what makes it an effective anti-inflammatory.

Grass fed beef is also much higher in antioxidants and healthy stearic acid.

It can be more expensive to buy grass fed, not finished on grain.

Any local producers like to comment on this.

Health benefits of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA)

Author links open overlay panel KazunoriKobaaTeruyoshiYanagitab

Department of Nutritional Science, University of Nagasaki, Siebold Nagasaki 851-2195, Japan

Department of Health and Nutrition Sciences, Nishikyushu University, Saga 840-0806, Japan

Received 10 June 2013, Revised 12 August 2013, Accepted 8 October 2013, Available online 5 November 2013.

Link : https://doi.org/10.1016/j.orcp.2013.10.001

2006 Nov 1;41(9):1413-24. Induction of mitochondrial nitrative damage and cardiac dysfunction by chronic provision of dietary omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acids

Sanjoy Ghosh 1 , Girish Kewalramani , Gloria Yuen , Thomas Pulinilkunnil , Ding An , Sheila M Innis , Michael F Allard , Richard B Wambolt , Dake Qi , Ashraf Abrahani , Brian Rodrigues

Affiliations expand PMID: 17023268 Link: DOI: 10.1016/j.freeradbiomed.2006.07.021

Review Prostaglandins Leukot Essent Fatty Acids

2018 May;132:41-48.

Omega-6 fatty acids and inflammation

Jacqueline K Innes 1 , Philip C Calder 2

PMID: 29610056

Link: DOI: 10.1016/j.plefa.2018.03.004

Grass-Fed vs. Grain-Fed Beef: How Do They Compare?

December 19, 2019 by Michael Joseph

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Last Updated on May 8, 2021 by Michael Joseph

Link: Grass-Fed vs. Grain-Fed Beef: How Do They Compare? (nutritionadvance.com)