Vitamin D, Gut Health & Sleep with Dr. Stasha Gominak | Myo Coffee Klatsch | March 23, 2024

Why a Harvard-trained neurologist came to believe that the global sleep epidemic, and much of the chronic pain and illness that travels with it, traces back to vitamin D, the B vitamins, and a disrupted gut microbiome. Most physicians treat vitamin D as a bone vitamin. In this Myo Coffee Klatsch session, Dr. Stasha Gominak makes the case that it's a hormone governing how we sleep, repair, and stay well, and that we've been measuring and dosing it wrong for decades. A neurologist who trained at Massachusetts General Hospital and spent thirty years in practice before turning to sleep, Dr. Gominak developed the RightSleep method after noticing that her patients' headaches, pain, and other neurologic complaints improved when their sleep did. For clinicians, this session reframes sleep as a single-cell problem in the brainstem, where the nuclei responsible for paralyzing us in REM carry vitamin D receptors. Dr. Gominak walks through why REM-related apnea hides on standard sleep reports, why the 60-80 ng/mL range matters, why the common immunoassay D test runs inaccurately high compared to LCMS, and how the interplay of vitamin D, pantothenic acid, the full B complex, and the microbiome drives acetylcholine production. She also connects these threads to infertility, recurrent pain, and the cranky, poorly sleeping toddlers that myofunctional clinicians know well. The throughline: when myofunctional cases stall despite sound technique, the missing piece may be biochemical, not structural, and restoring the microbiome is what makes repair possible. ////////// 📩 Never miss a Myo Coffee Klatsch Join the AOMT mailing list to get notified about upcoming sessions, replays, and educational events: https://courses.aomtinfo.org/join-our... ////////// About the Myo Coffee Klatsch The Myo Coffee Klatsch is a weekly gathering held every Saturday morning, hosted by the Academy of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy. Each session features expert guest presenters who share their specialized knowledge across the full spectrum of myofunctional therapy. It's where clinicians come to stay current on emerging research and learn directly from leaders in the field. ////////// About AOMT The Academy of Orofacial Myofunctional Therapy provides advanced training for allied health professionals treating the orofacial root causes of breathing, sleep, and developmental dysfunction. Through evidence-informed education, AOMT equips dental hygienists, speech-language pathologists, dentists, bodyworkers, and other clinicians to recognize and address myofunctional disorders in their practice. 🌐 https://aomtinfo.org ////////// #MyofunctionalTherapy #VitaminD #SleepHealth #Microbiome #Neurology