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Sleep & airway dentistry in Palmetto Bay

Still tired, no matter how much you sleep?

The snoring. The morning headaches. Nights that never quite turn into rest. You’ve probably been told to lose weight, cut the caffeine, or just live with it. What almost no one checks is how you breathe at night, and how your mouth shapes it. That’s where a sleep and airway dentist starts.

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Dr. Yenile Pinto, DDS, sleep and airway dentist at Deering Dental in Palmetto Bay
Dr. Yenile Pinto, DDSFounder & functional dentist

Serving Miami, Coral Gables, Pinecrest, Coconut Grove, Palmetto Bay, South Miami, and Cutler Bay.

Does this sound like you?

The signs that your sleep is really a breathing problem.

Poor sleep rarely announces itself as a breathing problem. It shows up as the way you feel all day. If several of these sound familiar, your airway is worth a closer look.

Snoring or noisy breathing
Waking up tired, even after a full night
Morning headaches
Brain fog, or feeling wired but tired
Clenching, grinding, or teeth that are wearing down
Waking to use the bathroom during the night
A jaw that aches, clicks, or feels tight
Restless, broken sleep

Here’s the part most people miss: sleep apnea is the late stage, not the start. The snoring, the restless nights, the mornings you wake up already tired: those are earlier stages of the same problem, your airway quietly starting to struggle. So being told you don’t have sleep apnea doesn’t mean nothing’s wrong.
Often it means you’ve caught it early, before it crosses the line into a diagnosis, while it’s already costing you real rest. And early is good. It’s the same instinct that has you deal with blood pressure creeping up before it turns into something worse. Far easier to change now than later.

Why a dentist

Your mouth is the front door to your airway.

You eat well. You move your body. You pay attention to how you feel. So when you keep waking up tired and foggy anyway, it’s frustrating. You’re doing the work, and something’s still off. Often the missing piece is how you breathe while you sleep, and that’s not something a cleaner diet or a harder workout can fix on its own.

Every breath you take at night goes through your mouth and throat first. How much room your tongue has, the way your jaw sits, whether you breathe through your nose or your mouth: all of it shapes how easily air moves while you sleep. And those are the exact structures a dentist sees closer, and more often, than almost anyone in healthcare.

That doesn’t make your dentist the whole answer. It makes your mouth the right place to start, because so many airway problems begin, or first show up, right here. We start with the structure underneath, why your airway is struggling in the first place, then figure out what we can handle in your mouth, and whether there’s more going on that calls for an ENT or your doctor to fully address your situation.

Airway and sleep are one of the pillars of our SystemicSmile™ Protocol: the prevention-first system we created to connect what happens in your mouth to the rest of your health.

Explore the SystemicSmile™ Protocol
Dr. Yenile Pinto reviewing a patient's jaw imaging and bite scan at Deering Dental in Palmetto Bay

What we look at

Four things that decide how well you breathe at night.

A healthy airway isn’t one thing. It’s four. And when any one of them is off, your sleep pays for it. Here’s what we look at.

Structure

Whether there’s enough room for your tongue. A narrow palate or a jaw that sits too far back restricts your airway, and lying down only makes it worse.

Function

How well your tongue and the muscles around your airway do their job. When your tongue rests low or those muscles are weak, the airway collapses more easily while you sleep.

Habits

How you breathe all day. Mouth breathing and a low resting tongue posture are easy to miss, and left unchecked, they keep working against your airway.

Inflammation

What’s swelling the tissues. Congestion, allergies, and inflammation narrow the airway from the inside, so even a well-built one ends up restricted.

Most people have a mix of these, not just one. Looking at all four together is how we find what’s actually going on, and what will work best for you.

How we help

5 steps to better sleep

Treat only your nose, or only your mouth, and you’ve fixed part of the problem. Real sleep needs the whole picture. Think of it like fitness: diet alone or exercise alone only gets you so far. You need both. Here’s how we do it.

1
We screen your airway and bite.

At your first visit, we look at your airway, your bite, how much room your tongue has, the wear on your teeth, and how you actually breathe, with imaging and a hands-on exam.

2
You take a screening home.

If your exam points to a sleep issue, you’ll go home with a simple sleep screening you wear in your own bed. No sleep lab, no overnight stay in a strange room.

3
The official diagnosis comes from a physician.

Dr. Pinto has the training to read what your results show, but by law a diagnosis of sleep apnea requires an MD to make it official.

4
We treat what belongs to the mouth.

Depending on what we find, that might mean a custom oral appliance you wear at night, correcting a collapsed or crowded bite (sometimes with clear aligners) to give your tongue more room, palatal work in select cases, or coaching on how you breathe and hold your tongue.

5
We coordinate the rest with your doctor and ENT.

When the problem runs into your nose, your throat, or something medical beyond the mouth, we bring in your doctor and a trusted ENT partner, so every part of your breathing gets handled, not just your mouth.

For many people, a custom oral appliance is the centerpiece. Worn at night, it gently holds your lower jaw forward to keep the airway open. It’s a comfortable, travel-friendly option that major sleep-medicine guidelines recommend. We fit it, fine-tune it, and confirm it’s working with follow-up testing.

Schedule an airway assessment

If CPAP hasn’t worked for you

If your CPAP lives in a drawer, you still have options.

CPAP works, and for many people it is the right treatment. But many people just can’t tolerate it. The mask, the hose, the noise, the feeling of air being forced in while you’re trying to fall asleep. If that’s you, you’re far from alone, and giving up on CPAP doesn’t mean giving up on your sleep.

For many people who can’t use CPAP, a custom oral appliance is an effective, study-backed alternative. One recent trial published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found it lowered blood pressure as well as CPAP did over a full day. The goal isn’t to replace your CPAP. The goal is to find the option you’ll actually use, because the best treatment is the one you can stick with. Every night.

Woman lying awake at night holding her CPAP mask away from her face, unable to sleep

A story we know by heart

Dr. Yenile Pinto and her husband Peter laughing together outdoors

How Dr. Pinto helped her own husband sleep again.

For years, Peter woke up more tired than when he went to bed, foggy and running on fumes. He’s fit and not overweight, so the usual explanations didn’t fit. Dr. Pinto started with her piece of it: his bite. It had collapsed far enough that his tongue was falling back into his airway at night. Twelve months of clear aligners opened it back up, and his first follow-up screening showed him go from moderate sleep apnea to mild. Real progress, but not the whole story.

His nose was the remaining problem. Peter has a deviated septum, so Dr. Pinto sent him to an ENT. He wasn’t ready for surgery, so he used a simple nasal breathing aid for now, and his next screening no longer showed sleep apnea. He may still have the surgery someday. But it’s the lesson we come back to with every guest: sleep and breathing are multifaceted, and getting there often takes your sleep-trained dentist and an ENT working together.

Read Dr. Pinto’s full story

Is this actually proven?

This isn’t fringe. It’s established medicine.

If “a dentist treating your sleep” sounds fringe, it isn’t. Custom oral appliances are recommended by the field’s governing bodies, studied in major medical journals, and used every day alongside sleep physicians. Here’s some of what the research actually says.

A randomized trial in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine found that a custom oral appliance and CPAP produced similar improvements in important health outcomes.

A randomized trial in the journal Sleep found an oral appliance improved breathing and rest even in people whose test results fell below the apnea line.
“Oral appliance therapy is a proven, effective treatment for obstructive sleep apnea and snoring.”American Academy of Dental Sleep Medicine, 2025

Every case is different, and what helps you depends on you. What doesn’t change is our approach: measure it, treat it, and confirm it worked.

Your first visit

A first visit built to actually find the problem.

A typical dental exam takes twenty minutes and moves on. Yours takes two full hours, unhurried and focused on you, because you can’t find an airway problem in a glance.

A smiling patient being cared for by two Deering Dental team members during an unhurried visit
  • A full airway and bite analysis.

    We look at how your jaw, your tongue space, and the way you breathe are shaping your sleep.

  • Imaging and a 3D scan.

    A clear picture of your airway, teeth, and bite, so nothing’s left to guesswork.

  • A check for wear and clenching.

    The grinding and tooth wear that broken sleep often leaves behind.

  • A take-home sleep screening, if your exam points to one.

    You wear it at home in your own bed, so it captures how you actually sleep.

  • A results review with Dr. Pinto.

    Once everything’s back, she walks you through every finding in plain language and builds your plan, in our office or over Zoom, whichever is most convenient for you.

By the end, you’ll know what’s really been behind how you feel, and what to do about it.

Schedule your first visit

Common questions

The questions we hear most

Can a dentist diagnose sleep apnea?
Not officially, and that’s true for every dentist. Dr. Pinto is trained to spot the signs and run the screening, but by law that diagnosis has to be made official by an MD. From there, we treat the oral and airway side and coordinate with your doctor or an ENT for anything beyond the mouth. See how we help
Do I have to give up my CPAP to see you?
Not at all. We work alongside CPAP, not against it. If it’s working for you, we support that. If you can’t tolerate it, we’ll work with your doctor on an option you’ll actually use, like a custom oral appliance. If CPAP hasn’t worked
What if it turns out my problem is my nose or throat?
Then it’s an ENT’s to handle, and we’ll help you get there. We partner with a trusted ENT for guests who don’t already have one, so every part of your breathing gets addressed, not just your mouth.
Is an oral appliance actually proven to work?
Yes. Custom oral appliances are recommended in mainstream sleep-medicine guidelines, especially for people who can’t tolerate CPAP. Yours is fitted and fine-tuned by a trained dentist, then confirmed with follow-up testing. The science
I was told I don’t have sleep apnea, but I still feel exhausted. Can you help?
Often, yes. Breathing problems run on a spectrum, and you can have real, sleep-wrecking airway trouble that doesn’t cross the line into apnea. That in-between zone is exactly where a careful airway assessment helps. Am I at risk?
Do you treat children?
Our focus is adults. Airway health does start young, and we’re glad to point families in the right direction, but children’s airway care is its own specialty and isn’t the focus of our practice.

Ready to find out what’s really keeping you up?

Imagine waking up genuinely rested, thinking clearly, and finally knowing what was getting in the way. That’s what we’re here to help you find.

Schedule an airway assessment 786-577-4185

What Our Guests Say

Less dentistry.  Better health.

Deering Dental - 16709 Old Cutler Rd. Palmetto Bay, FL 33157

OFFICE HOURS

Monday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

Tuesday 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Wednesday 10:00 am - 6:00 pm

Thursday 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

Friday Limited Availability for Select Appointments

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