Functional dentistry in Palmetto Bay

What if your dentist was the one who finally connected the dots?

Q: Do you treat sleep and airway problems?

Yes. Airway and sleep are among the first things we screen for, because breathing shapes your sleep, your energy, and your long-term health. We look at how your airway and bite work together as part of every comprehensive exam.

The headaches. The restless sleep. The tooth that keeps needing work. They often trace back to the same place, and most care never looks for it. We connect what’s happening in your mouth to your sleep, your airway, and the rest of your body, so we treat the cause instead of chasing one problem at a time. That’s functional dentistry.

Jump to what matters to you:

Bite & TMJ Airway & sleep Inflammation Oral microbiome

Schedule a visit See what we look at

★★★★★ 848+ five-star Google reviews Featured in Forbes & GQ

Dr. Yenile Pinto, DDS, reviewing whole-body dental care with a patient 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.

Why this is different

Most dentistry waits for something to break. We look at why it breaks.

A small filling becomes a bigger one. The bigger one becomes a crown. The crown eventually needs a root canal. If it feels like there’s always a new problem, that’s the cycle most dental care is built around: wait for damage, then patch it.

Functional dentistry works the other way. We look for why teeth break down in the first place, from your bite and your breathing to inflammation and the balance of bacteria in your mouth. Treat the cause, and aggressive work becomes the exception.

Functional dentistry is one part of how we practice. It sits inside our SystemicSmile™ Protocol, our prevention-first system for connecting what’s happening in your mouth to the rest of your health.

Explore the SystemicSmile™ Protocol

A patient reviewing a 3D scan of his bite with Dr. Yenile Pinto during a functional dental exam at Deering Dental in Palmetto Bay

What we look at

Four systems most dental exams skip.

Your mouth doesn’t work in isolation, and neither do we. These are the four things we check to understand why your problems start, and how to stop them before they grow.

Bite & TMJ

How your teeth meet affects far more than chewing. A bite that’s off can wear teeth flat, crack them, strain your jaw, and disrupt your sleep. We look at how your bite works, not just how it looks, so you can prevent the cracks, the headaches, and the restless nights before they start.

Airway & sleep

The shape of your airway and how you breathe at night shape your whole day. Snoring, grinding, morning headaches, and broken sleep often trace back to how air moves while you sleep. The mouth is the front door to your airway, so screening it can give you back your energy, your focus, and your mornings.

Deep dive on sleep & airway (page coming soon)

Inflammation

Inflammation in the mouth rarely stays in the mouth. Your gums are an early-warning system for the rest of your body, and what starts there is linked to heart, metabolic, and whole-body health. Calm it at the source, and you feel the difference well beyond your smile.

Oral microbiome

Your mouth is home to hundreds of species of bacteria, and the balance between them drives decay, gum disease, and even blood pressure and mood. We test and support that balance instead of scorching it, so your mouth works with the rest of your health, not against it.

Three guests. Three problems no one had connected.

When you look at the whole picture, the real cause is often somewhere no one thought to check.

A tired patient in her late thirties, an early sign of the mouth-body pattern functional dentistry screens for

The pattern, caught early

Veronica was 37 and running on empty.

Headaches. A sore jaw. Sleep that never felt like rest. Her teeth were fine and her anatomy was fine, so we kept looking. A hormone panel revealed the early changes of perimenopause, years before most women are told to look for it. Her mouth was the first place the pattern showed up.

Read Dr. Pinto’s full write-up

Inflammation you couldn’t feel

Carlos had no pain and no symptoms. But a hidden infection under one molar was pushing his inflammatory markers sky-high. We treated it, he retested, and his bloodwork came back to normal. The tooth was a whole-body problem in disguise.

A cause in the gut

Stacy’s molars were wearing in a pattern that didn’t match her bite. The usual answer is “you grind” and a night guard. We looked further and found undiagnosed acid reflux quietly eroding her enamel. She treated the reflux, and the wear stopped.

If you’ve ever been told everything looks fine when you knew something wasn’t, this is the difference.

In our guests’ words

The difference guests notice most.

A few of our 848+ five-star Google reviews.

“

A treatment plan more focused on preventative care than drilling. A very different vibe than the drill-happy dentists I’ve been to.

★★★★★Luis M. · Google

“

I admire their philosophy of less is more. I want the least invasive technique to keep my teeth healthy.

★★★★★Susan M. · Google

“

I love their conservative yet effective approach to dentistry and the lack of fear mongering. I don’t dread the dentist like before.

★★★★★Ashley W. · Google

Your first visit

Your first visit is two full hours. Here’s what we do with them.

A typical dental exam takes twenty minutes. Ours takes two hours, blocked off for you alone, because you can’t find a root cause in a glance. Here’s what’s included.

Digital X-rays and a 3D scan
A full picture of your teeth, roots, and bite, captured in minutes.
Oral cancer screening
A thorough check, because catching something early changes everything.
Bite and airway analysis
How your bite and your breathing are shaping your teeth, your jaw, and your sleep.
Gum and periodontal assessment
Probing and precise measurements to read the health of the tissue around every tooth.
Your SystemicSmile™ Index
A personal risk score across every part of your oral health, based on your own risk factors.
A full review with Dr. Pinto
Every finding explained in plain language, your questions answered, and a treatment and home-care plan built around your biology and goals.
Take-home sleep test
When your visit suggests your airway or sleep needs a closer look.
Added diagnostic, when indicated
Oral microbiome testing
When the balance of bacteria in your mouth is worth measuring.
Added diagnostic, when indicated

And the two hours feel nothing like a rushed dental appointment. Your time is blocked off for you alone, so we start when we say we will. Expect fresh espresso, sparkling mineral water, noise-canceling headphones, a weighted blanket, and a warm towel to finish, from a team that treats you like a guest, not a chart.

Schedule your first visit

The proof

When you treat the cause, the math changes.

86.5%

fewer root canals

90%

fewer crowns

Because when you stop chasing damage, you stop creating it.

Measured against our own last full year of traditional dentistry, since going biomimetic.

“When other dentists recommended a root canal, Dr. Pinto successfully preserved my tooth.”

Katalin A. · Google review

See how we measured it

In her words

What whole-body care felt like for Meredith.

Meredith couldn’t sleep through the night, waking with jaw pain and grinding. Looking deeper, we found a misaligned bite crowding her airway. After we corrected her bite and improved her airway alignment with Invisalign, she’s sleeping better than she has in years.

The questions we hear most

What is functional dentistry?

Functional dentistry treats your mouth as part of your whole body. Instead of only fixing the tooth in front of us, we look at how your bite, breathing, sleep, and inflammation affect your health, and how your overall health shows up in your mouth. The goal is to find and treat the root cause of dental problems, not just patch the symptoms.
See what we look at

How is functional dentistry different from holistic dentistry?

Holistic dentistry got the philosophy right: the mouth is connected to the whole body. Functional and biomimetic dentistry is the natural evolution of that idea, adding modern materials, adhesion science, and prevention protocols. Same whole-body thinking, now backed by measurable science.

What does “whole-body” dentistry actually mean?

Your mouth is connected to the rest of your body. Poor sleep, airway issues, grinding, and chronic inflammation all show up in the mouth, and they all affect how you feel everywhere else. Whole-body dentistry means treating those connections, not just the tooth in front of us, so we can find problems earlier and solve them at the source.

Do you treat sleep and airway problems?

Yes. Airway and sleep are among the first things we screen for, because breathing shapes your sleep, your energy, and your long-term health. We look at how your airway and bite work together as part of every comprehensive exam.

What is the SystemicSmile™ Protocol?

The SystemicSmile™ Protocol is our prevention-first system for finding the root cause of dental problems. Functional dentistry is one part of it: it combines a whole-body assessment with conservative, biomimetic treatment, so your care is personalized to your biology rather than a one-size-fits-all checklist.
See preventive care

Is functional dentistry backed by science?

Yes. The connections between oral health and the rest of the body, from inflammation to airway to the oral microbiome, are well documented in medical research. What makes our approach different is that we act on them, using measurable, conservative methods rather than treating the mouth in isolation.