Tongue Tied??

[our little treasures]

HAS anyone heard of this condition?? my sil son has it and has been told to get under his tongue snipped ouch. Any help on this would be good as any mum she is worried, also what causes this???

[mollyandkurtsmum]

Hi my best friend has just had her sons tongue snipped as it was tied. He is 4.5 and came home from day surgery without any problems at all. My friend was told from a very early age to poke her tongue out at him and he would copy in the hope that it could stretch the skin enough so that he had full movement. He has gone from a kid who couldnt get his tongue out of his mouth at all to being aboe to touch his nose with his tongue which he thinks is pretty clever. He has just started speach therapy as he has to learn to use his tongue for certain words but other than that there have been no problems at all.
Tell your sil not to stress as its a very commen problem with a very easy solution. :D

[veve]

Hey :)

I was under the impression that this condition was actually pretty common??!!! ( please correct me if I am wrong!) - and that it makes it especially difficult to do things such as breastfeed - as the sucking movements can be limited by the tongue range...

Quite often they do snip the tongue- and unfortunately (like things such as circumcision) bubs is often too young for any anasthetic...

From what I have heard though (from friends) it is only mid discomfort for a short period of time, and the snip repairs fairly fast...

hope this info helps!!

xxx

[mollyandkurtsmum]

I dont think there is any need to do the snip without anethsetic or at a young age. As I said in my last post my friends son was 4 and a half years old when he had his done and his was a quite severe tie.
he was also breastfed successfully until 11 months old . he might just be a lucky case but all the doctors and midwives were pretty non plused about it and just said to deal wiht it when he got older

[Ky]

My son is tongue tied. It wasn't picked up until he was 18mths old ... I didn't notice as I thought he looked really normal, but it turns out that I am severely tonge-tied myself!

Up until recently he has been unable to make his tongue protrude past his teeth. I took him to a paed when it was picked up and was told that they try to leave it for a while if they are past the breastfeeding stage (my son was unable to breastfeed) to wait and see if it would correct over time. Aparently, the most common way that it corrects itself is that the child falls over and accidentally bites through it ... it is painful for a few days, but heals quickly and causes very little discomfort! It appears that Daniel has done this as he can now poke his tongue out at me very well! Not very far, but far better!

It is characteried by a "heart shaped" tongue ... the central groove is deep and when you look at the end of it, it does indeed look like a heart! If you look under the tongue, there is a membrane that connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth which is extended almost to the end of the tongue.

My tongue has this membrane right to the end and it hasn't stopped me from talking well, I breastfed (although I frustrated my mother!) and have even represented my country (NZ) in an international singing competition! About the worst thing is that my tongue gets really sore when I try to lick icecreams!

We were told that Daniel was unlikely to talk and that if it hadn't corrected itself by the time he was 4, they would snip it and start speech therapy. He started talking at age 2y 2m and has been talking clearly ever since!