Releasing a Tongue Tied Big Kid – What We Learned in Days 2-4

January 27, 2016 Kristyn
Posted by Kristyn on

In an effort to get myself caught up so I can post daily updates on his progress in the evenings I’ll summarize what we’ve learned in the past few days and add some pictures hoping the WordPress formatting is functional enough. I’ll be up all night if I try and fancify them in to actual graphics.

 

Today was day 4 post revision. In theory, this should be the day where he is the most sore from the release and using the new muscles, but he seems totally fine. I’m afraid this is because the muscle tension still hasn’t been released.

 

We’ve gotten into a pretty good routine with our aftercare or active wound management, in the morning I massage his jaw with arnica gel, from the muscles in front of and around his ear, under his chin and down the sides and back of his neck. Then I apply the Orajel, in the time it takes me to wash it off my finger it kicks in and he said he can feel it tingle, and then we give his site a good stretch – or two. He heals down a lot over night, the first night we didn’t wake him to do sweeps was the worst, so we started waking him, but even then he has a good bit of involution that could turn to reattachment if we don’t stretch it back out. This is where taking all the pictures has come in really handy, we go back and see what it used to look like and make sure to match that. I let him see the images on the camera so we can see where it was, where it is, and how much more we need to stretch. This is probably the worst time for him, but he’s 9, old enough to be rational and logical (as long as he’s not in a medical/dental office) so it’s fine. All I have to do is mention that we don’t want to have to go through the procedure again and he’s quite cooperative. After that he prefers to do his own sweeps for the rest of the day, every 3 hours. We did learn on the first one I did that I needed to trim my fingernail as it irritated his mouth, so I’d recommend that if you’re working with a baby. He doesn’t use any lubricant, I used coconut oil a couple times, he didn’t really care for the oil in his mouth. Before bed we repeat the morning routine of massage, stretch and pictures and then I set an alarm to wake him every three hours for sweeps overnight. I think if he were a baby nursing during the night it wouldn’t need so much stretching in the morning. And maybe if we woke up and stretched it more frequently it would help, but even my baby doesn’t wake up every three hours anymore, so no one is happy about this new routine, especially not me at 2am when the alarm goes off. Because of his age and ability to understand the need for the stretch in the morning, it’s working out ok. He’s pretty delirious in the middle of the night too, so at least I get to laugh when I’m up at 2am.

 

In addition to the scheduled aftercare I also periodically ask him to show me his diamond and have him stretch his tongue as much as possible, out, up, down, back, etc. We’re still licking popsicles and I bought two bags of celery today for lots of celery and peanut butter in the coming days, one of his favorite snacks.

 

Day 2, morning, before stretches. You can see how much it has closed down on itself. I forgot to take a post stretch picture.
Day 2, morning, before stretches. You can see how much it has closed down on itself. I forgot to take a post stretch picture.
Day 2, evening, post stretches.
Day 2, evening, post stretches.

 

Day 3, morning, before stretching. The baby slept through the night and I didn't set an alarm.
Day 3, morning, before stretching. The baby slept through the night and I didn’t set an alarm.
Day 3, morning, post stretch. You can see the huge difference the stretch makes.
Day 3, morning, post stretch. You can see the huge difference the stretch makes.

 

Day 3, evening, pre stretch. We had a busy day and missed some sweeps.
Day 3, evening, pre stretch. We had a busy day and missed some sweeps.
Day 3, evening, post stretch
Day 3, evening, post stretch

 

Day 4, morning, pre stretch
Day 4, morning, pre stretch. Even with the scheduled sweeps at night it has some room to grow.
Day 4, morning, post stretch
Day 4, morning, post stretch.

 

 

Day 4, evening, post stretch. We didn't have to stretch it much at all this evening, I didn't even bother with a before picture. He did a good job on his sweeps.
Day 4, evening, post stretch. We didn’t have to stretch it much at all this evening, I didn’t even bother with a before picture. He did a good job on his sweeps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It takes me a while to write these up, between sorting and loading pictures, the fact that I’m catching up on multiple days and a baby waking up to nurse it gives me time to think. And I had an epiphany while nursing the baby a moment ago. I get so wrapped up in MY kid, MY son, MY child, etc, etc. And as a homeschooling mother who spends nearly all her time with her children, I seem to have forgotten he is also his father’s. You know how you know something but you don’t realize it? That. Naturally I knew he was his father’s son, but I forget that he has his father’s traits as well as my own, and that some of those things are genetic and not just a learned love of video games and anime. Like not responding to anesthesia as well. My poor husband requires multiple shots of anesthesia whenever he needs dental work. As a red head, I myself usually need more than is expected for my small frame. But we so rarely need it, I had forgotten all about it. Of course he probably needed more anesthesia. Man. Proof that we’re always learning as parents. Sorry kiddo, hopefully this will be a lesson learned and I’ll remember next time. Ideally there is no next time, but if there is, let’s hope I remember.