My oldest son, age 9, had his tongue tie released on Friday. Today is Monday. I mean, Tuesday. I’m trying to catch up but making graphics to compare all the pictures I’ve taken is taking me much longer than it should. It’s the perfectionist in me. So I’m trying to take a line from my 5 year old daughter’s favorite character, and, you guessed it, let it go. I apologize in advance to any designers reading this, I know, it hurts.

 

One of the unique things about his tie was where it was tied to on the floor of his mouth, the front, near his gums, rather than farther back, closer to the base of the tongue. This has caused all the problems with his teeth and a lot of tension in the floor of his mouth. Even now there is a LOT of tension in there, which is to be expected once you realize that ties form at around 14 weeks gestation and he’s 9. That’s nearly a decade of pull on one small place in his mouth. No wonder his teeth came in crazy. If he’s going to have full range of motion, especially to be able to fully sweep his back molars we’re going to have to do something about that. I’m looking into a few different options for more intensive bodywork for him and will be sure to share that information when we settle on something.

 

And finally, since I know everyone is curious, what on earth does it look like in there??? Here is the what his site looked like over the first 24 hours after the procedure.

 

He struggled with the procedure. A lot. He was told it felt like a pizza burn, because that’s what others have told us, he’s calling it fire in his mouth. But he was numbed with two different topical analgesias multiple times as the procedure progressed, so it’s hard to say how much was anxiety and how much was the depth of the frenulum that may not have been numb. He was also really bothered by the tool used to hold his tongue and frenulum during the procedure, so that could have been a contributing factor to the “fire in his mouth” as well. I certainly left the procedure thinking “RELEASE ALL THE BABIES!” because babies’ frenulums are not fully innervated, so it is far more painful for an older child/adult than it is for a baby simply because babies don’t have the nerve supply to feel it in the first place. There was discussion that perhaps if we had it to do over again we’d opt for an injected analgesia. We didn’t because of the needle and the anxiety it would create and it’s not usually necessary to be that deeply numb. In fact in a breastfeeding child you don’t want the tongue numb at all because you want them to nurse right after and get the feel for that new range of motion.

 

You can see that immediately following the procedure he had more of an oval wound site than a diamond. We just couldn’t bear to keep telling him it wasn’t done yet. However, if you look closely you can see ever so slightly, tiny corners. Those corners made a huge difference, and you can see that through use (which he still claims doesn’t bother him at all) his diamond widened out nicely. It’s important to remember that each individual is unique and will have slight variations in their healing process. Because his was so far forward and left such a large hole at the site his white diamond is filling in more slowly. The white is essentially a scab, and should be there, but the diamond shape should remain and not involute, as you will be able to see it does in future pictures. He’s a quick healer.