We’re just about fully healed now at 15 days post revision. The white diamond is gone and the hole under his tongue is continuing to shrink. His was so deep it’s still got a little bit of healing left to do in the center. It’s interesting to see the scar that remains is very close in shape and size to the original wound. He is starting to show signs of a frenulum again, and honestly, I’m trying not to freak out. Having a frenulum is normal. It doesn’t mean it’s reattached. I tell parents that all the time, but it’s different when it’s your own kid. You can know things in your head all day long, but all that flies out the window when it’s your own child and you’re so much more emotionally involved. That’s why it’s generally a bad idea to treat yourself/your own kids and why I sought lactation help from someone else when I had a baby. It’s so much harder to be objective about your own situation.

 

 

Interestingly, it’s very common for a regression of symptoms around the two week mark that makes many families think there has been some reattachment. So it doesn’t surprise me that I’m seeing a frenulum and feeling a little panicky. We also had a minor regression of a symptom on Day 12, so close to that 2 week mark. It’s both comforting and fascinating to see the same patterns we see in infants play out in my older child. Especially since outwardly he hasn’t seemed phased much by the situation.

 

One of the key components to gaining full function after the release of a tongue and/or lip tie is really good bodywork. This can come in MANY forms, including chiropractic, massage therapy, craniosacral therapy, occupational therapy, acupuncture, etc. Right now the majority of our options in Columbia are chiropractors. We are fortunate to have many really good chiropractors in all the majors areas of town, so you don’t have to drive far to find good care. But just like it’s good to have options in revisers it’s good to have options in bodywork too. Different people respond better to different treatments, and different situations warrant different or more intensive care.

 

Craniosacral therapy (CST) is one of my favorite modalities for infants, it’s very gentle, and while I will admit I don’t fully understand it, all 3 of my kids have had it and it’s made a big difference for all of them. We have very limited CST options in Columbia, so I took my infant to Greenville, to the CranioSacral Center of the Carolinas where we saw Carol Ball.

 

So far for my older son we’ve been doing chiropractic with Dr. Mike and I had a great meeting with Kimberly Richey last week. Kimberly is a Certified Rolfer™, a specific deep tissue modality. She has training in intra-oral work, which is perfect for what both of my sons need. She did a little bit of work on my older son last week and we’re going to go see her again next week and she’s going to try some work on both of my boys. Because of the nature of rolfing you typically need a child to be able to sit still through the session or at least for a minute, but we’re going to do some experimenting on different ways to meet the needs of children who might not be able to sit still. This is where it comes in handy that I have children of various ages I don’t mind offering up as test subjects. I’m REALLY excited to be working with her; she’s had some training in tongue tie and we’re going to continue to network and connect her with other rolfers who are already seeing tongue tied patients and other tongue tie providers throughout the state. She will be a great resource for our community.

 

 

I was thoroughly impressed with the work she did last week, I was expecting just a little mouth massage. But before she even touched his mouth she did some work on his arms, neck, and body to prepare him. The floor of his mouth still has a lot of tension in it, Kimberly described it as “thick.” But imagine that you have a heavy bag on your shoulder, for TEN YEARS. There’s going to be some tension in that shoulder, and it’s not going to go away overnight. Even if you remove the bag. My son had restrictive tissue pulling so hard on his jaw it was able to move his teeth. It’s going to take some time to loosen that up. I will admit, I feel kind of like the best mom ever taking care of this now. Hopefully, someday he can look back and appreciate the experience; and even more hopefully when he hits the teen years that orthodontic bill won’t be so high!