The Tongue Tie

Back on July 5th, Mr. Timothy had his tongue tie released! 

This has been a long time coming and my heart just leaps for joy knowing I finally found people to listen to me. 

Some back story.....

This past Spring, I learned I have a tongue tie. Research of all my aches and pains led me to this discovery. There's a lot more that goes to that, but that story is for a different time. This summer is about Tim. Watching and listening to Tim eventually led me to the same discovery for him. He has a tongue tie. For years he has had speech issues. Not huge issues...but enough for it to be clear he needed to be enrolled in some sort of speech program to help. 

While in these various speech programs, he's been evaluated and looked at by a handful of people, and all of them said the same thing upon their visual exam of his mouth, "looks like no tie...." and so I never really thought about it too deeply. We just continued on with his speech program and slowly he made steps towards progress.

Eventually Timothy started to complain of neck and shoulder pain. Alarm bells immediately started going off in this Mama's head. I thought, "dear Lord, he sounds just like me. I can't have him be in chronic pain like I am." 

And there starts this new fire in my soul to do whatever I could to figure out what was going on. It started with research about my issues, and it led me to the discovery that both he and I have tongue ties. I just KNEW it. Everything that was going on with him just made perfect sense when you took a step back and connected the dots....but who would listen to me? So many people have already claimed he didn't have any oral ties.

Thankfully I was able to find a Myofunctional Therapist in Hood River, OR who was extremely knowledgeable and did professional evaluations of ties and other mouth issues. We went to see her and we got the confirmation we needed. We got the confirmation that 3 speech therapists, 2 dentists, and 1 pediatrician missed. Posterior tongue tie. 

If you view the diagram below, photo 1 and 2, to the untrained eye, look absolutely normal. For photo 3 (the way my tongue and Timothy's tongue looks), most don't know that's not normal. I certainly didn't realize having that extra tissue under my tongue was actually a tie. I just thought it was how under my tongue looked! It's not like I went around comparing tongues with others.  It's only glaringly obvious in photo 4 that there is an issue. 

You see, the issue with tongue ties is that if the tongue isn't clearly tethered all the way to the tip making it obvious, then most likely it is missed because people are simply not knowledgeable enough to diagnose, or are versed in ties to begin with. Some people I've come across acted like they were knowledgeable, but I soon realized they didn't have the full or correct information. I had a dentist tell me that since he could stick his tongue out far, he didn't have a tie issue. This is incorrect information! It is not about how far a tongue can be stuck out, but about how elevated one can get it, and if it can touch the roof of the mouth at all (plus lots of other factors!). 

The absence of a tongue tie (and other oral ties) diagnosis is a HUGE issue. So many health issues are caused by undiagnosed oral ties (more on that later when I do a post about myself), and the amount of breastfeeding issues that could be solved with a tongue/lip tie diagnosis is astronomical. Oral tie awareness in infants and beyond needs to get shoved into the lime light.  

Thankfully, and I sincerely mean thankfully, I was able to find, assemble, and work with what I call my "A-list Team." People who were knowledgeable. People who were skilled. People who would listen. People who didn't think I was crazy. 

Months of myofunctional therapy for Timothy with the awesome Christine Hanson of Gorge Myofunctional Therapy, to strengthen tongue and mouth function. Then a few weeks of massage, chiropractic, and sacral cranial work at Hood River Chiropractic with the amazing Dr. Gerbi. Then his release in Gresham with the incredibly skilled and Dr. Ghaheri, followed by more sacral cranial work and myo. Dr. Ghaheri is at the forefront of addressing oral ties and their effects on breastfeeding infants. My hope is that with more light being shed on this issue, less and less ties will go undiagnosed to create larger problems for children and adults in the future. 

It has been a whirlwind of a Spring and Summer. 

We are now 2 months out and the visual appearance of Tim's mouth is like night and day. He no longer has the connective tissue under his tongue, and his jaw has visually started to expand. Look at those gaps! This is all a testament to how the muscle restriction of his tongue also created restricted growth in his jaw and pallet. There was simply no room. His tongue had forever been restricted, so it was not resting on the roof of his mouth as it should have been, leading the way for proper jaw and pallet growth. Now that the restriction has been released, his jaw and pallet are free to grow as they might have naturally done, creating the much needed room for his permanent teeth when they come in! 

(Yes....that top tooth is about to fall out! LOL!). 

We might have gotten over the hurtle of diagnosis and the actual release, but our work is not done. You must realize that a tie release is not a cure-all to the issues that the tie created from in-utero. Think of how long those muscles were restricted and all the damage caused by that muscle restriction. Your muscles and body do not simply bounce back after a release. Your tightened muscles from the tie need to be re-trained to relax. They need to let go of their tightened muscle-memory. And your muscles that weren't doing their correct job because of the tie need to learn to step it up and pull their fair share. It all takes time.  

Also, other common issues that go hand-in-hand with ties like open mouth breathing (which is a huge contributor to poor sleep and bed wetting issues we are dealing with) need to be worked on, as well as more strengthening of the tongue and mouth muscles, etc. We will continue to work with our Christine Hanson on Myo, and will see Dr. Gerbi for tune up chiropractic and massage work as needed. 

I don't pretend to know everything about tongue ties. There is still a lot for me to learn. But I feel so much more educated than I did before, and I plan to take that and keep pushing forward for the health of my children.  

For now, the progress in Tim's jaw expansion has me jumping for joy. I am really looking forward to witnessing more progress for Tim, as well as starting to work on my own tie issues and all the other issues it has caused. 

With love,
Mama Hauck