Diagnosing Tongue Tie in a 2 year old.

[OrganicFreeRangeBoys]

Would appreciate it if you could share your experiences.

It never occurred to me before that my son might have tongue tie.

I was always led to believe that it would cause problems with Breastfeeding but he always fed fine.

When he turned 2 and still wasn't saying any "proper" words our Doctor sent him for hearing tests. All came back absolutely perfect.

A couple of months doing 2 mornings in Nursery and he was coming home with new words in his vocab every day. However, he seemed to have problems with certain letters. Mainly "L" and any letter that requires you to move your tongue to the roof of your mouth.

I looked further into Tongue Tie and found a list of symptoms my son displays that I never would have thought where connected before.

Difficulty chewing because he cant move food around his mouth properly, Dribbling, The heart shaped tip of his tongue when he, unsuccessfully, tries to stick his tongue out etc.

I took him to the Doctor who has referred us to another Doctor who will then be able to diagnose the Tongue Tie if he does have it.

For those of you with experience, does this sound like it could be the problem? Also will they do anything about it at this age, especially with it affecting his speech?

Any replies will be gratefully received.

Thank-You.

.

OrganicFreeRangeBoys it doesn't always affect BFing. Lots of info here:

www.tonguetie.co.uk/

www.tonguetie.net/

www.brianpalmerdds.com/bfeed_frenulums.htm

Hope that helps. I think it may require a general anaesthetic for TT division after 6 months but hopefully they can do it with a local.

No experience of speech issues I'm afraid but have been battling to breastfeed for 12 weeks because of TT - keep telling myself that even if I can't BF then at least I may have helped him lick an ice cream in the future. Hope you get the help you need.

Hi,

Thank-you for those links.

Will take a better look tomorrow when not so tired.

I have just finished training as a Breast Feeding Peer Supporter and if it wasnt for that, I wouldnt have even thought about tongue tie.

Noone seemed particularly worried about his speech but its only now I have brought it up that doctors are agreeing with me (or just trying to keep me happy) Either way, Glad they seem to be taking me seriously.

I hope your BF journey gets better soon. Good Luck.

Hi.

Sorry this is going to be a bit long. From what you have said I would say that your little one has a tongue tie. They sound exactly the same symptoms as my daughter had.

I wasn't able to breastfeed Lu as she couldn't stay latched on but nothing was done to investigate reasons why. A girl who was looking after her when Lu was 2 weeks old told us - she was training to be a midwife.

I mentioned it a couple of times to health visitors but they weren't concerned and said that it was unlikely that anything would be done as NHS Trusts tended not to do anything about them anymore. I mentioned it a couple more times whenever I went to the doctors and was told the same thing.

Lu never had a problem eating but as her speech developed (and it didn't stop her from speaking) I did notice that the couldn't make certain sounds properly - the main one being that she couldn't pronounce her 'L's. They sounded more like 'ya's. There were other signs - dribbling a lot, heart shaped tongue, not able to stick her tongue out, very messy eater.

My husband then had an appointment with another doctor at our surgery who had done some paediatrics at one of the hospitals in the area and agreed to refer Lu. We live in relatively small borough and the hospital tends not to do major surgery or operations on children less than three. The consultant we saw there did agree that she had a tongue tie but wasn't concerned - he agreed for us to go back every 3 months to see how she was getting on. After a year he agreed to refer us to the bigger hospital and we saw the consultant there. She agreed that Lu had a tongue tie but didn't want to do anything about it - the thing that made me really mad was that they seemed keen to not cut it and if she developed a speech problem she could go to speech therapy for god knows how long to correct it rather than do a 30 second procedure.

After basically refusing to leave the consultant's room she agreed to see us again in a years time to see how Lu was getting on. In the meantime her speech was developing apart from certain sounds and at one of her checks the health visitor suggested seeing a speech therapist. We saw two and they agreed that she couldn't pronounce her 'L's because her tongue didn't reach the roof of her mouth. When we went back to see the consultant a year later we were armed with this information and the additional problems Lu had of getting food stuck and having to dig around with her fingers to move it etc. This time the consultant agreed to do the procedure. Hooray!!! And four months before her 3rd birthday she had the tongue tie cut.

Her speech has improved (and can now say her 'L's), she can poke her tongue out, she doesn't dribble anymore and eats a lot better.

It wasn't an easy decision as Lu had to have a general anaesthetic and we aware that there could have been problems with this but I am really pleased that I stuck with it and have no more concerns about it.

If you are concerned about the effect the tongue tie could have I would advise you to speak to health visitors and doctors and persevere. Don't be fobbed off. I think it also depends on the area you live and how severe it is on the response you will get but it is definitely worth speaking to someone about it.

Apologies again for the length of this.

Julie

Wow, thank-you juandlu.

That's very helpful and I'm glad you got it all sorted in the end.

My son's appointment for "official" diagnoses is next Tuesday and hopefully we won't have a battle to get anything done about it.

Thank-you for takin the time to write your reply.