tongue tie wasn't cut properly! i knew it!!!

[mrsflux]

it appears to be VERY likely now that ds' tongue tie was never cut properly.
he had a bump on friday and howled - despite there being no obvious injury/ sore bit.
since then i have never seen so much of his tongue and he is fascinated by it, grabbing it all the time and poking it out.

however he was snipped at 5 weeks and so this should not be a new phenomenon.

background
bf was HORRIBLY painful. i got very depressed about it - even avoiding feeding ds. brought on touch of pnd.
we contacted hv - she said latch etc was fine.
she contacted infant feeding team latch was fine but ds had tongue tie. we had it snipped at 5 weeks.
bf no better. latch still good.
eventually i gave in and switched to ff. bf did not get any easier at all in the 3 months i managed to mix feed him.
i blamed myself, i was too pathetic to feed him etc etc. pnd got worse (this is with hind sight, at the time i was too much of a mess to recognise it)
ff established, bf finished i was much happier.

BUT i had never seen ds's tongue poke out at all. i mean ever! since he was older than 12weeks by then it would be a GA job to snip so i just thought wait and see, maybe i'm being a neurotic mummy.

i am now convinced that it wasn't done properly! which means i gave up bf and blamed myself unnecessarily!

i am really cross about it and feel a bit cheated out of bf which i always wanted to do but ended up hating with a passion! never mind the health benefits ds may have missed out on.

should i write to my health authority and let them know and ask them to put in place checks to spot tongue ties and also do some sort of follow up checks after tongue ties are cut?

WWYD?

ps thanks if you are still reading - it feels good getting this off my chest!

I can see why you wold feel resentful if you wanted to BF and this stopped you. I'd be cross too.

It can't be that difficult to do some sort of follow-up check can it? When it affects feeding so much it's worth getting it right surely.

My ds had a tongue tie snipped at a few weeks old (spotted by us not hospital by the way). He is now 3.5....and still has a tongue-tie. It's not as bad as it was, in his case I think it kind of grew back a bit as he already was used to not lifting his tongue (possibly this was part of the issue in your case? That ds continued to not use his tongue properly through habit (espec if he was getting milk)and as a result it re-fused a bit and continued to be painful?)

As you probably know there is some debate whether tongue-tie cutting is necessary or not as many cases either self-resolve or cause no problem (obv. not true in your case) because of this frankly I don't think the HA will pay much attention BUT if it will help you to at least tell them your experience then go for it! I do agree that tongue-ties should be checked for at initial medical check, so parents know there may be a problem.

At least it sounds like your DS has "self-resolved" the problem now! I am still working on getting ds to try and practise sticking his tongue out to stretch the joined bit. It doesn't seem to be causing speech problems or anything - he's just jealous of his sister being able to roll her tongue!

DS (now 6m) had tongue tie snipped at 7weeks. In his case the op also didn't help with feeding. He dropped 4 centiles, loads of worry etc etc. I also managed to mixed feed to 3months then switched to formula and he's thrived since.
I am a speech therapist, so know a bit about tongues(!) and can see from his that although the frenulum (little white cord under tongue) was snipped his tongue is still tethered and heart shaped when he tries to stick it out. I believe his tongue is anchored more at the root, and cutting the frenulum made little difference. So I can't really blame the surgeon, who was very clear that in some cases it's not beneficial to do the surgery (although rarely causes harm)

There is very little evidence out there, but NICE guidelines now state that where breastfeeding is a problem tongue ties should be snipped. However, very difficult to tell in a baby how bad the tie is. They can also have a bad tie and not have feeding problems or a mild tie and have terrible problems.

It may be the case that your son is like mine... please don't blame yourself.

cheers hair twiddler!
i would have said ds's tongue was heart shaped till he freed it but now it is a big wriggly tongue!
ds never had trouble feeding - he went from 75th percentile to 91st in first 3 weeks while i was exclusively bf in agony.
appart from the fact that he has no idea WTF is going on in his mouth now (so different, must grab it, no i'll stick it out etc etc) he seems to have as much range of motion as the other babies we know.
sil is a speech therapist so we'll have help if we need it without having to wait for school to refer then to be assessed etc so i'm not worrying.

i'm just miffed that no one spotted it for a while, then they didn't offer a follow up so i was left thinking the end of bf was my fault for being a wuss!

Oh goodness I'm relieved to see that this has happened to other people too. My DS's tongue tie was noted at birth (had to formula feed as he couldn't latch on), was referred to 'plastics' to have it cut at 5 days but because of need to do under GA (the tie was complete length of tongue, thick and short) the surgeon decided to defer and review at 3m. Very difficult to get DS to gain weight; he struggled so hard to drink it took over 2 hours to get 2oz down him and weaned early (10wks) to stave off further weight loss (on HV advice). Tie cut under GA at 5m. I saw straight away that a portion remained uncut at the back but DS appetite improved and he appeared to be able to sound his consonants ok. BUT...and it's a BIG but...he completely arrested, food-wise at about 9m. He is totally unable to handle lumps, cannot chew at all and gags and chokes even when food is served as thick soupy mush. I recently saw under the tip of his tongue for the first time and was appalled at how far forward the tie now appears to be so we are now awaiting a clinic appointment back at 'plastics' to discuss doing it again. DS puts NOTHING in his mouth apart from fingers and comforter, nor has he since he was a baby. He has just turned 2 and I am desperate for him to be able to eat age-appropriate food. He dropped from 25th to below 9th centile, got him back up to 25th but once he started running about he dropped back to 9th. Appetite like a horse but it's a full day's job getting the food into him.