Hello all,
I asked a couple weeks ago for some help about the absolute agony of feeding my little boy. The overwhelming suggestion was that it was a tongue tie and I received some excellent links for people to contact. My health visitor agreed (over the phone) that it sounded like a tongue tie and the midwife at the breastfeeding clinic at the hospital agreed that it was a tongue tie.
My health visitor gave me a referral and I went to the 'rapid access tongue tie clinic' at St. George's hospital in Tooting, London, with high hopes.
The doctor (Jamil something?) was arrogant from the outset and wanted to take the baby into the other room to examine and perform the procedure if needed. Umm...no. I'm not squeamish but my discomfort is much less important than being there if my baby does need me. He looked at me like I was completely mental for coming into the room.
He and the nurse examined the baby and said that there was absolutely no tongue tie, nothing there, complete tongue movement. They handed him to me and went on with their business, acting like I wasn't there. He said "it's a good thing that there's no tie" and I was clearly upset, because this put us right back at square one. He looked at me like some lunatic with Munchausen's by proxy or something, like I WANTED to have my baby's tongue cut. It was so distressing.
So then two days later, this Wednesday, I went to my local breastfeeding clinic at the hospital. The very experienced midwife there took one look and said that it was obvious he has a posterior tongue tie, his tongue doesn't move properly, he can't stay on the breast for more than a few minutes. I just started crying because I'm exhausted by the whole thing.
So now I don't know what to do. I can't handle going to another specialist only for them to tell me I'm crazy and there's no tie. I'm going to try cranial osteopathy because, well, why not. The midwife said that we should find other positions that minimize the jaw contact and I did have some luck in the session, though I've struggled to replicate that.
I've tried to contact Ann Dobson IBCLC repeatedly but no answer, so I would recommend not bothering with her. If she's on holidays she needs an out of office message on her phone and email. The midwife gave me a couple other names to try and I'll contact them.
I have no idea what to do next. HCPs either don't answer me or tell me I'm nuts. The LLL website won't let me sign in for some reason so I can't seek help there. And EVERYONE I know keeps telling me "oh yes it hurts at first, hang in there" like I'm not bloody trying hard enough. This is not regular pain. Next person who tells me that, I will go berserk at. Next person who tells me to just use some lanolin and get on with it, same thing. I'm just despairing...everyone I know is suddenly reproducing and they all keep complaining about difficulty breastfeeding in public. I'd LOVE to be able to. They keep complaining about how boring it is to sit and feed for hours at a time. I want nothing more than to do that. I have no idea what to do. :(