Tongue tie in 2.7 year old doctor not taking seriously

[sportinguista]

My son's nursery raised the issue with us as his speech is very difficult to understand on many words (even for me!) and they had another child who was diagnosed with it who sounded the same as my son.

We have a history of this within my DH's family with my DH, his brother and my DSS all having had it and been operated on for it. It may go further back than that but would have to ask MIL.

I asked the paediatrician who saw him when he was born to check but she said he was ok and I BF albeit sometimes with some pain. I have asked over the years at checks about it but always been told it's fine.

I've now seen our doctor who said rather bluntly that no he wasn't tongue tied and in any case they didn't operate nowadays. He did refer us for speech and language therapy when I insisted so we're due to go to that next week.

Now it's causing problems at nursery as my son is now sometimes getting angry and frustrated at other children and staff when they can't understand him. Previously there were no problems and he's a very happy little boy. They are now introducing him to using Makaton with another child with additional needs to help him be understood.

I feel a bit frustrated with it all and apprehensive about the SALT appointment especially as apparently it will be a group appointment with 3 families there. It feels like sharing a doctors appointment with 3 other people!

Has anyone else had experience of this? Have you had to go private? How much would that cost and is it easy to access?

DS will start school next year and I know how cruel kids can be if you are different so I really feel it needs to get sorted...:(

Sorry, I don't know the answers to your Qs, but as someone with a partial tongue tie myself, bumping in case anyone else does

Hi Just wanted to share my experiences with you. I was tongue tied as a child and my mum really had to push with GP and then ENT Consultant to have the op. When my daughter was born I thought that she was tongue tied but midwife dismissed my suggestions. Thankfully my health visitor took my concerns seriously and referred me back to the hospital when she was 2 weeks old where they snipped the thread very easily ,but I think it maybe more of a operation as they get older.

If you are able to go privatley I would suggest that you could get a second opinon with an ENT specialist. Hope you get the help you need.

Just to add my speech was never a problem but my mum still felt that never beeing able to stick my tongue was a a pain eg never being able to lick a ice cream etc.

Thanks for replying, our appointment with SALT is 2 days away, we've talked about it and we're going to get a letter from the nursery detailing why they have raised it. Our HV did take me seriously as she was the first person I spoke to this time, but she referred me on to our doctor and I got the response that they didn't do the procedure any more.

Once we have the appointment hopefully we'll know more and can get things moving.

If anyone has had experience of having the tongue tie snipped when the child is a toddler , what was involved? Does it require a general anasthetic and how quickly are they back to normal once it's done?

if several HCP's have checked and said he has no tongue tie is there a particular reason you disbelieve them?

your son may just have some kind of speech delay for a completely different reason.
sounding like another child the nursery had, who happened to have a tongue tie, isn't really a good way of diagnosing!

does he show any signs of a tongue tie? heart-shaped tip of tongue? unable to reach the roof of his mouth with his tongue? not being able to stick it out very far?

I have/had 2 tongue-tied children. one was not snipped and has no speech problems, the other one was snipped at 3 weeks but had speech delay and unclear speech regardless- partly due to glue ear.

there are many reasons why your child may have unclear speech, so i would go into this with an open miind.
Speech therapy generally is in groups nowadays because it's a nicer experience for the children, they don't feel singled out and they can all join in games... it's been a really positive experience for us anyway :)

sorry forgot to say, if he does have a tongue tie and it needs snipping then yes, he would have to have it under a general, but it shouldn't take very long to heal at all

My 27yo DB has a tongue-tie. Never caused any bother at all, although hecant poke his Tongue out. Have you considered SALT? But loads of toddlers are tough to understand at that age.

They definitely do still divide tongue ties. I was at a Breastfeeding conference lately where a lady (Anne Lawson at the RVI) who does this very job in the north east was talking about it. She performed tongue tie divisions for feeding and speech problems. She said some tongue ties are really obvious but some are just partial but can still cause problems.

Take a look at this link to see if there's a place close to you. Anne was saying that some people were referred to her and some just rang her direct so I guess you can just call one of the numbers www.unicef.org.uk/BabyFriendly/Parents/Problems/Tongue-Tie/Locations-where-tongue-tie-can-be-divided/

My dc tongue tie was divided at 3mths by Mr Griffiths at Southampton hospital - he is a paediatric surgeon and has a special interest in this area. Hope this helps

Well we went to the SALT session which they said yes there was a problem and yes there seemed to be a partial tongue tie, all they could do however was send a letter to our GP saying what they had found.

All else they could offer was to send me some exercises they said may work from Jolly phonics (which I was going to buy anyway to start to teach reading) and the offer of a group session which had a long waiting list for and could be anywhere in the county (we don't drive) and would also of course be during business hours which as we work we might be able to get time off to attend one but not much more than that.

So it seems we are back to square one. I will do what I can with the nursery and myself going through the phonics but none of us are professionals.

Thisisyesterday I don't disbelieve the HCP but my doctor refused to even consider it. He took a brief glance in the mouth and seemed to think it was ok.

I just don't want to be doing fruitless DIY speech therapy and ending up having to have the op done anyway at a much later date maybe when he's at school.

I have also read that many children go down the speech therapy route and are doing this for several years and it never works.

I am going back to the doctors to get a second opinion and a referral to hospital if at all possible, if not it's private.

My children were both born with tongue-ties (as you mention it usually passes from the Dad) - my health visitor told me that they didn't divide them any more so I accepted that (on hindsight I shouldn't have!!). My son was slow to even babble so discussed tongue tie with lovely GP and he was referred at 17 months. He had a GA at Southampton General and was home that afternoon. The GA was horrid but worse for us than my DS I think.
My DD was also tongue tied but we were on the case immediately and she was 'snipped' at 8 weeks without any anaesthetic. She screamed for 20 mins and then was fine!!
My DH had major speech problems and was a messy eater as a child but his mum never even attempted to consider that his tongue-tie could be the cause. He is really glad our DC will not go through this.
You can get it done privately but shouldn't need to...get back to the doctors.
Good Luck!

in that case check out dairynips link

some of the places on that link you can self-refer to, so it's worth calling the one nearest you to see what they say

my DD had her tongue sniped at 2 months after I had a row with the health visitor! I insisted that it be treated after I discovered it was a routine procedure at the local hospital.

Her father has a tongue tie which was never treated - as a teenager he was bullied at school after he attempted to french kiss a girl and couldn't do it. As a result he stayed away from girls and relationships through school, university and early 20's. It had such a derimental effect on his life at the time.

Communication - verbal and non-verbal - is such a vital part of human relationships, that I was prepared to be quite pushy and 'shouty' about it!

Thanks for all the excellent advice on here. I have an appointment with a second doctor this evening and hopefully we can get further with this.

I realise he has other problems than speech, he does dribble a lot and uses his sleeve to wipe it. He also gets food stuck quite a bit and cannot release it from the roof of his mouth and I have to get it out, I previously put it down to him being a greedy little person and stuffing his mouth a bit full!

With all this and the evidence I have that it's affecting his speech I feel that hopefully I can at least get it looked at further. Will come back with result of tonight's meeting!

well result! We got the doctor to do a referral. He was a bit "Are you sure you don't want SALT instead?" but I managed to persuade him that at least seeing a specialist and having a look would not be a waste of time.

So at least we're on the road to getting something done!

Great news

that's really good. am pleased for you :)
hope they get it sorted

Thank you all for the advice and hand holding!