Dribbling/drooling

[skewiff]

DS is 5 now and he has v. mild cerebral palsy. It is really really mild. BUT he has always drooled/dribbled a lot. It is much less than it used to be - but still (mostly when he has a cold, but also at other times) he almost always has a wet chin and when he is doing things that require a lot of effort he drools.

I have always worried about this and tried things like massage etc - gently reminding him to swallow and to wipe his chin etc - but now he is 5 I am sort of despairing.

DS cannot feel the wetness on his chin. He is not aware that he is dribbling.

Are there any books any you have read about sensory stuff in children's mouths. I've seen people mention these before. I know that DS finds it hard to brush his teeth- he cannot really feel stuff in his mouth. And some of his speech is not clear. He also has not great movement of his tongue, so cannot lick food away from around his mouth.

Thank you.

DD also has v v mild CP and has always been a dribbler. She is 4 and a half. She saw an ENT guy a while back and had her adenoids out as they were enormous so she always breathed through her mouth and they thought that's why she dribbled. It didn't make that much difference to be honest as she still breathes through her mouth out of habit. It has got better as she has got older and like your DS is much worse when she has a cold.
She also saw a speech therapist last year who devised some exercises etc. She told me to try and not prompt her to swallow , wipe etc as she needed to become aware herself when her chin was wet. I haven't really done the exercises at all as she has improved quite a lot.
The speech therapist also got her to do various things to check that her facial muscles etc were all working ok which they were and said that the CP was probably nothing to do with it at all. She is extremely articulate and has no speech problems etc. (cp only really affects one ankle), She is a very messy eater though but I think that comes from not shutting her mouth when she eats as she then doesn't breathe!
Am rambling slightly but definitely worth getting a referral from your GP to someone of you haven't already. I was keen to try and get it sorted before school. We didn't quite manage it but getting there.
Cranial osteopathy can help as well apparently.

Dd2 is identikit. She couldn't really feel her face/chin so had no idea whether she was wet, or even if she had food all over her face.

We tried hyoscine patches (great - and her speech clarity improved hugely as she had less slobber around) but then she developed a skin irritation and couldn't tolerate the patches, they left big red weals on her skin.

Tried oral medication of the same - again, brill. But when she was on the tablets she had nose bleeds, which stopped when we took her off them, and started again in we put her back on them...

We were also offered Botox on the salivary glands.

• and ultimately surgery to reverse the salivary glands.

(neither of which we took up)

So dd2 went to school wearing bandanas and sweat bands on her wrists to encourage self mopping (as a habit - she couldn't feel it when she needed to), and then eventually we ditched bandanas and just sent in dry sweatshirts.

She continued to improve, and at 8 it is only really associated with intense concentration now. Her tongue motility and sensation around her mouth is also improved.

We've done face tapping over time, and gazillions of SLT exercises (all the usual candles, licking blah, as well as mouth aerobics etc)

I like the site www.new-vis.com for feeding and associated stuff - there used to be some stuff on there about stimulating sensation etc, primarily intended to promote suck for tube fed children, but a lot of it I found really useful for dd2.

Dd2's sensation is still not 100%, but last month she finally learned how to move her tongue laterally in one direction (she's 8 and still can't move it the other way lol), so I think you just have to keep plugging away at al, the exercises. Development still keeps inching along.

(I bet he over stuffs too? Blardy bananas are the worst. If you can't feel how much you've got in your mouth, it's really easy to practically choke yourself, or be too full to chew!)

(skew - some of the over the counter travel sickness tablets for kids have hyoscine as an active component too. Our doc and SLT suggested we kept some on standby for days when everything was worse...)

DD also has v mild CP and a similar issue with dribble when she has a cold. She has low tone in her mouth and hangs her mouth open when she's not thinking about it. Similarly she has unclear speech at times and gags/finds it hard to chew on certain things. Agree with madwoman about the plugging away - we do the Mr Tongue thing and I give her a straw at mealtimes as it has helped improve the tone a bit.

I think OT can help if a sensory thing? They asked us about those issues at our last assessment.

Our SLT recommended cold/warm flannels as well (alternating) and I think new-vis uses lemon swabs . I think it's just about stimulating response to try and build new pathways.

... And dd2's mouth/sensation/ oromotor is definitely still improving at 8.5

OK Thank you everyone - I'll try some of these new ideas - and just keep plugging away x

Have a look at new-vis, too though. The site is run by a SLT.