Tethered Oral Tissues - Collins Dental & Orthodontics

A tongue is considered tied when the attachment underneath (called the lingual frenulum) is too short and impairs tongue placement and mobility. This may result in dysfunction of eating (breastfeeding), speech and sleep disordered breathing (snoring, grinding teeth..). This could mean difficulties breastfeeding your infant, speech articulation issues for your developing child and sleep issues if your child mouth-breathes

. The attachment under the lip (called the labial frenum) may be too tight and .also cause problems. If the upper lip is tied it may also cause difficulty nursing, brushing the top teeth, and can also cause a space or gap between the front teeth.

Breastfeeding

If your infant has a challenge breastfeeding, a lactation consultant (IBCLC) must be seen before your visit:

What we do with our laser:

Tongue tie release for nursing infants and older children
Lip tie release for nursing infants and orthodontic patients
Therapeutic treatment of aphthous ulcers and/or canker sores

LIP-TIE- toddler

TONGUE-TIE-teenager

Treatment

The tongue tie and/or lip tie is released using a state of the art CO2 laser by LightScalpel. The oral mucosa (fascia) is vaporized away releasing the tense or restrictive tissue. This permits the lip and/or tongue to move freely.

Along with the tissue release the older patients will receive myofunctional therapy (physical therapy for the tongue) before and after your frenulum release. Myofunctional therapy helps strengthen the tongue and orofacial muscles through exercises that re-train the tongue and muscles to function properly.

General Anesthesia is not needed for a tongue-tie, lip-tie procedure. We use nitrous oxide and local anesthetic for the older children, and topical anesthetic for the babies.

Frequently Asked Questions about lip ties/tongue ties...

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