Tongue Tie – The big scam I have almost every patient that I consult come back to tell this!!
What is a frenum ?
It is a small fold of mucous or fascia that secures or attaches an organ in the body to near by tissues. In mouth it’s there labial, lingual and buccal. .
Does everyone have this ?
Yes .
Then what is a tongue/lip- tie or restriction?
When this frenum is short , thickened, attached too ahead or tight , it limits the range of
movement of lip or tongue..
Tongue moves out so doesn’t have a tie ?
No , tongue has wide range of movements, like out/in , side to side and up / down. A tie
can restrict all or any of this movement. .
Children outgrow it / tongue tie corrects by itself?
No , studies have shown that the frenum is made of Type 1 collagen ( found in skeletal
tissues ) and doesn’t stretch or break. If so adults shouldn’t have ties. .
Tongue – tie should be corrected only if speech is affected?
Speech is the only obvious visible sign of the tongue tie. Tongue has other functions too
including , feeding, breathing, cleaning and acting as a scaffold for the jaws to grow. .
Many who had tongue ties are grown up and still doesn’t have issues?
If your are not seeing the cause of an issue , you will probably never know why it
happens . For example on the pic above , feeding is only the tip of the ice berg and the
restriction can cause many many issues. .
However say if a child has frequent cold and cough (URI) , the line of treatment is mainly
drugs related to symptoms. Many a times when there is no protocol or functional
assessment to see the role of tongue in this, we tend to overlook it. .
Yes a restriction doesn’t cause life threatening acute problems, most of the problems are
chronic thus it’s almost always overlooked or not diagnosed.
Next time you hear that everyone has a tie, no everyone has a frenum and to say if it’s a
tie needs evaluation. And everyone out grows it , a big NO !!!