[misslaurel]

Hi Everyone,

I have a 22 month old son who was born with a bad tongue tie. He is not saying one word and is nearly two, and I am wondering whether his tongue tie may be the cause of or contributing to his speech delay. I am at a loss of who I can see in Melbourne. Has anyone had experience with tongue tie and can recommend a good doctor or pediatrician in Melbourne?

It may well not be the cause of the speech delay, however he has always drooled an awful lot and had trouble eating and swallowing food, so I would like to check it out. Does anyone have any advice or can recommend anyone? Any info would be really appreciated. Thank you.

[SylviaPlath]

I never ended up needing to do it with DS, however we were referred to DR Lisa Amir by Frances Perry House and our pead there. A friend in mums group has seen her a few times for tongue tie and breastfeeding issues. Speaks highly of her and she has a good rep with the midwives at FPH. My maternal health nurse likes her too. She is in the city I believe.
Hope that's a start.

[misslaurel]

Thank you SylviaPlath for the info. I will definitely give her a go if we have no luck where we are currently. I appreciate you taking the time to reply :-)

[Paddlepop]

I have a thread in the 24 to 36 months section that has a lot of info on tongue tie in toddlers. It might help you with info and links to websites. My just turned 3yo had her tongue tie released 2 weeks ago. I'm in Brisbane, so can't help you with recommendations, sorry.

Have you had a speech path assessment done yet? What about a hearing test?

While my DD was being assessed by a speech path for the surgery, she was diagnosed with verbal and gross motor dyspraxia. It is possible that your son could have oral and/or verbal dyspraxia in addition to the tongue tie, contributing to the drooling and lack of speech.

We went private for the surgery, and after PHI and Medicare we will be out of pocket approx. $1000 but we did use an expensive maxillofacial surgeon and we had DD's upper lip tie released also, doubling the cost of the surgeon. Her upper lip was tied quite tightly to her upper gum and had a very thick frenum that was causing a large gap between her front teeth. Upper lip tie often goes together with tongue tie. If we had used someone cheaper it may have been only about $500 out of pocket. The operation is usually done by a paediatric surgeon.

When you make an appointment with the specialist, please make sure that the doctor does actually do tongue tie releases. Ask the receptionist, and if s/he doesn't know then please ask him/her to check with the doctor and get back to you/you ring them back. Otherwise you might find that you are wasting your time and money if the specialist doesn't do tongue tie release or doesn't "believe" in releasing them.

For my DD it has been worth having her tongue tie corrected. She is able to eat bigger mouthfuls, actually eat some solid pieces of meat, move her tongue much more freely, lick (and therefore clean) her teeth and some speech sounds are a bit clearer. Once she has speech therapy we are expecting more improvements.

Don't be discouraged by warnings of post-op pain. My DD coped fine and she feels mouth pain acutely (teething was hell). We did round the clock pain relief for about 4 days, then decreased it for 2 days, and she hasn't needed any further pain relief. We used a combination of Nurofen, Panadol and day strength Painstop (panadiene), and wrote down all doses and times to make sure that we didn't overdose her on anything. In Qld we needed a script to be able to buy Painstop for a child under 6 yo. Not sure about other states.

If you have any other questions please feel free to ask me, either here or by PM.

[misslaurel]

Hi Paddlepop, thank you for your message. I did read your thread in the 24-36 months section and have found it really useful. Thank you :-)

We saw the Ped today and he saw that as well as tongue tie he has an upper lip tie between a gap in his front teeth. He agreed that it would be good to see a surgeon, so we are booked in to see a maxillofacial surgeon on 4th March.

He also mentioned verbal/oral dyspraxia and my DS ticks to many boxes; trouble eating, can't drink from a straw, can't blow/kiss and I am always told he is such a 'serious' boy. We are going to have occupational and speech therapy. It's all very new to me, and worrying of course. He still doesn't speak and is two next month. Thank you for your reply and if you have any more thoughts/advice they would be greatly appreciated :-) Good luck with your DD.