I’m a middle aged guy, who, a few years ago, was off handedly told by a dental hygienist while getting my teeth cleaned, that I was tongue tied. I’ve had a flap of skin under my tongue which holds it down, it isn’t severe, but it does restrict my tongues mobility. For instance, I can’t really stick my tongue out very far (causes issues for… certain… activities). And I can’t reach the back of my rear molars, something I’m told normal people can do with ease. But it isn’t a severe tongue tie by any means. I’ve also been told that when talking I use different mouth movements then other people for some words, I had no idea what that meant until I started working full time remote and was on camera all the time. I’ve seen out going video of my self and can spot the weirdness in talking that was referenced.

The dentist has painted this whole story about how my level of tongue tie prevented my palette from widening like it should have as a baby, resulting in a higher palette which pushed up into the sinuses, and also made my face more narrow then it would have been. Obviously, they can’t prove any of this, but it’s interesting to consider.

My dentist office has added a whole department dedicated to correcting tongue ties, and they push this very heavily. I’m just worried I’d regret having it corrected, but it sure would be nice to have more tongue mobility for the reasons I’ve described.

Are there any other Lemmings who are in a similar scenario to me? Did you go through with correcting the issue, did you like the end result, did you regret it? What was recovery time like?

  • Mothra
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    11 months ago

    Thanks for sharing this story. I believe it’s going to be difficult to find a lot of people in a similar predicament as you since tied tongues are not extremely common, and when they happen they are usually dealt with during infancy. What’s really unusual about your story is that no other doctor or dentist picked this up over four decades

    I’m also on second opinion camp but I can’t speak from personal experience, sorry. I’d be really curious to know how it works out for you if you get surgery though.

    Good luck!

    • Geek_King@lemmy.worldOP
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      11 months ago

      That’s the part I can’t figure out! I think diagnosing of tongue tie is more common now then it was when I was a baby. In the early 80’s, unless the tongue tie was bad enough to prevent the baby from feeding, they probably just said “Meh, good enough”. But it’s weird that it wasn’t called out in my dozens of other dentist visits over the years! I had no idea I was supposed to be able to reach my back edge my molars!