922 Waltham St #202 Lexington, MA 02421
Left untreated, lip and tongue ties can cause issues in health, speech, and overall quality of life. There are many adults that have one of these conditions. Unfortunately, they have lived all of their lives struggling with daily tasks like eating, speaking, and more. If that sounds all too familiar to you, our dental office can help by performing a laser frenectomy to remove the extra tissue that is restricting your oral movements. Speak to our Lexington Smile Studio team about CO2 laser lip tie and tongue tie release for adults in Lexington today.
The lingual frenulum (the tissue between the tongue and floor of the mouth) is supposed to separate before birth. Unfortunately, some babies are born with it and continue to live with the condition throughout adulthood. Something similar can happen with the labial frenulum, which connects the lip to the gums.
The actual cause of lip and tongue ties is unknown, but some believe that it is related to genetics. Nutritional deficiencies during pregnancy may also play a role in the development of these conditions.
Lip and tongue ties do not stretch out or go away as an infant grows. As an adult who has one of these conditions, you may experience a range of symptoms, including:
Without treatment, the complications caused by lip and tongue ties can go on indefinitely. They can greatly increase dental care costs throughout your lifetime and contribute to chronic pain. Your quality of life may be greatly affected! You may also be at a heightened risk of obstructive sleep apnea, a condition that occurs when oral tissues block the upper airway, leading to pauses in breathing during sleep. Sleep apnea is associated with an increased risk of numerous systemic health concerns, including heart attack, stroke, and dementia.
While lip and tongue ties should ideally be treated during infancy, adults can also undergo successful treatment! The standard way to address these issues is via a minimally invasive procedure known as a frenectomy. During this brief service, we numb your mouth and use an advanced CO2 laser to modify or remove the tissue that is restricting the movements of your oral structures. The procedure is surprisingly comfortable, and recovery time is generally quick.
To make sure you reap optimum benefits from your frenectomy, you might need to attend myofunctional therapy before and after the treatment. The purpose of this therapy is to train you to use your lip and/or tongue in the proper way.
No. While undergoing a frenectomy in our dental office, you can expect us to make your comfort our priority. Before we start, we will numb your mouth to make sure you feel no discomfort. The laser’s optimal precision ensures that only the targeted tissue is addressed, effectively cauterizing it in the process. This minimizes the amount of bleeding.
Once your frenectomy is complete, you will immediately notice an improvement in how far you will be able to move your lip and/or tongue. If you struggle to form certain sounds or words, speech therapy may be required to help improve your speech patterns. Relearning other oral functions might also be required. Each case is different, so the timeframe for improved results will vary from person to person.
Traditionally, professionals use scalpels or surgical scissors and sutures to perform a frenectomy. This process is still used in many dental offices today; however, many dentists are turning to laser dentistry to make the procedure quicker and more comfortable for patients.
There are many advantages to using a laser to perform a frenectomy. Not only is it more precise, but it reduces bleeding and swelling because of how it cauterizes the tissue in the removal process. This means there are no sutures required. Also, it sterilizes the treated tissue, so the chances of infection are reduced, ensuring a more pleasant recovery.
There are a few things you will need to avoid or limit immediately following your frenectomy. First, you’ll want to wait until the anesthetic wears off before attempting to eat anything, as you might accidentally harm your soft oral tissues should you bite down while numb. For at least 1-2 days after your procedure, you’ll want to avoid consuming anything hot, cold, spicy, acidic, or salty, as these foods and beverages can irritate the treated area, creating unnecessary discomfort.
Monday: 8:00am-6:00pm
Tuesday: 8:00am-5:00pm
Wednesday: 8:00am-6:00pm
Thursday: 8:00am-5:00pm
Friday: 8:00am-5:00pm
Saturday: 8:00am-2:00pm
The New York Times has published “Inside the Booming Business of Cutting Babies’ Tongues” on December 18th, 2023. At Lexington Smile Studio, we are glad that attention is brought to this topic, as there has been an overwhelming number of providers who have recently started doing lip and tongue tie releases, and treat these procedures as a business only.
At Lexington Smile Studio, we have been providing these services for more than 10 years working in close collaboration with lactation consultants, speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, myofunctional therapists and pediatricians. We are not a one stop practice.
Dr Rosenberg first and now Dr McElligott have been caring for infants and their mothers for a long time with dedication, empathy, understanding and teamwork with the other specialists involved. As Dr McElligott explains to parents during consultations, this is a process not a procedure.
Our success has been based over the years on word of mouth from the families we have treated. Our success is the magnitude of babies who are now thriving because of the release they received by us and, just as importantly, the magnitude of babies who didn’t receive it, simply because we directed the families to the right specialists.
We truly care for all parents and their infants’ well being and we hope that this article will raise public awareness so that families will put their babies in the hands of the right providers.
The Staff and Doctors at
Lexington Smile Studio
