Pediatric dentist for tongue and lip tie?

[cricketwife]

does anyone have experience with a pediatric dentist (as opposed to an ENT) revising a tongue and lip tie?  

[cricketwife]

Aug 30, 2016 13:03:54 GMT -5 @bigreddog said:

Yes, a pediatric dentist did DS's lip and tongue tie. It was covered by both dental and medical insurance. It took 5 minutes.
Here is DS a week old

How did you find the dentis? I'm glad to hear it was covered by medical insurance because we don't have dental insurance for him.   What kind of sedation did they do? 

[pugz]

no personal experience but in my area everyone sees one particular pedi dentist for laser revisions. If you have a local breastfeeding group on FB or LLL I'd call and ask who they recommend. Most ENTs and pedis are useless when it comes to ties. LCs can diagnose but not fix them.

I don't believe they sedate but I could be wrong.

[patbutcher]

Yes, that's who fixed dd's tongue tie.

[fashionx]

Yes we went to a pediatric dentist who specializes in revisions, uses the laser. I found them through Google then read lots of reviews and joined a FB group and they were highly rated.

The laser experience was fast and healing was easy. I was more traumatized by the experience of holding DD during than she seemed to be after it was all done.

[cricketwife]

Ok, I've requested to join the local FB group and saw a friend who was a member. She gave me the name of "the only guy around here who does it." Im glad to know that it's a thing to specialize like that because it almost seems like a con!

[fashionx]

Do you have specific questions about it cricketwife?

[cricketwife]

Aug 30, 2016 13:36:00 GMT -5 fashionx said:

Do you have specific questions about it cricketwife ?

I probably will. I just feel so blindsided that I'm not sure what they are. I feel really upset about having to make this kind of decision. We have our one month pedi appt on Fri so it will be interesting to see what they say, but I know most pedis don't know much about tongue tieds so.....

[fashionx]

Aug 30, 2016 13:46:40 GMT -5 cricketwife said:

Aug 30, 2016 13:36:00 GMT -5 fashionx said:

Do you have specific questions about it cricketwife ?

I probably will. I just feel so blindsided that I'm not sure what they are. I feel really upset about having to make this kind of decision. We have our one month pedi appt on Fri so it will be interesting to see what they say, but I know most pedis don't know much about tongue tieds so.....

Yeah.. the most my Pedi would say is that DD appeared to have a "slight tie", and it was up to me if I wanted to pursue it with a dentist or not. She didn't seem to care either way since DD was gaining weight.

I'm so glad that we did though, it was night and day difference.

[cricketwife]

Aug 30, 2016 13:54:47 GMT -5 fashionx said:

Aug 30, 2016 13:46:40 GMT -5 cricketwife said:

I probably will. I just feel so blindsided that I'm not sure what they are. I feel really upset about having to make this kind of decision. We have our one month pedi appt on Fri so it will be interesting to see what they say, but I know most pedis don't know much about tongue tieds so.....

Yeah.. the most my Pedi would say is that DD appeared to have a "slight tie", and it was up to me if I wanted to pursue it with a dentist or not. She didn't seem to care either way since DD was gaining weight.

I'm so glad that we did though, it was night and day difference.

Per the LC, his ties are pretty severe but he's gaining weight like a champ so I'm kind of worried about messing that up.  I'm kind of worried about doing the exercises afterwards.  Are they nbd or did the baby seem to really mind them? 

[fashionx]

Aug 30, 2016 13:57:08 GMT -5 cricketwife said:

Aug 30, 2016 13:54:47 GMT -5 fashionx said:

Yeah.. the most my Pedi would say is that DD appeared to have a "slight tie", and it was up to me if I wanted to pursue it with a dentist or not. She didn't seem to care either way since DD was gaining weight.

I'm so glad that we did though, it was night and day difference.

Per the LC, his ties are pretty severe but he's gaining weight like a champ so I'm kind of worried about messing that up.  I'm kind of worried about doing the exercises afterwards.  Are they nbd or did the baby seem to really mind them? 

DD had a stage 4 lip tie, I don't remember for tongue. So it wasn't slight like I was told by the Pedi.

Exercises were easy, it is just flipping up/flanging the upper lip and holding a second. Repeat a few times, a few times a day. Honestly I wasn't great about it but she was already flanging her lip better while nursing too, and it didn't reattach.

[AmyRI]

Aug 30, 2016 13:46:40 GMT -5 cricketwife said:

Aug 30, 2016 13:36:00 GMT -5 fashionx said:

Do you have specific questions about it cricketwife ?

I probably will. I just feel so blindsided that I'm not sure what they are. I feel really upset about having to make this kind of decision. We have our one month pedi appt on Fri so it will be interesting to see what they say, but I know most pedis don't know much about tongue tieds so.....

I was really upset about having to make the decision, too. Until we actually talked to the specialist and discovered that the "little" tongue tie DS had was one of the worst the ENT had seen in years, and that it was so bad that it was almost sure to cause speech issues later on. We felt much better about going ahead with the revision after 5 minutes with him.

I always recommend taking the referral now. You can always meet with them, get their opinion, and decide not to do it! But it will be a better informed decision that will hopefully put your mind at ease either way.

Hugs.

[cricketwife]

AmyRI, how do you get a referral? The LC can't refer you and the pedis generally do t recognize them. And I feel like asking the opinion of the dr who earns his living by doing the procedure is going to be biased. I feel like it's a medical decision that we are on our own to mAke. (In fairness, I haven't asked my pedi yet so I do t know what they will say.)

[indifferentstars]

A pediatric dentist lasered my son's lip and tongue ties. I found him through the FB group (great resource!) and we traveled out of state to do it with a recommended provider and a laser rather than a random local ENT. My son was 10 months when we did it. He'd gained very well and we didn't have much trouble BFing (his latch wasn't perfect obviously but it never caused me pain or anything like that) but I was concerned about future issues like speech, eating and drinking, and a tooth gap. He had a class 4 lip tie and the space between his teeth is nearly non-existent now. I'm sure if we had left the lip tie, he'd have a large gap.

I saw your question about the exercises. They're really NBD. I don't think they caused pain, just annoyance at having fingers in his mouth.

We did not have dental and did not submit to medical either. It cost $420ish iirc.

[AmyRI]

Aug 30, 2016 14:30:00 GMT -5 cricketwife said:

AmyRI, how do you get a referral? The LC can't refer you and the pedis generally do t recognize them. And I feel like asking the opinion of the dr who earns his living by doing the procedure is going to be biased. I feel like it's a medical decision that we are on our own to mAke. (In fairness, I haven't asked my pedi yet so I do t know what they will say.)

Our pedi referred us. She knew that she didn't know enough about ties to speak with any authority.

The ENT explained to us how the severity of ties is ranked and showed us why DS's was severe and in our case it was a clear cut go ahead, but he left for a minute and let us talk about it and didn't pressure us at all. I realize this is no guarantee with a doc/dentist you've never met, but not all of them just try to sell you on the revision.

[HitchedIn2006]

Went to a regular dentist that was recommended by the LC's and local breastfeeding groups. He's not a pediatric dentist per say, but does a ton with kids.

[winemaker06]

Both of my kids saw ENTs but I just wanted to say that I really agonized over the decision with the older one. But once it was done, it didn't seem like such a big deal anymore. I had DD in his office at 3 days old as a result, because I wanted to give us the best chance getting rid of breastfeeding pain.

Our doctor was very open about how severe the ties were (and we're not) and let us make the decision on whether to proceed. I didn't see any downsides though.

No anesthetic or sedation. No exercises afterward, just 3-5 days of making sure the tongue didn't reattach by putting a finger underneath it.

[cricketwife]

Did anybody have an ENT that did the tongue AND lip tie? My LC seemed to think an ENT woukdnt do his lip tie, just the tongue.

[winemaker06]

The first ENT we saw only did the tongue with a scissor-type thing. He said he wouldn't do the lip without anesthesia, and didn't want to put a baby that young under for something like that.

Second ENT used the laser on both tongue and lip ties. (He further revised the tongue because he said first doctor didn't release it enough)