Tongue-Tie & Lip-Tie
Procedures
What is a tongue-tie or lip-tie?
Tongue-ties or lip-ties are conditions that limit your tongue or lip’s normal range of motion due to a tight soft-tissue frenum. When your range of motion is too tight, it impacts the way your jaw grows and can lead to problems with feeding, breathing, sleeping, and more.
Contrary to popular belief that they only affect babies, restrictive tongue-ties or lip-ties can lead to symptoms in all ages – from infants to adults! Fascinatingly, ties are very common and can be found in 12-25% of people.
Signs and Symptoms of a Tongue-Tie
Signs of a Tongue-Tie in Infants
- Poor latch quality/difficulty maintaining latch
- Colic, reflux symptoms, excessive gassiness, spitting up, or hiccups
- Difficulty with milk transfer/poor weight gain/failure to thrive
- Frustration at the breast
- Mouth breathing or snoring
- Falling asleep at the breast and short sleep episodes
- Frequent/extended nursing cycles
- Clicking, gumming/chewing of the nipples
- Choking, gulping, gasping at the breast
- Leaking milk from the corners of mouth/improper seal
- Inability to flange upper or lower lips
- White coating on the tongue
Signs of a Tongue-Tie in Adults
Difficulty:
- Speaking
- Eating
- Drinking
- Breathing
- Kissing
Trust Your Instinct:
Take the Free Self-Assessment
If you have a gut feeling that something might not be right with you or your child, it’s a good idea to follow your instinct. Getting to the root cause of symptoms for you or your baby is the best way to start on the road to better health.
Health:Latch Circle – of which Dr. Liz is a proud, trusted provider – is an organization that gives tongue-tie and airway resources to help you thrive and live your best life. One helpful resource is its free intuition builder self-assessment tool. You can take this assessment to learn more about your or your child’s symptoms and what steps to take next.
Gentle, painless frenectomies with
Dr. Elizabeth Turner
When a tongue-tie is the problem, we recommend a tongue-tie release (a frenectomy), a speedy procedure that allows for more mobility and freedom to grow and function. Dr. Turner uses a LightScalpel CO2 laser for tongue- and lip-tie release procedures.
The LightScalpel CO2 laser is a device that produces a concentrated beam of light. A laser dentist uses a highly focused CO2 laser beam to vaporize, cleanly and precisely, while sealing blood vessels at the same time.
Are Lightscalpel laser
procedures safe?
Yes! Dr. Turner holds a certificate from the American Board of Laser Surgery for Laser Dentistry and is trained specifically around safety while using the LightScalpel CO2 Laser. The laser is just as safe as other instruments used in dental procedures. Our team will also make sure you have special protective glasses, just like you would use to protect your eyes from sun exposure.
The LightScalpel Carbon Dioxide Laser is a device that produces a concentrated beam of light. The highly focused CO2 laser beam vaporizes, cleanly and precisely, while sealing blood vessels at the same time. Since its inception in the 1960s, the CO2 laser has become a very common method for minimally invasive soft tissue surgery.
The CO2 laser remains the best surgical tool that simultaneously cuts soft tissue and stops bleeding from small blood vessels along its path. Both incision and reduction in bleeding are achieved in a non-contact fashion with a focused beam of light.
Still have questions about tongue-tie procedures? Check out the answers to our most frequently asked questions here.
What do I need to do post-surgery for a tongue-tie or lip-tie?
After your tongue-tie or lip-tie procedure, Dr. Elizabeth Turner will provide you with post-operative care tips. In addition, watch this video here for post-op care instructions:
Think a tongue-tie might be causing difficulties with feeding, breathing, or sleeping?
Schedule an appointment with Dr. Liz to find the root of the problem.
Real Story From a Real Family
“Dr. Liz is so kind, amazing, and knowledgeable! She came highly recommended to us by a professional Orofacial Myologist in Denver. We came to her specifically for tongue-tie procedures-she fixed our tongues and helped us so much more beyond that! She gave us recommendations for equipment to use to strengthen our jaws and correct the shape of our mouths (without orthodontics!). We actually live out of state and saw her while on vacation in Colorado. She helped us find professionals in our area who could help us here yet also made sure we knew that she was always available to help us too.
I was a tired mom, traveling with 4 kids, and searching for someone to help. Dr. Liz blew my expectations out of the water. She was so helpful! We had previously asked several dentists, a pediatrician and an ENT about possible tongue ties and none of them were specialized enough to recognize the issues we were having and to help us with further treatment. Dr. Liz was the help we needed.
We’ve been having some very serious and scary aggression issues with one of our kids and we think a lot of it goes back to the shape of his mouth and mouth breathing at night. Dr. Liz is helping us figure that out and even wrote referrals so that we can get into a sleep study for two of our kids.
This is the way dentistry I think should be practiced. She’s looking at the whole person and helping us make our lives better by improving our mouths. Dr. Liz offers so much more than just typical dentistry! Now that I know what Whole Person Dentistry can look like, I feel so encouraged and inspired. She helped me, and our family, so much. I am really grateful to her.
And she is AWESOME with kids. I have four kids (ages 9, 6, 5, and 2) and she was incredible and patient with all of them. She made me feel like a good mom and seemed like she genuinely enjoyed our kids. She gave me her cell phone number and has helped me along the way. She even answered my questions over text when our five-year-old knocked out his front tooth. She is seriously a mom’s dream of a dentist! Thank you Dr. Liz for the amazing work you’re doing and the way you’re continuing to help us!”
MARY HUSTON