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Today, I thought I'd chat about the frenulum.
I took both Abbey and Nik to the doctor, for different reasons. Abbey has been complaining about a sore, plugged ear, which turned out to be simple head congestion. Nik, on the other hand, was getting his full 3-year checkup (you know: fluids checked, tires rotated, that sort of thing). All is well and good, but I still had the usual 47 pages of questions, on matters like toilet training and sleep schedules and such. And his frenulum.
Nik, you see, is tongue-tied: his frenulum (the little membrane that connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth) is too...there. There's just too much of it, which affects the degree to which he can move it around. No biggie, except that Nik has a history of speech problems.
That's where the Big Question comes in. He's been seeing a speech therapist for some time now, and recently had his speech re-evaluated to check his progress. And he's doing great, but the evaluators feel that he might benefit from having his frenulum, um, snipped. *cringe* It's not a big deal by any stretch of the imagination; as I understand it, if I take him to the ENT, he'll have it cut before I even finish the question. On the other hand, why go and have stuff snipped if they don't absolutely need snipping?
So I bounced this off our pediatrician, who said that he flat-out disagrees with the evaluators, but will give the ENT referral if we really want it. This is giving me pause, as is one other detail: I'm tongue-tied as well. My frenulum is at least as prominent as his, and my speech is, and always has been, fine. I just have an abnormally short, somewhat less maneuverable tongue. I have no worries about his speech right now, at least where his tongue is concerned.
But I have to admit that all this frenulectomy talk has got me thinking a lot about me. See, the short tongue deal hasn't affected my enunciation at all, but it has affected...other things. Things of a more, um, intimate, interpersonal nature. Things that could benefit from...well, from tongue mobility. And the more I think, the more I get the feeling that if Nik does get clipped, I'm going to be saying, "Hey, Doc, as long as you've got the pinking shears out..."
O suffering, thy name is vanity. Sigh...
I took both Abbey and Nik to the doctor, for different reasons. Abbey has been complaining about a sore, plugged ear, which turned out to be simple head congestion. Nik, on the other hand, was getting his full 3-year checkup (you know: fluids checked, tires rotated, that sort of thing). All is well and good, but I still had the usual 47 pages of questions, on matters like toilet training and sleep schedules and such. And his frenulum.
Nik, you see, is tongue-tied: his frenulum (the little membrane that connects the tongue to the floor of the mouth) is too...there. There's just too much of it, which affects the degree to which he can move it around. No biggie, except that Nik has a history of speech problems.
That's where the Big Question comes in. He's been seeing a speech therapist for some time now, and recently had his speech re-evaluated to check his progress. And he's doing great, but the evaluators feel that he might benefit from having his frenulum, um, snipped. *cringe* It's not a big deal by any stretch of the imagination; as I understand it, if I take him to the ENT, he'll have it cut before I even finish the question. On the other hand, why go and have stuff snipped if they don't absolutely need snipping?
So I bounced this off our pediatrician, who said that he flat-out disagrees with the evaluators, but will give the ENT referral if we really want it. This is giving me pause, as is one other detail: I'm tongue-tied as well. My frenulum is at least as prominent as his, and my speech is, and always has been, fine. I just have an abnormally short, somewhat less maneuverable tongue. I have no worries about his speech right now, at least where his tongue is concerned.
But I have to admit that all this frenulectomy talk has got me thinking a lot about me. See, the short tongue deal hasn't affected my enunciation at all, but it has affected...other things. Things of a more, um, intimate, interpersonal nature. Things that could benefit from...well, from tongue mobility. And the more I think, the more I get the feeling that if Nik does get clipped, I'm going to be saying, "Hey, Doc, as long as you've got the pinking shears out..."
O suffering, thy name is vanity. Sigh...
