Often times, I hear about the tongue remaining heart shaped with divet in the tip or line down the middle of the tongue after release. Patients/parents and even professionals are worried that this indicates an incomplete release of the tongue tie or reattachment.
While those two scenarios are certainly possibilities, a diagnosis of incomplete release or reattachment should not be prescribed based only on those factors.
Here is why! Tongue tie is formed and present from the early gestation period. The pull and alignment of the tongue has been shaped over all this time. Just releasing this, does not immediately change the impact it has had over time. The analogy I use is a hair tie on the wrist.
Just because the restriction is removed does not mean the residual effects are immediately removed.
In the case of the hair tie, it is something surrounding the tissue. In the case of tongue tie, it is embedded and part of the tissue. Over time the heart-shape, divet, or line down the middle of the tongue can lessen with proper functional movement. Hence, the continued need and recommendation or myofunctional, oral motor, feeding, and speech therapy interventions.
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