Do we recommend frenectomy to DDS or put it all in their hands?
Do we recommend frenectomy to DDS or put it all in their hands?
Q: Hi Sandra, I took your course in April, and have been thinking about the principles I’ve learned non-stop ever since (inside and outside of therapy). I’ve now referred 2 children who were on my speech therapy caseload to a pediatric dentist due to concerns regarding tongue tie. The dentist is very aware of orofacial myology principles and even used to have an orofacial myologist on staff. My question is this. In cases such as these….am I actually recommending the tongue tie release itself OR am I just calling attention to my concerns and awaiting the dentist’s recommendation? In other words, with an ENT for example, I may believe or suspect that the tonsils should come out, and I would make the referral with concern about tonsils and await the physician’s recommendation. I would not of course, all-out recommend that the tonsils be removed. Is it different with tongue-tie release and dentists? Do we actually recommend release, or recommend that the dentist consider release. Thanks for helping me with this important nuance. –Regards, LS
A: Hi LS, Your question is so good that I think I’ll put it into our Q & A . Myo Masters has a form to send to an ENT to fill out for a patient referred to them. Not sure if that will suffice, but check it out and you might even want to create something similar so that the person you send your patient to see will have specific guidelines what to look for and send back to you.
If you at some point develop a close working relationship with a particular professional who does frenectomies, it might be easy to say that you are sending a client for release; however, I don’t know that I ever was that direct nor would I highly recommend it. On the other hand, you don’t want to put it entirely in the hands of your referral, either. They have to realize you know a lot, especially about how ankyloglossia prevents success in your treatment.
I wrote out my evaluation report and under recommendations, I put something like the following right at the top:
If client has frenectomy, then treatment plan to be implemented as follows: (you can change the wording, but if it occurs right at the top of recommendations, then anyone reading it knows that treatment cannot and will not proceed without release.)
If you have performed a good evaluation, with good explanation, then the parent/patient will be excited to start therapy. They must be informed enough about the ankyloglossia that they become their own advocates and hopefully find the right professional to do the release. You can check around and even observe some of those in your area who perform frenectomies ….. several of our grads do that, so it is not that strange and the practitioner often enjoys being able to share.
