ENT who does not believe ankloglossia has much to do with speech or dental problems

Good Morning How are you? I went to dinner last nite with my uncle, an ENT who was visting from Miami. Well I shouldn’t have been surprised but I was not expecting him to say that he does not believe ankloglossia has much to do with speech or dental problems. Wow. I said what I could and then left it alone. He will do the surgery but gets a feel for what the parents want. I then said the boy I am working with now, post surgery, feels so great when he can stick out his tongue etc. My uncle said then you are doing psychological surgery. The other “great” thing he said was you are also improving their sex lives. (big laughs from the rest of the table) Just felt like venting and wondered what you say in these situations. You always seem to have the “right” thing to say. Anyway- My 9 yo 1 week post surgery is doing well. He did skinny tongue and Mom cried, she was so happy. His speech is less of a frontal lisp, but he still seems to spread his lips when he talks. Maybe he is incorrectly compensating for tongue protrusion? What do you think? Have a great weekend D

I wonder how many courses your uncle ENT attended about ankyloglossia and how many classes covered it when he went to school.  My guess is…..zero!  He probably reads his journals and if the journal articles any given month are opposed to it for some reason, he probably just goes along with it. As far as the “psychological” surgery is concerned, we in the West should learn from the East, where they actually believe that a human being is more that the sum of individual parts.  Can you imagine that?  The East way of  thinking believes we should consider the whole person!  Your uncle sounds like he considers only one part of a person at a time……not unusual for some professionals, unfortunately. We understand how happy the boy’s mom is and the advantages the boy now has.  Remember that your in-depth and up-close relationships with clients/patients goes far beyond what any typical ENT experiences in his lifetime.  We get “closer” to more clients in any week than some others do in twenty years. Smile inside, don’t defend yourself too much, and just know deep inside that you are doing the right thing.   Always nice to hear from you.