What is a
Frenectomy
Frenectomy procedures are quite common and are most often used to resolve a tongue or lip tie to allow for proper movement.
Frenum
The soft tissue connected to the lips and gums and if it is too short, it can interfere with swallowing, speech, or infants when breastfeeding.
Lingual Frenectomy
This is the tissue that connects your tongue to your mouth and it can be too short which can interfere with speech develompent and breastfeeding
Maxillary Frenectomy
This is the area above your front teeth in the gum area. If its too short it can cause difficulties in speech development.
Procedures
Your doctor, pediatrician or dentist, would recommend the Frenectomy and the procedure is often done with topical anesthesia.
Infant Frenectomy
Babies may have trouble with breastfeeding properly if they have lip or tongue tie. Its a relatively simple procedure for an infant.
Adult Frenectomy
As you age, your facial structure changes and you my develop problems eating and drinking or you gums may pull away from your teeth.
Tongue and Lip ties
Did you know it takes more muscles to frown than to smile? When the frenums of the lips and tongue are restricted they cause our facial muscles to compromise which causes even more tension and end up using muscles that we need.
frenum
The benefits of a frenectomy depends on which frenum needs treatment.
pre/Post-frenectomy
We work with your for both Pre/Post Frenectomy with simple exercises to speed healing and get optimal results. The most important part after surgery is to ensure the tissue doesn’t reattach during the rapid healing process which can cause new limitations in mobility.
Tips for Post-surgery Exercises:
- Don’t force or prolong the stretches, keep them short and precise
- Be gentle and it’s okay if you see small , minor bleeding
- Stretch the tongue and lip area at least 4 hours after the procedure
- Avoid foods that will require biting with the front teeth for about one week
- Stretch 3x a day for the first two weeks
The CO2 Laser
What is a laser frenectomy?
Frenectomies can be safely and efficiently performed with the LightScalpel CO2 laser with predictable, repeatable and fast tissue release/ablation and instant hemostasis.
Patients have reported less postoperative pain and better function (in the first 7 days after surgery) than frenectomies performed with a scalpel.
Patients have reported less postoperative pain and better function (in the first 7 days after surgery) than frenectomies performed with a scalpel.
With CO2 laser frenectomy, patients reported less postoperative pain and discomfort.
CASE STUDY: Frenectomy - Initial visit to graduation
Initial Visit: Open-mouth breathing and posture and forward head and shoulder posture, loud deep breaths during the day, depression, social anxiety (too anxious to look for work and hardly leaves his room and is on computer all day) Talking in sleep, bruxing at night, gulping, noisy open mouth chewing, acne, facial tension, and mumbling during speech.
Morning before Frenectomies: 3 Months of Breathing and Myo Therapy. Decrease in heavy breathes during the day, face more relaxed, improved head/shoulder posture, chewing with lips closed, correct swallowing , better articulation
3-4 weeks after Frenectomies: Nasal breathing due to ease of lip closure, skin cleared, anxiety greatly reduced, sleeping better, face more relaxed and swallowing correctly. Tongue up position.
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Contact Details
Delray office hours
- Sun - Wed: 9:30 am - 7:30 pm
- Thursday: CLOSED
- Friday: 9:30 am - 7:30 pm
- Saturday: CLOSED
relaxed.
I definitely feel a lot more relaxed. I don’t have that tension that I had before. I haven’t had a single headache since. Usually I wake up with a bunch of pain, but I haven’t even had that… I used to get pain on the back of my neck when I wake up and had to put tennis balls there to relieve the pain, but I haven’t had to do that.
Jessica
Frenectomy | Myofunctional Therapy
With Oral Facial Health Care, you can reduce the occurrence of discomfort associated with migraine pressure tension headaches, jaw or neck pain or other painful symptoms of OMD.
We offer a 10-point evaluation and customized therapies based on holistic, natural healing methods.