The lips and the tongue have a narrow piece of fibrous elastic tissue that connects them to the gums and helps to stabilize the connected tissue. If this tissue is short, it can limit the movement of the tongue or the lips which can affect speech, eating, breathing, or suckling when breastfeeding.

The procedure is fairly quick to perform. The challenge is educating our patients so they come in early so that we can treat it properly before it becomes more fibrous, or affects proper oral functions from occurring. Not all dentists perform these procedures. At Coastal Pediatric Dentistry, this is one of our specialties. Our doctors are specially trained to remove short attached frenum that can cause issues later in life.

When the tongue has the lower frenum attached to the base of the gums on the lower arch and the attachment goes up higher than it should onto the tongue, it won’t allow the tongue to stick out fully. This can lead to multiple issues including speech impediments and difficulty eating, not to mention, making it impossible to “lick” an ice cream cone. The procedure is typically done with a dental laser. We may even be able to do the procedure without an anesthetic, although it might be more comfortable during the procedure with anesthesia.

In some incidences, the tongue frenum typically attaches to the base of the tongue near the floor of the mouth. Sometimes it attaches closer to the tip of the tongue such that the tongue itself can barely reach out of the oral cavity. This is one of the more common attachments that we need to treat. As mentioned before, it restricts the movement of the tongue and can affect proper functioning with eating, licking, speech, or even breathing.

When the lip frenum attachment is up too far on the lip, it can pull on the lip and affect speech, and breathing habits, and contribute to gum recession. This connection can be on either the upper or lower lip. It is not as common and also not identified as easily as a strong tongue frenum. If this tissue attaches to the area between the upper teeth, it can sometimes form a thick fibrous tissue and create a “diastema”, or a gap, between the front two teeth. When we do orthodontics, if we see that the two front incisors are separated, often we will identify the excess frenum tissue at that time and we are able to remove it.