Untying the Tongue Tie: A case report

Tongue-tie may lead to various functional abnormalities that include abnormal speech, mal-occlusion and inability to swallow the food which could entail difficulty in normal life activity of an individual. Choice of management for ankyloglossia includes timely and appropriate surgical intervention, followed by speech therapy which delivers pleasing results, often in a less time than expected. Surgical techniques for ankyloglossia can be classified into three procedures: (i) Simple cutting of the frenulum i.e. Frenotomy (ii) Complete excision of the whole frenulum i.e. frenectomy (iii) Frenuloplasty involves various methods to release the ankyloglossia and correct the anatomic situation. Surgical intervention for treating ankyloglossia includes conventional technique with scalpel, electrocautery and LASER. Without post-operative exercise for tongue, there will be no convincing improvement in speech. It improves ability for sensation of parts of tongue (kinaesthesia) and rapid alternating movements of tongue (diadochokinesis). In our case, frenectomy using scalpel was planned, since surgical excision of the muscle fibres thus relieving the frenulum was simple, easier as well as less time consuming. The most expedient factor of electing scalpel over the other techniques was because of the fact that the complete excision of the lingual frenulum muscle fibres could be achieved. But caution should be taken while preferring scalpel in order to minimize the trauma to the adjacent vital structures.