James had surgery today to have tubes put in his ears. If you don’t know what ear tubes are, they are small, okay tiny, hollow plastic cylinders that are surgically inserted into the eardrum. It essentially opens up the passageway in the middle ear and helps prevent the buildup of fluid behind the eardrum.
About a week ago James had an ear infection. If he would have had ear tubes earlier, he might not have gotten that ear infection. Hopefully these ear tubes will reduce the chance of ear infections in the future.
Since James was going to be under anesthesia for the ear tube surgery, we decide to have them clip his tongue at the same time. When he was born, James had what is called ankyloglossia. This is more commonly referred to as a tongue-tie. There is a piece of tissue under your tongue called a lingual frenulum. It helps anchor your tongue to bottom of your mouth. Everybody has this and for most people it is not an issue. For people with a tongue-tie, however, instead of connecting somewhere underneath the tongue, it connects to the tip of the tongue. Instead of being able to move their tongue around freely, a tongue-tie restricts movement of the tongue. This can cause issue with feeding and speech.
The procedure for correcting the tongue-tie, or ankyloglossia, is called frenotomy. It is a simple procedure that can be done with or without anesthesia. A doctor uses sterile scissors to simply just snip the frenulum free. There are very few nerves or blood vessels in the frenulum so pain, discomfort, and bleeding are minimal.
We had discussed having this procedure done while James was in the NICU, but the doctors decided against it because there was concern that if they clipped it, and James didn’t have control of his tongue, that the tongue could fall to the back of his throat and he could choke on it. We decided to have it done because he seemed to be able to control it and move it around. Or at least he was trying to move it around. After they clipped it, there was not an issue with him choking on it. Maybe now he can stick his tongue out at mom and dad!
After the surgery they did a hearing test and guess what? He passed! He has never passed a hearing test. They tried several times when he was in the NICU, and again after he was discharged from the NICU. They either had issues with the equipment, couldn’t get a good reading, or his ears just weren’t working. Well, they work now!
Here are a few pics from before and after surgery:
