Tongue-Tie Surgery

Jesper’s tongue-tie surgery was scheduled for June 15.

On Thursday, June 14, I noticed that Jesper felt a little warm when I dropped him off. I took his temperature and it was 102 degrees. No school for him that day! I called the doctor to see if we could still move forward with the surgery, and they said that it would probably be fine long as he didn’t have nausea or diarrhea.

Josh and Jesper "watching" the US Open

Jesper was clearly not feeling great on Thursday. He took 3 naps, didn’t eat dinner well, and went easily to bed by his normal time (NOT normal after 3 naps). However, his fever broke overnight and we took him in to the outpatient clinic for his surgery.

We were with Jesper while they put him under with gas and the surgery only took about 10 minutes. They clipped his frenulum and put in 2 stitches. The doctor said that it probably felt like he had bitten the underside of his tongue very hard but would be feeling better within a day or two.

Dressed in scrubs and waiting for the doctor

He was NOT happy after coming out of the anesthesia. We comforted him and took him home. He didn’t eat or drink as well as normal and drooled excessively all day on Friday. He also didn’t want his pacifier because it seemed to hurt to suck on it. Maybe as a result of that, he didn’t sleep as well as we expected him to and wanted to be held all day long.

Saturday was similar, but the drooling slowed a little. Josh and I agreed that if he still wasn’t eating or drinking well on Sunday morning that we would take him in to the doctor to make sure that nothing else was going on. Both of us were concerned that he might have strep because it had gone around his classroom a couple weeks prior.

We were at Urgent Care nearly as soon as it opened on Sunday. They gave Jesper a quick strep test and it came back positive almost immediately. We got him antibiotics right away. Sunday was a little easier than the rest of the weekend and he seemed to be feeling better the next morning after being on meds for 24 hours.

Poor kid. He had a bad case of strep AND had his tongue cut in the same weekend. On top of that, we didn’t give him back his pacifier. As always, though, Jesper adjusted easily and seemed to be feeling better on Monday. Daycare was amazed that he didn’t seem to even miss a beat while breaking the pacifier habit.

Feeling better later that week

Books!

Now he can stick out his tongue a little further than he could before, but not quite as far as other kids. It’s also still a little heart-shaped on the tip because the middle tongue muscles are still developing. The doctor told us to give him ice cream cones and encourage him to stick his tongue out and move it from side to side as much as possible. Too bad he’s a little young to appreciate those doctor’s orders. :)