Tongue and Lip Tie. Associated with/Symptom of Other Conditions, Cause of Others. The Myofascia System is Whole Body

I'm preparing information differently in 2015. I'm starting every topic off with a pep talk about how YOU are the one in charge of YOU and your wellness, and that of any other people you are influential with in your home. Often that's your responsibility if they are not of age or for other reasons unable to do the work themselves.  I encourage parents to start turning the research on certain things over to their children when they are old enough to participate.  

I once had a parent of an 18 year old say they weren't old enough to make a decision about the Gardasil vaccine.  I'd bet they were able to do a good job with it long before 18. But I'm sure it's hard after people have had to watch out if their child knows to cross a street safely, learn to operate a motorized vehicle safely, and learn how to wash their own clothes, cook for themselves, etc., that should be done by mid teens or so, to let them start making legal / medical decision.  It's a process for the parents to let go because that's 'been their job'.

Not that you'd give them the keys to drive the car, so to speak, until they were at the point to make that decision on their own.  I made very good decisions about my  health in my high school years and had I had more autonomy to do things on my own overall with researching and etc 'instilled in me' I might have had a very different outcome with my overall wellness.   

I am also working to make the topics just as informative (which means lengthy and something to put on your plate and carve away at until you get through them in order to thoroughly learn about a subject if it's of interest and value to you), but make them easier for tired and imparied brains to understand.  The number is high of moms and grandmoms (and sometimes the males in the families) out there with messed up kids, because the moms are not well, they're not doing with themselves or their children a proper diet and other important lifestyle factors, yet they're trying to learn.  

Bolding the key things is something I've always done, but I'm doing more of it while working in more stories of who these people are that I'm suggesting to YOUsers to go and learn from. The backdrop info won't be bolded, the key things will. 

Preface About Why I Found This Important Enough to Create a New Topic

The myofascia system is something that I've long had enormous respect for, and an interest in learning about. And for whatever reason I'd not ever thought of, nor learned of, the 'frenulum' attaching the tongue to the bottom of the mouth/lower jaw as fascia. I was always telling people 'you know when you have a roast, that thin covering of tissue that's thin and very strong, it's like plastic wrap almost...'.  Now I can just say, you know the tissue attaching your tongue near your lower front teeth...    

My infatuation with the powers of the myofascia of the body goes back to when I was in occupational therapy school in the mid 1990, in my mid 30s.  I'd had an onset of symptoms that were actually a relapse of the chronic condition 'stuff', that back in those days I was still going along with the pigeonhole labels (aka 'diagnosis')(and the IC9 code that goes with it) from allopathic medicine.  That had thrown me off becasue my 1988/89 symptoms were of massive fatigue of muscles and overall, and not with pain aside from the headaches which had gotten worse since starting in my early 20s. Migraines.  

Now I just think of it as the many "dominos" that you can pick from that are symptoms of the overlapping conditions, and you put them all up like gravestones and at some point something pushes them over and different symptoms emerge at different times. Maybe due to different underlying causes or the way they interplay differently with things such as your age, hormones, diet at the time, etc.  The Wichita Faces website I connect YOUsers to, below, gives awesome examples of the sequence of how one things leads to another in the body and how her type of tools and treatment strategies can work to remedy the problems.  

I ended up  having an MRI of the head and neck and both had concerning things. The neck was deemed a bad enough problem with a disk pushing the spinal cord over, displacing it so it was pushing up against the wall of the spinal canal with the insides of the vertebrae.  But the neurologist said I could also try PT if I wanted to, she'd order either one whichever.  

I turned to my professor who might know which PT on the list of three the neurologist gave me to start with (which I had to prompt her for) to start with. She pointed at one and said 'she's who taught me myofascia release'. So that is who I went to.  She also treated me for achilles tendonitis that came on about that same time, and told me one day she'd not blocked the energy right and went for a run after treating me and had pain in her achilles tendon and said 'oh, that's from Mardy' and then did her magic tricks to make that reverse in her. 

My radar was UP because to me, this was really cool and interesting stuff! I'd found so much of what we learned in the conventional medical schooling / program utterly a waste of time, why do you need to be able to identify anything a person can stick a pin into on a cadaver in order to work with people and help them as an OT.  I mean, really.  I wondered where my career would take me after graduating and having time, energy and money to study something beyond the foundation of the conventional allopathic training. 

I would, ten years later, be getting the outpatient OT contract gig at a very good and good-sized PT clinic in Grand Junction, Colorado, where they had a marketing slogan "Try PT First".  I can attest to that it's a good strategy.  Today, twenty years later, I am still surgery-free on the cervical disk problems.  

I've had a lot of PT, chiropractic, DO (who worked on the fascia system), and massage therapy. Some of the PTs, the ones that I frequented the most because they did the most good, were gifted with the fascia system and manual therapy techniques. Same with chiropractors.  I avoided the others.  And on a couple of occasions I lucked into PTs who were learning or continuing to learn more about neat things like the mind-body connection and Heart Math, or cranial-sacral therapy, foot reflexology.

And then mostly I worked with therapists who were doing things within what the conventional, insurance-based medical system wanted them to be doing and I could NOT understand their resistance to doing outside the box if the patients would pay out of pocket for it.  I now know that you'll not get referrals if you do that and word gets out.

Such is how the system works. Cleverly, too, it took me a long time to figure it out being on the outside as a patient was in a way easier than seeing it from the inside as a provider!  So now I work to be sure the YOUsers and those I have the ability to reach hear me saying that is what I believe to be true and going on.  So be aware.  Buyer beware.  Medical consumer / patient beware. And so get educated. 

I have, as YOUsers at Lumigrate who have looked around or been along for the ride as new things get added, gotten into the information in early 2014 about pyroluria, which took me into the information about MTHFR gene mutation and methylation pathway issues, and covered them to a greater or lesser extent, at least getting people going with some resources.  

I think the pyroluria information is really quite substantial and a great resource tool for anyone wanting to study good information I found and shorten their time finding the good sources out there, while increasing odds of finding good information by studying from the links and information I provide.  I transcribe some auditory information so it is faster to read than listen to, etc. 

In late 2014 someone who is a fabulous resource about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome 'blitzed' the MTHFR gene mutation group about Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (aka EDS).  I realized not only had my providers all along not been telling me that I had many symptoms of at least two of the types of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), but it was appearing the organized medical/research system just tossed the funding ball in the direction of the national Ehlers-Danlos syndrome foundation.

And that means there maybe is something the system knows about research and development of the type of tools they develop to market to consumers (in the form of treatments that help the symptoms and keep people bringing them money (via insurance or other funding such as in nationalized health care countries).  

Naturally, I want to have information on Lumigrate for anyone who is interested in important topics, but meeting the needs of where people are turning in waves is important. So I created information about Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) at a time I was actually not planning on doing that with my limited time.  But I worked it in.  It was important.  

And besides, it applied to me and so many mysteries were being answered by things I was learning! 

So it turns out even the very experienced educator/advocate with long-time knowledge and a great website resource of her own that I let people know about on the primary Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS) topic at Lumigrate is still uncovering new pieces to the puzzle.  Posting a picture of someone touching their nose with the tip of their tongue she asked the MTHFR gene mutation group how many could do that.  

That lead to a very interesting discussion that enlightened the EDS expert about how many people have 'tongue tie', 'lip tie'.  It turns out I was not aware of the various types of tongue tie and thought it only applied when the tip of the tongue is tied with what turns out to be fascia involvement.  That's known as 'tip tie'.  

I might even have tissue that would indicate 'tie'.  Astonishing when I consider the experts that have been in my mouth looking around or helping me with things to do with my mouth, or who look at things in the mouth to help them figure out what's overall going on with your body.  And maybe I'm wrong and what I have is not that at all, I'll need to learn more and perhaps consult with an expert on tongue tie! 

So the amazing researchers in that group came up with fascinating information and I realized it would be efficient for me to take the topics I think are the best from that and piece them together on a new topic about tongue tie and the myofascia system, and what that means with overall system-wide wellness.  I opted to put it in the forum about things to do with the head, brain, etc., naturally, though I will need to broaden the defining information describing the forum.  

I want people to overall begin learning with the following section, but at this point I'm thinking putting in the photos tab link for the SECOND resource I want people to get information from is best added here so YOU can see what the examples are of tongue tie.  www.tonguetie.net/index.php .  Since TongueTie dot net is an allopathically inspired provider, it's a great foundation but I want people to really understand the importance of the FASCIA SYSTEM FIRST.  So if you can wait to see examples of childrens tongues with tongue tie, I'll put this link to the photos below as well so you can just go through all this information in the way I think is best for getting the holistic overview, then going for the more conventional information. 

Let's Begin with a "Grate" Outside the Box of Convention Website 

Let me start with this resource, because I like the foundational information she provides about the tissue being fascia and how fascia relates throughout the body.  Why a baby would get the tissue taken care of under the tongue and then be fine with their car seat, for instance, and why it was that people had generally seen inexplicable changes in themselves or their children when having the invasive treatment.  And I think that this topic underscores the reasons why seeking out this type of specialist has additional benefits compared to having someone snip the tissue.  It was said that midwives used to fix it with their fingernails! Oh, my, how far we have come.  

The photos at the website really help people to see what can come in adults who have these types of experts work on things to do with their cranium too.  And this provider has life experience she relates, which I'm going to bring an excerpt of to post so YOUsers can see why I'm suggesting going to this resource/website. 

www.happykansasfaces.com/blog

IF MY SWEET MOM HAD ONLY KNOWN...

About Michale Fetzik, Myofunctional Therapist (and DMD Husband Stephen Fetzik)

Over her career in Nursing and Dentistry, Michale has worked in a variety of settings and specialty areas including: Oncology, Gastroenterology, Toxicology related to Industrial exposure, Integrative and Holistic Medicine, Nutritional Counseling, General and Cosmetic Dentistry, Orthodontics and Orthotropics, Dyslexia and Autism.

Her training is extensive and includes the following; The University of Mississippi, Northwest University School of Medicine, and the UCLA School of Medicine. 


Michale Fetzik works in private practice as a Myofunctional Therapist as well as with her husband, Dr. Stephen P Fetzik, DMD. 

She is an active mother of 5 children as well as a home-birth, breastfeeding and natural parenting advocate who
loves the beach, loves nutrition and healthy food, loves health and wellness education, is a problem solver, studies biochemistry, anatomy and physiology for fun and has a real passion to find new ways to normalize oral function..... so that babies, children and adults may: breathe well, eat well, speak well and ultimately live well. 

Michale is trained in The Gillespie Approach: a Craniosacral Fascial Dentofacial Therapy Technique which addresses some of the root causes of Oral Dysfunction. Professionally, she is a member of the Academy of Applied Myological Sciences, The American Association of Physiologic Medicine and Dentistry and The International Affiliation of  Tongue Tie Professionals. 

Now let's get something more all around 'basic' as a resource since the functional and myological / myofascial stuff was how we started in order to get people thinking holistically, progressively and whatnot from the start. As you saw, above, I've said I'll provide in this area a link to the photos tab at TongueTie dot net, so here it is.  

www.tonguetie.net/index.php  <<<< link to see photos of various forms of tongue tie in children

This is an INCREDIBLE website just about tongue tie from an Australia speech and language pathologist / therapist (STs are SLPs, where as OTs are OTRs, and PTs are RPTs, etc.).  

www.tonguetie.net/index.php  ...  

This is what they setup for you to know whose website it is and who she is, etc.: "Carmen Fernando is a Speech Pathologist who has a private practice in Sydney, Australia and provides the information at this website resource. She is available for consultation by appointment with regard to any aspect of tongue tie."

A few highlights from the website to encourage YOU to go:

The purpose of this web site is to inform those with tongue tie, as well as their families and professional helpers, about the condition and how  best to deal with it. This little-understood condition affects thousands of children and adults.

Many suffer in silence the multiple difficulties which derive from having a tongue which cannot move freely. There are infants who cannot suck, toddlers who cannot chew, children who cannot lick ice creams, and children and adults who are disadvantaged by their poor speech.

The premise that tongue tie is not ‘per se' a medical problem or a cause of speech difficulty has been challenged. It is no longer generally accepted that only those ties severe enough to cause undernourishment, or to prevent pronunciation of tongue tip sounds, are significant.

 ... 

Tongue Tie – also known as ‘Ankyloglossia’ or ‘anchored tongue’ – is a common but often overlooked condition. It is seen at birth and causes a wide range of difficulties that affect the sufferer in different ways. Diagnosis and assessment are essential before taking any remedial action. In the past, there was little besides observation or anecdotal evidence to guide us towards a decision about whether to intervene. Now, both diagnosis and assessment of a tongue tie can be made by informed and qualified professionals.

...  (There is a read more button ... I encourage YOU to go and READ MORE). 

The consequences of untreated tongue tie are wide ranging and can affect structure and appearance of the face and teeth, as well as oral function. Thus, breastfeeding, eating, digestion, teeth, speech, kissing and social skills can be adversely affected. Some consequences, such as breastfeeding difficulties, can be experienced early; others, such as speaking and kissing, only become apparent in later life.  

... AGAIN a read more button and then sections about breastfeeding as well as surgery.  But you'll notice the DIFFERENCE between an 'allopathic', 'conventional' provider's website such as this one, and what the more holistic provider's website provides.  Hence I wanted to provide that contrast and be sure YOUsers were aware of both.  

Generally there is a difference in if 'the system' pays for the services or not in these things. And that then becomes a matter of if people can change their priorities of how they spend funds and if they learn enough about something available that 'the system' does not pay for to 'invest it' in themselves or their child, etc.  

It requires some deep thinking about habits, expectations, how we've been taught about WHO is taking care of us ... daddy (the system), mommy (someone needs to tell me what to do and I'll do it), or YOU.  

Sometimes people are so far in the hole of chronic illness that they're in the system as far as being on disability for income, have Medicaid for insurance and they're taking advantage of what they can from that sometimes because they feel they need to use it and get themselves in the catch-22 of conventional medicine not solving problems and creating more problems that they have more money-making procedures and drugs for that are still not getting to the root cause let along the underlying causes.  They'll complain that they cannot afford things that others can without realizing how many people who CAN afford things will say they can't but in reality they're just opting to NOT.  

So I see this interesting dichotomy where some poor people are desperately wishing to have the funds to do things they will have to be creative in figuring out how to fund if it's at all possible, while others linger with assets they could be putting into investing in things that could SOLVE the UNDERLYING problems for them or their loved one, child, etc.   

I had a fabulous instance occur in 2014 where a woman with low income, on disability and with a ton of complex problems was having stinkin' thinking about anything that wasn't going to come from Medicaid/daddy taking care of it.  She has said I can share her experience, so I am going to.  She basically related later that I and a friend and the provider whose Facebook page I'd seen her writing on (who soonafter unfriended me over something petty and without any discussion) were responsible for her turning herself around in the later part of 2014.  

She told me privately that she'd been pretty 'sore' about what I'd said but after a couple of days 'swallowed her pride' and realized that I was right -- she was not being as proactive, there was more she could do despite her situation.  And she rolled up her sleeves and was doing some really neat stuff for her health and sharing about it on Facebook and really inspiring  others.  And someone I'd ticked off, thankfully, became a big supporter of mine. And then started finally using the links I had provided over and over for Lumigrate's content.  It sometimes takes a lot before someone says 'this is a resource I'm going to utilize'.  I'm glad she did. She has a long way to go but the important part is she GOT ON THE ROAD.  

There are some VERY intelligent women who have gotten illness because of the way methylation issues work, the way pyroluria works, the way there's higher IQ in people with these issues generally.  And with the pyroluria comes symptoms of behavioral issues, so think about that the next time you get to being unreasonably stubborn about something or 'resistant'.   (I'll not get into the causes of pyroluria here but you can find it on Lumigrate, look for 'the bugs" (such as Lyme and perhaps cyanobacteria as a reason per some experts, I'm sure we'll see more about that in 2015 too)

 Snippets from the Facebook 'experts' in the MTHFR gene mutation group

I really want to encourage people to use the Facebook groups that are now established, that I'm suggesting just a few of from Lumigrate in order to encourage people to get OUT of 'support groups' and groups and pages and following providers who are just posting a lot of stuff and not being that beneficial in terms of people's education moving forward.  

Support is great if people need support, but some of the groups keep people so occupied and in a thinking pattern that they don't get out of it.  I wonder sometimes what the hidden agendas might be, if these are not actually people who are really who they say they are and are funded by those in the System that have motivation to keep people from spending their time on Facebook doing WORK and FINDING ANSWERS. Again, look at if you spend too much or not enough time on Facebook, and what you're doing there and if it's helping you get where you want to be.  Then change what you're doing. I did, in 2014, and I ended up finding through different people than I'd been following before, a goldmine of information, SOME OF WHICH I have brought to Lumigrate for YOUsers.  

So this is something that someone on Dr Carol Savage's MTHFR Gene Mutation page posted in the conversation thread that I'd pulled TWO links from to set up, above: 

From the resource link in this paragraph:

WomanB posted: "Generally boys are more susceptible to tongue tie as it is a semi-dominant x-linked inheritable trait as well as those with some degree of orofacial clefts. Those with MTHFR 1298cc have a 7-fold increased risk of cleft palate and those with 677tt have an increased risk of cleft palate, likely of the same magnitude or worse: aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/157/7/583.long

Woman A posted: "(Woman B's name), what you are describing is an "Anterior Tongue Tie", which is visibly apparent by the frenulum or tissue attached at the front of the Tongue. BUT what gets missed by medical professionals all the time are the "Posterior Tongue Ties" that are "hidden" because they are Submucuosal or under the floor of the Tongue which doesn't allow it to elevate/undulate properly and doesn't necessarily prevent the Tongue from sticking out past the gums. Medical professionals aren't trained in Tongue Ties and so they don't think there's a Tie present when in fact there is! Here's how to properly assess for Posterior Tongue Tie!

Posterior Tongue tie requires digital assessment 
Dr. Kotlow's video for assessment and kept the resource page 1 page.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5opSbXvL7yQ

Did your Dr examine your baby in this position? If not, they don't know what they are doing. http://www.drghaheri.com/.../how-to-examine-a-baby-for...

As I mentioned these are missed ALL THE TIME! But typically are found when a breast feeding mother is having issues along with her baby. 

http://milkmatters.org.uk/.../hidden-cause-of-feeding.../

Woman C posted: "TT is epidemic among adults. Boys only exhibit more anterior ties as they are x-linked, but the ratio of boys:girls for PTT is 1:1, as they are epigentic. BTW,  TT does not mean you have MTHFR, but methylation directs the migration of neural crest cells that form the face."

Good medical evaluation reference for Drs who don't know about it.
http://www2.aap.org/.../files/pdf/bbm-8-27%20Newsletter.pdf

http://theleakyboob.com/.../the-basics-of-tongue-and-lip.../

Then one of them had ALSO posted this which is more specific to Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (EDS):

Many signs thought to be associated with EDS might actually disappear once a tongue-tie or lip-tie is released. Often, it is presumed symptoms are associated with the EDS when in fact they are associated with the ties. That said, ties are often associated with impaired airway function, so treatment should include assessment by airway-focused dentists and treatment should include repatterning of muscles and rewiring of the nervous system with myofunctional therapy. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Un21c9t5toE

Links to Topics on Lumigrate for Other Topics or Forum Areas YOU May Also Find Beneficial if YOU Liked What is Here:

Link to the primary Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) topic: www.lumigrate.com/forum/ehlers-danlos-syndrome-eds-connective-tissue-issue-not-autoimmune-overlaps-other-things-dots-c which is placed in the 'autoimmune' forum because the base information was focused by the EDS organization's speaker I wanted to highlight making a BIG DEAL about it is NOT autoimmune, it is connective tissue disorder if one is to put it in a category for specialists to address how to deal with it.  And the topic is titled to highlight that too, as you can see.