The Time a Frenectomy Takes To Heal
Have you ever felt the thin band of tissue above the front teeth that connect to your upper lip? Or have you ever lifted your tongue and seen another thin piece of tissue connected to the bottom of your mouth? That’s referred to as the frenum or frenulum, and it’s a normal part of your mouth.
Sometimes, the frenum tissue can be too taught and impair oral function, meaning a frenectomy procedure might be needed. Luckily, this procedure is common. This article outlines what frenectomy procedures are and how to care for your mouth for the healthiest smile.
What Is a Frenectomy?
It is also known as frenotomy. Frenectomy refers to any procedure where your oral surgeon releases the frenulum bands or removes them. As a result, the binding tissues on your body are modified.
Frenectomy procedures are common, especially during the infant stage of life. Frenectomy is an oral process to resolve a lip tie or tongue tie. If your frenum is too tight or short, it can interfere with swallowing, breastfeeding, or speech development.
Types of Frenectomy
There are two types of frenectomy:
Lingual Frenectomy
The lingual frenum connects the tongue to your mouth. If you touch the tongue to the roof of your mouth, you’ll feel the stretching of your frenum underneath your tongue.
The lingual frenum length varies from one individual to another. Some people are born having very short lingual frenum. This shortened frenum can restrict some movements of your tongue. This condition is called tongue-tie or ankyloglossia. Nearly 5% of infants have their tongues tied. This is more common in boys than girls.
Tongue-tie can interfere with breastfeeding when your child is small and speech development when your child grows older. A lingual frenectomy procedure can be performed to solve the problem.
Maxillary Frenectomy Surgery
The labial frenum connects your top lip to the gum above your front teeth. If the frenum is shorter than average, it can lead to problems in speech development. This’s a lip adhesion condition.
Lip adhesion can cause dental development problems and make it hard to fully clean your front teeth and gums.
A maxillary frenectomy procedure can give the upper lip some mobility.
What Happens During Frenectomy?
The Frenectomy procedure is usually straightforward. However, some of the steps our dentist at Implant Dentistry, Doc Rok, will follow include:
The dentist will start by consulting you. After consultation, the dentist will secure you by lying face up. Next, your dentist will administer a topical anesthetic to the area to prevent any pain during the procedure.
Next, your dentist will snip the frenum quickly using surgical scissors, scalpel, or cauterizing instruments. If the lip is more complicated or severe, it requires a few stitches to close the incision. The procedure will take 15 minutes to complete.
What to Do After a Frenectomy
After having frenectomy surgery near you, your dentist suggests you relax for an hour. Also, avoid strenuous activity and aerobic exercise like jogging for a few days. Also, you might experience:
Bleeding: You might have slight bleeding a few hours after the procedure. Call your surgeon if the bleeding doesn’t stop.
Swelling: You shouldn’t swell after having a frenectomy. If it happens, visit a dentist near you for treatment.
Discomfort: When the anesthesia starts wearing off, there might be some discomfort. Also, the sensitivity of the teeth and gums to cold might occur, which should go away after one or two days. However, if you experience intense discomfort, you should call your dentist.
What’s the Recovery Time for Frenectomy Surgery?
You’ll need to keep the area where the frenectomy was done clean for your recovery, which is simple for infant patients.
For adults, you should limit the intake of food you eat for a few days. When food is trapped in the affected area, it can raise your risk for infection.
After frenectomy, your dentist may prescribe oral antibiotics that help to prevent complications or infections.
After three days, you’ll start seeing a white patch form over the treated area. Over a week, the white patch continues to form while symptoms like pain and bleeding decrease gradually. The stitches will also fall out.
The healing patch will be gone at the end of week four, and a shaped and positioned frenulum will replace it.