“For the first time in my life I can touch the roof of my mouth with my tongue.”
A twenty-seven-year-old woman presented with a myriad of health problems. When I told her that she would need a lot of therapy, she was "all in" to get at the root cause of her issues.
These are my “rabbit hole” patients. They are willing to go back in time and deal with whatever traumas present emotionally and physically. They want authentic healing and not a Band-Aid fix.
After going through many layers of her onion, her trunk dramatically twisted about ninety degrees in relation to her pelvis. It took about six visits to get through that severe fetal strain pattern.
Soon thereafter, at around the thirtieth visit, she experienced jaw pain but could touch her palate with her tongue for the first time. Unfortunately, there was not enough room in that narrow space. Why?
I postulate that, at birth, she had an undiagnosed tongue tie due to fetal trauma—one of the many layers of her onion. Like all of us, her body compensated and adapted.
Theoretically, when a newborn swallows, the tongue presses against the roof of the mouth to slowly expand the maxillary bones and face. If that did not happen, the palate may have remained high-arched and narrow.
In adulthood, her tongue has now become "too large" for her mouth. Some myofunctional therapy and brain-friendly orthodontics to widen her face may be in order.
This essay begs the question, “When do you do surgery for oral ties?” Some parents do it right after birth. Others do it in between bodywork sessions.
If I am the infant, I want to be strain-free first—please explore the deepest layers of my onion before doing invasive surgery. Strain-free would be my global goal for every newborn.
