Anyone Else's Child Have a Severe Underbite/breathing Problems/tonsillectomy?

Hi E.,

My son had his tonsil out last year and since then he sleep all night long. He is a happy 4 years old boy now, it was a good help for him. Before that he used to made a loud noise from his mouth and he was sick with sinnus infectios all the time.He will wake up through the night and cried,some nights I will be up holding him in my arms. He was tired and grumpy, he also had fluid in both ears, he has speech delay. So far he had two hearing test that he did not passed. Email me if you want. I will be more than happy to share my experience that I went throughout with my son.
E.A

My DS had his tonsils & adnoids removed last summer. He couldn't eat w/o gagging, was always tired, exibited some ADHD behaviors, snored horribly, and had many nasal problems. Almost a year later and he is a different kid! The snoring is gone, he is happy and attentive, eats like a pig, and almost all of his nasal issues have gone. I would do it again if I had the choice.

Now we are getting ready to send DD to the ENT for snoring and sleep apnea. Our ENT said that children should not snore. If they are then something is wrong. DD's tonsils are huge and she snores so loudly that I can hear her from the hallway with her door closed! She was sick several times in Dec-Feb. and the tonsils never went down like they should. That is when the snoring kicked in. It is the sleep apnea that has me worried. It wakes her up at night and she comes into my bed to sleep for the remainder of the night. She is also a mouth breather now.

My son didnt have the underbite but he did have severe breathing problems and trouble sleeping at night. My doctor told me that it was an ear infection. We finally got into a specialist and he took one look at my sons tonsils and basically ripped me a new one. I didnt know because my sons dr never looked at them. long story short he had them removed and his breathing improved 100%, he has gained so much weight because he can eat now and you cant hear him breathing at night, he sleeps through the night now. My son benefited greatly from having his tonsils out. I hope yours will have the same outcome.

Hi E.,
Could you please let me know who this dentist is?
My son who turned three in Feb. has the same kind of symptoms and severe speech delays. I suspected adenoids since he has breathing problems.

I would greatly appreciate your help.

Thank you,
Ivana

Humans can live without tonsils. My daughter had a serious overbite and her face looked deformed from a side profile. She also had enlarged tonsils, with allergies. For many, many years she suffered painful sore throats, especially through cold/allergy seasons that would last for weeks to the point where she couldn't eat. She was a very heavy breather, especially while sleeping and her snoring was so loud. At age 13, she got braces and her overbite corrected. At age 15, we removed her tonsils because she could no longer bear the pain. She will occasionally get a sore throat, but nothing compared to the pain experienced before. The tonsillectomy definately improved the breathing issues, but the overbite was corrected through braces. Surgery to correct his jaw is another option, but not sure at what age though. Start with the tonsillectomy and go from there. I wished I would have had my daughter's tonsils removed sooner.

Hi E.!
Just went through adenotonsilectomy with my younger son in October for significant sleep apnea. He was 2.5 at the time. His apnea has improved significantly, but he's still in the apneic spectrum. He didn't have the bite issues, but we just learned that my 7 year-old has significant apnea too and are waiting to see the ENT next month to start solving his issues: 7 year-old has significant underbite, and we were told by the sleep doctors at Stanford that he could benefit from a palate expander. 3 y/o son was a horrible snorer, and I'm still up with him at least twice a night, but not as much snoring. 7 y/o is a mouth breather with mild snoring, lack of focus and behavior/anger issues, in spite of being very bright.
I wouldn't hesitate to have his tonsils taken out for starters. After that, assess the orthodontic situation. From what we've been told regarding our 7 y/o, surgery isn't usually necessary unless their bones are done growing, around 15 or 16 years old.
Regarding speech issues, our 3 y/o is currently in speech therapy. They thought his missing letter sounds would resolve after he got "used to his new anatomy" following his surgery. Not so much. But he's improving! Best of luck!

E., I am not farmiliar with bite issues but I am farmiliar with breathing issues. I had my tonsils and adnoids removed at the age of 6 due to severe apnea. After the surgery my breathing was totally normal and I even expierenced less sicknesses (sore throat, and infections in the ears, nose and throat). I am now 30 years old and some tissue has grown back but I have had a sleep study done and passed w/o apnea. So having the tonsillectomy done is the right thing so that your son can have a better chance at having less problems later on. Good luck and best wishes to your family.

The condition your dentist is decribing is something you will have to address; he will need surgery to correct the length of his bottom jaw. See a maxillofacial surgeon about how to proceed.

Hello, E.,

Please look into Craniosacral work before you do any of the things you are being directed to do. If you are in the Pasadena area you can go to Paracelsus Natural Health Center. Brenda, who works there, specializes in this work. This work may address all of your issues very rapidly as well. It is non-invasive, EFFECTIVE work that we would do best to all know about.

My very best to you,

T.

Absolutely have him evaluated by a speech therapist. Not only can they help you with speech troubles, but also can help diagnosing a physical mouth problem. They can give you exercizes or stretches to work on.

Actually---so my son is in a slightly different category b/c he was born with a complete cleft of the lip and palate. But he has oversized tonsils, and he had to have a pharyngeal flap surgery to close off more of his airway. Because he sounds hypernasal if not. So we are not removing the tonsils since we need to constrict as much of his throat as possible for good speech. The unfortunate side effect can be snoring and mild sleep apnea. Yeah--there are some nights! In your case--I would definitely remove the tonsils--yes--it is a preferred method in your case. Also, Flonase, believe it or not, on an almost-daily basis before bed has helped SO MUCH!! Our ENT recommended that.

Right now, my son is 7---we're in the orthodontics process through our craniofacial team of expanding his palate---it's this removeable retainer that we move the screw 1x/week and it's literally pushing the teeth forward! It's amazing! And our orthodontist said eventually when he has a proper bite that will help the breathing as well. No--the underbite will not correct itself most likely. Orthodontics will be required. Also, we'll have to do a lateral expander too eventually to correct the cross bite--as well as braces. It isn't boring! :) But it's not bad--and he chose aquamarine blue as the color of his retainer, and we call it Bluey! He LOVES it! ( I had to make him wear it the first day--but he LOVED it after that.)

Good luck! Let me know if you have any other questions!!

Definitely do the tonsillectomy - in fact, they probably should have done both at once. I am a speech therapist by training and my son had a T & A done together - sleep apnea was the issue, and it was bad. More than facial deformity, you need to be concerned about the sleep apnea. It causes lack of oxygen to the brain, results in hyperactivity and less ability to learn and concentrate. My son had ALL these issues and was a totally different kid once he was sleeping well again.
Speech therapy will help if the tonsils are large enough to have prevented proper development of the soft palate. He may have somee issues with sounds coming out the nose (my son does) and speech therapy can help with that. As far as the underbite, you won't be able to do much until the baby teeth fall out & then it's off to the orthodontist! Hope that helps

S.

NO, you are not overreacting. We had some major problems with my daughter and the pediatricians did not take it seriously and we lost valuable time. For my daughter she did not speak or babble at 2 1/2 but they were telling me she was fine. Well she wasn't, at 11 we are still paying the price both speech and orthodontically. We were lucky to have an ENT who had dental training. At 3, my daughter started intense speech therapy, had her tonsils and adenoids removed(even though she never had throat infections) and she had her first of 3 so far othodontic appliances put in. It turns out her tonsils and adenoids were so big it gave her continual ear infections and also blocked part of her hearing, affecting her speech. The tonsils and adenoids were so big it gave her sleep apnea, which aslo causes a higher pitch nasally voice. As well as being a mouth breather, so at night her tongue was not working to shape her mouth so she had not only an underbite but the left side of her mouth wasn't developing . Now at 11 we are looking at a 3rd phase of orthodontics and potentially pulling teeth because after all of the time, expense and pain her mouth still is not big enough. Her speech is still affected by this but early intervention really helped. After the tonsis were out she slept so much better, had few ear infections, started making sounds ALL the time,her breathing improved and she even started to grow. (We also found out she had food allergies that the pediatrician missed.) It was like having a little miracle happen how much it changed. I would highly recommend getting the tonsils removed, having orthodontics as early as possible to help shape the mouth, and getting speech therapy will also help strenghten muscles for better speech and to develop the mouth.I wish you the best of luck with it,I know it is a lot but it sounds like you are on top of it and your son will do great! My daughter is now a happy 6th grade honor student, cheerleader and future doctor!

Both of my daugthers had breathing problems, my oldest (6)still has tongue thrust issues which cause her to choke if she takes too big bites. Her sister (4) snored like an old man and has a cross bite. They both had their tonsils removed in October and have dramatically improved with breathing, sleeping, etc. We still have to work on the tongue thrust with the oldest, and the younger daughter will have to have treatment for the crossbite, but overall the improvement has been amazing. One other benefit is that they are not sick all the time.

A.

As far as speech therapy goes, the earlier the intervention the more successful. My son started speech therapy at age three and continued for five years due to temporary deafness as an infant and toddler. My son also had and underbite that was corrected in high school after his permanent teeth were mostly in. One caution about the tonsillectomy, it is a major filter of allergens and germs. I had no allergies prior to the removal of my tonsils at age seven. Neither did my sister, my brother, or my father! I don't think tonsils should be removed unless you have chronic tonsillitis. My HMO's criteria is at least eight cases (usually strep) within one year might warrant removal. All of my children retained their tonsils but two of them do have allergies, so go figure. I would get a second opinion on the tonsils. I know you can start early on orthodontic treatment if necessary including jaw surgery. So I would get a second opinion with that one two. Good luck.

I have experience with & around tonsilectomy. In the cases I've seen & on myself - it worked! Not altogether perfect, but much much better! Also, as far as the speech therapy, most boys don't speek all that much at his age now...so you cannot tell. I would wait on that until you see that there is indeed an issue (around 4 or 5) - I have heard some speech issues correct themselves. When the children are around other children who don't sound like that, they train themselves - especially with tongue issues. As far as the underbite, that is something that if is persists through to his adult teeth, and orthodontist will take your money to fix that. Take Care, Good luck & God Bless!

E.,

I have no idea about the tonsils but I have quite a bit of experience with speech therapy and language delays. My 4.5 y.o. has autism and is language delayed. I don't know where you are but here we have what is called "Nevada Early Intervention" (I'm in Las Vegas and that is what you'd look for in the phone book, or you could get the number from your pediatrician or school district if you have trouble finding it if you are somewhere else). You can self refer (all you have to do is pick up the phone and make an appointment). EI does evaluations and services from birth to age 3. At 3 services are picked up by the local school district. On one had, I don't think it is ever too early to seek services. The further behind a child is, the harder it is to catch up. And most delays are much easier to deal with the earlier you catch them and start services. On the other hand, in my experiences with EI, unless your child is significantly delayed in one area or has delays in more than one area, they won't deal with you so if you go in too early, they turn you away and you have to repeat the process later (irritating! you have to let your child get further behind to get services!). That said, we've used a combo of public services (like EI) and private services (like speech therapy and occupational therapy). I like to tell people to take all the public services you can get because they are usually free and the private services are pricey ($120 an hour for private speech therapy is what I'm currently paying and OT usually runs about $160 an hour). So take everthing free you can get and then work from there. So you can do the EI evaluation and if they turn you away (although I do believe they can opt to give you services even if you don't meet their criteria if your child is "at significant risk of delay" and I think you could argue that), you can always go the private therapy route. EI can also test your son's hearing and since he's got ear tubes, I would recommend that you ask about that.

If your son has any eating/feeding issues those could also be dealt with either through EI, a speech therapist or occupational therapist (some SLPs do feeding issues other times it is under OT, depends on their training and experience).

So the basic answer is that I don't think you are overreacting at all. You've identified the problem and the additional problems it can cause. Why wouldn't you be proactive? By 17-18 months, I knew my first child had some sort of a problem but didn't know what (he's very social which made me rule out autism in my mind without realizing that there is a tremendous amount of variability int he way autism presents itself). Everyone kept telling me to wait, he'd outgrow it. Well, he didn't and we should have sought services earlier and been much more aggressive with therapy. Live and learn.

All that said, another thing that you can do at home to stimulate language development is sign with your child. I have a big collection of www.signingtime.com DVDs and we watch them a lot. I used them a lot with my 4 y.o. and he's often learn the verbal word and the sign at the same time. For him, the visual/tactile representation of the words really helped his verbal skills. He's still language delayed but he's come a really long way and I think sign language was a really important part of helping him. I'm also now signing with my 19 month old (who is so far developmentally normal) and he absolutely loves it. He probably knows 50 verbal words and probably 20 signs. It is tremendously cute, helps him get his point across and really cuts down on the tantrums all while helping his language skills develop. There are absolutely no negatives to signing with your child. The DVDs are kind of pricey though. I'd recommend if you want to try them, start with volumes 1-3. I think those are really sufficient for what most people would do with most kids. I have volumes 1-9 and I like them all. But you don't necessarily have to know all the farm animal signs to communicate LOL! They are just a fun bonus and it helps motivate the kids to learn.

Good luck!

T.

My son had his tonsils and adenoids removed when he was 6. He did not have an underbite issue. He also did not have tonsilitis or lots of sore throats. He had a breathing issue and he snored every night. It was really bad. The night after the surgery he was completely different. He slept so peacefully (no snoring or breathing problems). For us it was a great thing. I don't think you're overreacting. I think the earlier you attend to these issues the faster his recovery. Good luck to you, L.