Great post and excellent documentation. Outstanding stuff. Did you clamp it with a hemostat and if so where.
Man these cut through fast huh….the anesthetic controls the hemorrhage. Did it bleed just after the last fibers were cut and there is far less thermal damage after using this compared to the diode …..
A nicely done case……..show us the followups…….

Well done Kelly

Glenn

That’s a nice result Kelly and excellent service to the patient. You literally changed her life.

In a lingual frenectomy case how does one position the tip with the erbium laser? Should the tip be placed parallel to the frenum or should it be placed on the side in a perpendicular fashion?

What about air emphysema/embolism with the erbium laser? That’s something that makes me nervous working under the tongue and floor of mouth. Can we turn off the air/water and still effectively perform the procedure?

Al

I did one of these last week on an 11 year old who was referred to me by a periodontist(he already did the maxilaary labial frenectomy but preferred I do the lingual with the laser). After doing exam , I told the mother that I concurred, a lingual frenectomy was in order. She said OK. I said lets do it now, she said fine the kid protested. I demostrated to the child what he would feel and he suddenly had a burst of courage and said lets do it.(As an aside, the mother had planned speech therapy for the kid, I told her to wait to see what happens after frenectomy).
I place a topical of Ela-Max 4% for 1 minute. The procede with the frenectomy. I started at .25W 11A 0W  with t-4 tip but that would have taken forever. I then upped it to .5W and it cut through the frenum like butter.
There was absolutley no bleeding. The child exclaimed, “WOW I could move my tongue all the way back now!” Even though it looked as if I could still cut some more tissue away, I stopped as the patient was pleased and there was no bleeding. I felt certain that if I cut through that last bit of tissue the bleeding would have begun. We will see how this works out.
Incidentally, I called parent next day and child was fine. When mother offered him tylenol he asked , for what.
I LOVE THIS STUFF.
I would love to post the photos but I have some sort of photo- computer- block in my brain.

KB,
The entire family are now patients.
As an addendum to the lingual frenectomy, the mom came in and told me that after the 11 year old had the frenectomy, his brother said he wanted to come to my office to have it done. He didn’t need the procedure, he just wanted to get lasered.

Hi Jetsfan,
Excellent result
Great job and wonderful service to the patient.You litterally changed her life.
A nicely done case.Well done Kelly.
Have a great day!

Hi Jetsfan,

Looks like a significant improvment in tongue freedom from your treatment. I feel one can always do more but the overall patient handling is the decisive factor. No one knows more about your patient and the clinical situation than you.

Andrew