Some people might know a lot about their mouth, but that
isn’t the case. Sure you might read a bit about it or talk to your dentist in Santa
Clarita, but do you really know about your oath? Well, you’re about to learn
about the frenum, what it does, and some of the attachments of it.
Now, the frenum is a fold of the mucous membrane that has
muscles and fibers attached to this. This is actually the area where it
attaches the lips to the alveolar mucosa and underlying areas.
Now, the oral cavity has various types of attachments, and
there are two main ones to focus on. These are the frenum and the frenulum, which
is the smaller version of this. In a normal oral cavity, there are actually multiple
frena present in there, such as those in the maxillary area, and the lingual
frenum. The labial frena of the mandible and the maxilla is actually the junction
between these two areas, and it actually also has bone under all of this, and
the lingual frenum attaches the tongue to the bottom of the mouth.
Now there are various types of this, and we’ll talk about
the four main ones that most people do look at.
The first, is the mucosal attachment, which is mostly where
it’s attached and mucogingival junction. The gingival attachment is where it’s
attached to the gingiva, which is essentially the gums. Then there is the papillary
attachment, which extends up to the interdental papilla, and finally there is
the papilla penetrating attachment, which actually crosses the alveolar process
and then extends up to the palatine papilla.
Now, there are other variations, such as those with a
nodule, appendix, and those that have a wider frenum. Some even tend to have a
double frenum.
Now there are also those that have some various syndromes
that have a high frenum attachment. There is the Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which
is an absence of the lingual and labial frenums, there is also infantile
hypertrophic pyloric stenosis, there is also holoprosencephaly,
oro-facial-digital syndrome, and finally Ellis-Van-Creveld syndrome. All of
these are mostly frenal attachment issues.
Now, how do you detect an abnormal attachment. Well, there
are a few ways, but the easiest one is to actually put tension on the attachments
and then look at the movement of the papillary tip or any blanching around the
attachment because of ischemia. These are usually signs of an abnormality in the
labial and lingual attachments.
Now you might have heard of something called a tongue-tied
speech. This is often an abnormality where people have trouble speaking, but it
actually is a huge part of frenal attachment. It’s a condition that
scientifically is called Ankyloglossia and it is a congenital anomaly typically.
It’s a condition where the tip of the tongue isn’t protruded beyond the lower incisors
because of a short frenulum, and it contains scar tissue. That means that many
times, those that suffer from this often are restricted in terms of swallowing
or speaking. They often have trouble pronouncing certain consonants, and they
don’t have a long enough frenulum, meaning that they need to have the tongue
tip to touch the tip of the incurs located in the hard palate.
Some people have a very mild version of this, such as those
that are about 12-16 mm long. However, a complete actually means that the
frenulum is less than 3 mm. Now, the way to treat these is typically a
frenectomy, and often, people that get this do see a marked difference in
speech.
The frenum is an interesting part of the body, and often,
many people don’t really put much thought into this area. However, you should
talk to your dentist in Santa Clarita about it. They can tell you more about
how your frenum is, and how it looks. If there is the case of a condition there,
then they will send you over to a specialist that will help to treat this, so
that you’ll be able to speak and swallow better. It’s an important muscle in
the body, just many people don’t know that it exists so it’s ignored.
