Tongue Battle! (fighting tongue thrust)

Once upon a time there was a girl and her tongue ruined her jaw.

Nope, not a really poorly put together version of a fairy tale.  This story is a condensed version of actual events.

Lateral tongue thrust.

It's a thing.

Pretty much it means that my daughter's tongue doesn't hang out in her mouth where it is supposed to.  When she swallows, her tongue twists and presses against the teeth on the right side of her mouth which (over the years) has warped her jaw (the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body, you know).
It's pretty crazy.

But not really in a good way.

Eventually, she will need surgery to repair the damage.

But we also have to help her retrain her tongue so that the problem doesn't continue and doesn't just happen again after surgery.

The top and bottom row of teeth have been pushed apart over the years as her jab
has become warped by the power of her tongue.  I always knew she was one
tough girl.  This is where her tongue hangs out which caused the issue.

You can see how her jaw angles down on the left side
of this picture.  It's actually a pretty dramatic slope.

Aaaaaand, just in case someone else out there has a child with a disobedient tongue, I wanted to share this link.  

Since Aubrey doesn't have a lisp, our insurance will not cover a speech therapist (and I know a couple of speech therapists and neither of them knew much about this so it must be a pretty specialized field).

But she's still absolutely beautiful if you ask me.

If this is something going on in the mouth of someone you love, this link may help you get started on correcting the issue.  It is REALLY hard for her to do these exercises, but she is making progress.  We'll see how it goes.

I always knew your tongue could get you in trouble.  

This just isn't quite the way I thought it would go down.

http://spiritedspeechpathology.blogspot.com/2013/05/tongue-thrust-suggestions-from.html

(FYI, this post was created with Aubrey's permission -- and actually encouragement -- because she wants people to be able to avoid her plight if possible.  I told you, great girl.)