A WOMAN who paid to have her tongue-tie cut believing it would improve her posture claims she has been left unable to swallow or speak properly.
Georgina Norfolk, 29, had seen videos on claiming that the surgery could improve your breathing and posture.
But when the mental coach paid £300 to go under the knife and get her tongue-tie snipped in November 2022, she said she started noticing problems just a few days later.
Georgina claims that as well as cutting the frenulum – the piece of skin connecting the tongue to the bottom of the mouth – also cut her tongue.
As healing scar tissue formed, her tongue became “attached” to the bottom of her mouth, leading to “extreme tension” in her face as well as issues swallowing, talking and sleeping.
Georgina, from Norwich, , says she now needs a second surgery which she believes will cost her thousands of pounds.
Speaking about the ordeal, she said: “This basically ruined my life.”
Tongue-tie is where the piece of skin connecting the tongue to the bottom of the mouth is shorter or tighter than usual, the says.
It’s common in and often doesn’t cause any problems or need treatment.
If tongue-tie does affect babies’ ability to drink milk, however, they can have a small surgery to cut the skin connecting the tongue to the bottom of the mouth.
In Georgina’s case, she said her tongue-tie had never impacted her.
But she explained: “I saw people [on social media] talking about how having a tongue-tie can limit your breathing and .
“I was under the impression that it would just be a snip.
“The small tissue under the tongue is called the frenulum so they cut that but what they did is they kept going and cut into the muscle of my tongue.
“Things were fine for four days then I started noticing it started healing with scar tissue in the centre but at the time I didn’t know it would cause issues.
“I had from the centre of my tongue, the base of my skull and down into my neck.
“I realised that every time I moved my tongue, so swallowing, eating, it would pull the floor of my mouth up.”
Georgina added: “I became so exhausted. For three months I couldn’t speak for more than a couple of minutes because every time I spoke my body would get so exhausted.
“The top of my neck seized up and I couldn’t move my neck as much as I could before.
“I was in chronic tension with any tongue movements and then add on the swallowing on top of that and it just ruined my life. I’d never had swallowing issues [before].
“I still to this day really have to limit my diet, I could only eat soft foods.”
Explaining the issue more, she said: “The scar tissue has reattached the centre of my tongue back down to the floor of my mouth and that’s impossible to sort out without surgery.
“It’s just a lot of trauma that my body has gone through. Then I started having issues.
“I don’t know why it started happening but whenever I lie down my heart would start palpitating, and I would wake up super and weak.
“I just want my life back, I’ve lost four years of my twenties.
“It’s an important time of my life where I can meet people to raise a family, to build my career and I’ve missed out on that and it’s so sad. It wasn’t just a snip.”
Georgina has started a GoFundMe page to raise money for a second surgery in the US after she claims an ear, nose and throat doctor told her in 2024 that she now has severe tongue-tie and needs an operation to correct it.
Speaking about the operation, she said: “[The surgery] will give me the ability to live my life again and live my life without constantly thinking about how to swallow or constantly being tense or stressed.”
For anyone considering getting the procedure, Georgina is urging them to go to a specialist.
She said: “Go to a specialist dentist or doctor that knows how the tongue tie will impact breathing and jaw alignment and sleep.
“Make sure they have a thorough understanding about how a tongue- tie affects other functions of the body.”
