“In this season of life, Dr. Sonda was exactly what my children and I needed

As a second-time mom, I thought I knew what I was getting myself into having a second child. Little did I know how hard it would be. I went four and a half months after birth before meeting Dr. Sonda. I would do anything to rewind time and already be her patient. I LOVE my previous chiropractor and had been with him for seven years, but in this season of life, Dr. Sonda was exactly what my children and I needed.

My son had a pretty intense lip and tongue tie. His latch was horrible which caused a slew of problems. Just one of those problems was I had mastitis in both breasts and had clogged ducts several times. He never could properly drain the breast. So, we had a lactation consult with a NP which medically diagnosed him with his ties at roughly three months of age. His own pediatrician just flippantly dismissed the ties at two weeks old, so I thought I had to endure the process. We were miserable, he would have SCREAMING spells due to the trapped air that happened with every feeding, he choked multiple times a feeding which made every nursing session so stressful. His latch was shallow and allowed a lot of air in. After asking around town, we decided to go have his revision done out of town at four months of age. What I didn’t know was he needed therapy after the revision. In his brain he already latched a specific way and he was still so tight even after three weeks of diligent stretches four to six times a day. After the third week hit is when we decided to see Dr. Sonda Powell. I’ll be honest, the first appointment was overwhelming but I knew for a fact she knew her stuff and she was there to see my son through the process. After that first appointment, I saw a daunting process ahead of us but I knew what I had already dealt with was WAY WORSE than working toward improvements. So I decided (with my husband) to do what she suggested, and man am I forever grateful. I most likely would have stopped breast feeding and my son would be significantly behind neurologically. Also looking at a helmet to wear because of his head shape. One of the issues the ties also cause was he hated tummy time so much because of the tension. Imagine a screaming baby every feeding, waking up after peacefully sleeping SCREAMING and then wanting to leave your baby for tummy time to scream. This mama couldn’t handle it. The results of me not doing tummy time though was he became neurologically under-developed and a potential candidate to wear a helmet. There HAS to be another way, right?! That’s where Dr. Powell comes in. She is trained and consistently educating herself on infant/child brain development. She has little exercises that she can send you home with to do because the payoff is tied to the work you put into it.

I will say this…she is not going to be as effective without putting the work in at home with what she suggests doing. Going to appointments helped significantly but if I wasn’t doing the work at home, we wouldn’t have progressed much and then the appointments would just have helped temporarily. Don’t get me wrong, what the appointments did for me were check points weekly to see how my son was doing and I love that they also care about HOW I’M DOING! They were a huge support to me through the two months it took to get my son back to where he should be. It was the regimen I needed to make sure I was doing the at-home work because I knew each week I had someone to check in with. They never chastised me for not doing something either. As moms we get so busy, especially working and multiple children! What she and her team provided me was support and care! We still have some work to do in some areas, but we are decreasing our appointments to every other week because he’s making that much of an improvement. It says a lot when you have someone who could easily say they need to see you more. It’s encouraging to her to see you less, that means she’s doing her job. It means SOMETHING is working. It also means her heart is for seeing improvements, not just making a buck.

I couldn’t sing their praises more, I’m forever grateful for the education she has put in to learning more about lip and tongue tie revisions. I am thankful, too, that they are such a joy to work with and truly care about their patients individually.”

Candis George