She gave us some exercises to do to loosen up hs neck muscles, recommended that we see a physical therapist to help with that as well, and also gave some suggestions on how to encourage R to look and turn his head to the left. She then said she hoped all of this would help reshape his head so the flat spot was not so severe & she would re-evaluate in 2 months. Bu if it didn't seemed to mprove she would recommend he wear a helmet to more aggressively reshape his head.
We immediately started working on all of her suggestions, including seeing a physical therapist. Extreme cases of that neck tightness is called tortocollis, the dr never specifically said R had tortocollis just neck tightness. We actually only saw the physical therapist 3 times after the initial visit. I was hesitant to go to PT the whole time, mainly because R was only 3 months old and I felt a bit silly taking an infant to PT. but in the end I was glad I did, mainly because our therapist totally stroked my parenting ego each time we went. Telling how great Riley was coming along, how he was ahead fo his age, asking me if I worked with little kids because I seemed so comfortable with him for a first time mother. I really don know how much Rily go out of the visits, but I always felt awesome afterward ;)
The therapist recommended we get R evaluated by a helmet company, which we did. They, of course, recommended we go ahead and get him one of their helmets as soon as he turned 4 months. I confessed that I didn't want R to go to PT, and I really, really, really didn't want him to have to wear a helmet.
He would wear this helmet 23 hours a day, 7 days a week for at least a couple of months if not longer, and we would need to get it adjusted at least once a week it not a couple of times a week. I wondered how he would sleep in it, if it would slow down his development milestone wise, how stinky it would get , and if course what other people would think. My mother assured me that it would bother me WAY more than it would bother him. She should know, when I was 6 months old I had to wear some sort of therapy thing to do something to my hips. I learned to crawl & walk I that thing, she's told me all my life. At first it was made of plastic, but I grew so fast they finally made it out of metal and canvas. This one my mom absolutely hated because of the looks people gave her at the grocery store. I on the other hand was pretty much oblivious to it. And to this day don't remember wearing it.
But still I clung to what the therapist told me, that his head seemed to be getting better and possibly by 5 months it would take care of itself. I at least wanted to wait until his 4 month pedi appointment to see what the dr said.....which of course was that she recommend we get it.
After even more feet dragging, humming and hawing about it, we finally made an appointment to get his head digitally scanned so he could make a "band" ( as they call it) just for him.
I should mention the cost of his helmet and where the company is located....$3800 & Austin, TX. Other reasons why I had drug my feet. Jeff was all for it, I was the one with concerns.
An article in people magazine in 2005 demonstrates on way to look at the helmet.
http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20148067,00.html
After I read this article I wondered how much research the author actually did for this article. There is no mention of the different types of flatness or different reasons it happens. I also wonder if the author ever wore braces, because honestly I don't see the difference between the helmet & getting braces.
Here are pictures of what e looked like so they could get an accurate scan.
And here are some with him in his helmet, before and after decorating
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