18 months old plagiocephaly - is it too late?! Please help

April 26, 2009

My son has Plagiocephaly and we were told over the last 18 months by

various NHS professionals that it was nothing to worry about and it would

improve. it hasn't so we have signed up to have the helmet treatment but we are

EXTREMELY worried. its not the money, its the fact that he is now a little boy

really with likes and dislikes and feelings and we are wondering if it is going

to be 10 or so months of toture for him with no result. Can anyone advise? we

are new to this and have no really idea what we are letting ourselves or him

into whether we do go ahead with is or whethre we dont. Has anyone out there had

a helmet fitted so late in the day with good or bad results? please help as i

can't sleep at night wondering what to do about this for the best. I am so angry

that we didnt have good advice from the start. xx

April 26, 2009

HI there-

My son (also , but we call him Jake) began helmet treatment at 17 months

old and wore two bands for almost 8 months and had really great results. His

before and after photos are in the Older Babies folder under Jake W. We were in

the same boat, everyone kept saying he didn't need a helmet, it would round out

on it's own, until I finally found a doctor willing to help. I am STILL angry

about that, but mostly with myself for not pushing for a helmet sooner than I

did.

I gather from the mention of NHS that you must be in the UK? I'm not sure what

type of helmet you will be getting, but I don't think it's too late to see

improvement. I know I felt like I had to do something, even if it ended up not

working. At least I could say I did what I could. I kept my hopes really low and

was really pleasantly surprised by our outcome. Jake's head is still not

perfect, but it's only noticeable to me (because I still can't stop looking at

it!) and it's a HUGE improvement from where we started, especially in his

forehead bossing. We used a company here called Cranial Technologies and they

had a lot of experience treating older babies, which was the reason I chose

them.

I had the same fear as you, because he was older, would he really put up a fuss

and really be effected by wearing a helmet all the time? But again, I was

pleasantly suprised, he adjusted really well, really fast. I just told him he

would be getting a new " hat " and I clapped and cheered when they put it on him

so that he would associate it with something good. Quite frankly, it wasn't hard

to be enthusiastic because I was SO HAPPY to have finally started the process

and to be doing something to help his head shape, I felt like cheering! It was

like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders. He eventually grew to love

his hat, wanted to put it on before the one-hour break was up (we tried leaving

it off as little as possible anyway, just to squeeze every minute out of it),

and even now, 6 months later, still tries putting them on when he sees them in

his closet.

Of course, good results depend on good growth and a good ortho. I so hope you

have both. Please let me know if you have any questions. Best of luck!

Jake-2.5 (DOCBand Grad 9/08)

Jordan-5

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> My son has Plagiocephaly and we were told over the last 18 months by