RE: Re: Question about age of child

[Guest guest]

Thanks. I have not been to CT for a consult yet. I will try to take some pics when he is up from his nap and try to post them. I looked at all the cutie patooties on the site and, well, maybe I'm just in denial, but I don't see a big difference in most of them that I would see this child and think, wow, that kid should have had a helmet.

My son is growing, on his own curve. He's below the 3% for his head circumference. He was, I want to say 41 at his 1 year visit - same at the 2 orthotists. The 2nd plotted him on the comparison graph and he was below the curve. I double checked with his ped and she said he is following his own curve, so growing, just not on the average curve used to compare. Doesn't really surprise me because that's him for weight as well - and pretty much all 4 of my kids for the first 3 or so years - was 14 lb 6 oz at 1 year. He was 6lb 10 oz at birth and 13 lb 10 oz at 9 months, so gaining less than a lb in 3 months.(we are waiting to see the nutritionist for help in his growing area since he needs more nutrition for better growth and development for his brain issues)

I don't know if the reduced head circumference means he has more of an opp to benefit from treatment or not.

Aetna's clinical policy bulletin re cranial remodeling bands and helmets says "Aetna considers cranial remodeling bands (or helmets) as medically necessary orthoses for treatment of moderate to servere positional head deformities associated with premature birth, restrictive intrauterine positioning, cervical abnormalities, birth trauma, torticollis and sleping positions in children when -- banding is initiated at 4 to 12 months of age -- and the following conditions are met. . . " (repositioning therapy, measurements, etc)

Is the DOC band versus the starband more beneficial with older versus younger children?

Angie

From: <nwilkens2275@...>Subject: Re: Question about age of childPlagiocephaly Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2009, 11:06 AM

Welcome-My son was banded at 17 months old and wore 2 bands for almost 8 months total. Our insurance covered treatment. It sounds like yours has an age exclusion or something, I've heard of that a couple of times before I think. You mentioned being close to Chicago, have you thought of going to one of the Cranial Tech locations (they have 2 in that area). We went there and had really good results. Is your son growing at an average rate? If so, you should still see pretty good results after one year old. If you'd like, you could post pictures for an outsider's opinion. Or you can take a look at the photos in our Photos section and see if you can come across any that look similar to his head shape. Jake-2.5 (DOCBand Grad 9/08)Jordan-5>> Hi all. I'm new and have a question about the age of a child starting treatment.> > Has anyone started over 12 months of age? Has the treatment worked? How long did it take? Any successful insurance appeals over 12 months?> > My son turned 1 6/20/09. He was a NICU baby with brain surgery at 10 days old. His PT has completely dx him with torticolis, and neither has any other doc. We have letters of medical necessity from the ped, PT and neurosurgeon who wrote the script.> > We first went to Ballert because that is who the neurosurgeon recommended. I wasn't completely thrilled with them. Went in knowing it would prob be out of pocket and prepared to pay. They did not even do measurements but contacted insurance and got the denial based on age. I almost had to force her to do measurements and pics. I wasn't thrilled about traveling

into Chicago every other week anyway with 4 kids in tow.> > I read an article in our paper the day before about a place in our hometown so I stopped by there after Ballert for info on pricing. Pricing is better which is good since will most likely be out of pocket. But again, they just told me to really research it (gave the orthomerica site - that is what they use) and know that we may achieve some results but not perfect due to age.> > Now, maybe I'm a mother blinded by my baby's cuteness but I just don't see it when I look at him. I don't know if I want to subject him to a helmet when he has enough other problems. The poor boy can't even sit up by himself yet and has therapy weekly, which we will be increasing - doubling the PT part.> > I'm still so undecided and not sure what to do. My husband says go for it, even if out of pocket, because even some results would be good and we'll kick ourselves later for

not even trying.> > Just wondering if anyone started treatment later than 12 months and how it worked.> > Thanks!> > Angie>

[Guest guest]

Wow - what a tiny little guy, but with the head measurements and the weight being consistent, there's nothing to worry about in terms of the skull or anything. is also on the small side, but not that small. She was 18 pounds at a year and is only 23 pounds at almost 2 years. Her head is also ultra small. She was 42 cm at 1 year, but had been consistently growing all along and consistently that small.

However, because of her microcephaly and brachy, we were sent to a neurosurgean to make sure that things were okay. He said that her small head was consistent with her small frame and nothing to worry about. was at the 25th percentile in weight from 2 to 8 months, but then we had growth issues due to her reflux acting up. It took a few months to get medication regulated and to figure out that she had additional food allergies that were causing her GI pain. She had never quite gained back up to where she was, but she did go from the 5th percentile at 12 months to the 10th at 15 months. While in the helmet, she went from the 10th to the 15th, but now she's back down closer to the 10th. Oh well, I think we got good growth while in the helmet, but we basically did a lot of giving her soy ice cream and other fattening foods in order to do so. Despite her tiny size, she's a good eater.

By the way, the nuerosurgeon specifically told me not to bother with a helmet because it was a "grueling" therapy and she had already been through enough with her food allergies and reflux (with a scope, etc). He also said that it would still round out (even though she was 13 months already). Luckily, I didn't like his answer and called the pediatrician, who referred us to the cranial doc for another opinion about the helmet. If I knew what I know now, I would have just asked the ped for the prescription and we would have saved time.

In terms of whether a small head is better for helmet therapy, I can't really answer. What you want is growth. If the baby has had growth issues and you can get him eating well, you may luck out and get some catching up in there like we did. In fact, grew almost a full cm in her first 9 weeks in her helmet. That was more than they said she should have for her age (14.5 to 16.5 months). I believe that her good growth started about a month before her band so we probably missed some of it, but luckily we had resolved her feeding issues prior to the band. I would get going on this ASAP since you don't want to be worrying about little change due to slow growth.

STARband and Doc band are both good products. Almost universally, people have had good change with the Doc band, but we used a STARband and got good results. Doc band is usually willing to band older babies up past 18 months and some of the STARband locations will not do this. I had to request to keep in for an additional two months. Luckily, my ortho was willing to do so.

, mom to , 22.5 months

STARband for brachy from 14.5 to 20.5 months - graduated 05/11/09

Also mom to Aidan, 3 years, no plagio/brachy

land

Re: Question about age of childPlagiocephaly Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2009, 11:06 AMWelcome-My son was banded at 17 months old and wore 2 bands for almost 8 months total. Our insurance covered treatment. It sounds like yours has an age exclusion or something, I've heard of that a couple of times before I think. You mentioned being close to Chicago, have you thought of going to one of the Cranial Tech locations (they have 2 in that area). We went there and had really good results. Is your son growing at an average rate? If so, you should still see pretty good results after one year old. If you'd like, you could post pictures for an outsider's opinion. Or you can take a look at the photos in our Photos section and see if you can come across any that look similar to his head shape. Jake-2.5 (DOCBand Grad 9/08)Jordan-5>> Hi all. I'm new and have a question about the age of a child starting treatment.> > Has anyone started over 12 months of age? Has the treatment worked? How long did it take? Any successful insurance appeals over 12 months?> > My son turned 1 6/20/09. He was a NICU baby with brain surgery at 10 days old. His PT has completely dx him with torticolis, and neither has any other doc. We have letters of medical necessity from the ped, PT and neurosurgeon who wrote the script.> > We first went to Ballert because that is who the neurosurgeon recommended. I wasn't completely thrilled with them. Went in knowing it would prob be out of pocket and prepared to pay. They did not even do measurements but contacted insurance and got the denial based on age. I almost had to force her to do measurements and pics. I wasn't thrilled about traveling into Chicago every other week anyway with 4 kids in tow.> > I read an article in our paper the day before about a place in our hometown so I stopped by there after Ballert for info on pricing. Pricing is better which is good since will most likely be out of pocket. But again, they just told me to really research it (gave the orthomerica site - that is what they use) and know that we may achieve some results but not perfect due to age.> > Now, maybe I'm a mother blinded by my baby's cuteness but I just don't see it when I look at him. I don't know if I want to subject him to a helmet when he has enough other problems. The poor boy can't even sit up by himself yet and has therapy weekly, which we will be increasing - doubling the PT part.> > I'm still so undecided and not sure what to do. My husband says go for it, even if out of pocket, because even some results would be good and we'll kick ourselves later for not even trying.> > Just wondering if anyone started treatment later than 12 months and how it worked.> > Thanks!> > Angie>

[Guest guest]

I know I am extremely late on this post, but I thought I'd respond anyway just in case you are still undecided. My daughter was born with a congenital heart defect and had other complications which required her to be in the hospital for 3-1/2 months. Her first 3+ weeks she was on ECMO, which is a bypass machine, so her position could not be changed at all that whole time. She is currently receiving PT and SPT twice a week as well as OT and a nutritionist once a week. Her PT recommended we take her to Cranial Tech (I am in the Chicago area, so we go to the one in Lombard). She did not get her first band until she was about 14 months old. Some days I think it isn't helping much, but at her last appointment they compared the current shape of her head to the original shape, and it does appear to be reshaping. She will more than likely need two bands, but I figure anything I can do to help will be better than not doing anything at all. She is tiny overall (only in about the 5-10th percentile for height and weight), but her head is huge (in the 95th percentile), which is a small reason why we waited a little longer. The bands are not very heavy, but it took quite a while for her to be good at sitting up with her head being so big, and we didn't want to add any more weight there. I'm thankful that her PT encouraged us to go because her pediatrician didn't seem to be overly concerned about it, and she is actually in the severe category for plagio.

Joyce Caruthers

Plagiocephaly From: nwilkens2275@...Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:06:46 +0000Subject: Re: Question about age of child

Welcome-My son was banded at 17 months old and wore 2 bands for almost 8 months total. Our insurance covered treatment. It sounds like yours has an age exclusion or something, I've heard of that a couple of times before I think. You mentioned being close to Chicago, have you thought of going to one of the Cranial Tech locations (they have 2 in that area). We went there and had really good results. Is your son growing at an average rate? If so, you should still see pretty good results after one year old. If you'd like, you could post pictures for an outsider's opinion. Or you can take a look at the photos in our Photos section and see if you can come across any that look similar to his head shape. Jake-2.5 (DOCBand Grad 9/08)Jordan-5>> Hi all. I'm new and have a question about the age of a child starting treatment.> > Has anyone started over 12 months of age? Has the treatment worked? How long did it take? Any successful insurance appeals over 12 months?> > My son turned 1 6/20/09. He was a NICU baby with brain surgery at 10 days old. His PT has completely dx him with torticolis, and neither has any other doc. We have letters of medical necessity from the ped, PT and neurosurgeon who wrote the script.> > We first went to Ballert because that is who the neurosurgeon recommended. I wasn't completely thrilled with them. Went in knowing it would prob be out of pocket and prepared to pay. They did not even do measurements but contacted insurance and got the denial based on age. I almost had to force her to do measurements and pics. I wasn't thrilled about traveling into Chicago every other week anyway with 4 kids in tow.> > I read an article in our paper the day before about a place in our hometown so I stopped by there after Ballert for info on pricing. Pricing is better which is good since will most likely be out of pocket. But again, they just told me to really research it (gave the orthomerica site - that is what they use) and know that we may achieve some results but not perfect due to age.> > Now, maybe I'm a mother blinded by my baby's cuteness but I just don't see it when I look at him. I don't know if I want to subject him to a helmet when he has enough other problems. The poor boy can't even sit up by himself yet and has therapy weekly, which we will be increasing - doubling the PT part.> > I'm still so undecided and not sure what to do. My husband says go for it, even if out of pocket, because even some results would be good and we'll kick ourselves later for not even trying.> > Just wondering if anyone started treatment later than 12 months and how it worked.> > Thanks!> > Angie>

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