Re: Re: trouble with the STAR band

[Guest guest]

Hi!I had the same problems like you with our Starband. My Ortho adjusted it many times , but it kept rotating , rubbing the ears , covering the eyes and leaving red marks. We ended up getting a new one. It was free. The ortho told me that it's covered by the warranty of the helmet.So if you feel that it doesn't fit right ask for a new one.Good luck.Margarita

[Guest guest]

Hi,

Please. Does anyone know if the Starband should not be hitting the

ears? 's is. I don't remember it hitting as much in the beginning

months. Perhaps, 's ears have grown a lot since the beginning. My

husband is planning on asking the ortho about the ears. Has anyone

had the helmet adjusted for this? How is the adjustment done? Do they

cut more out around the ears?

The helmet also rotates a little, but that is mostly since the last

adjustment. The ortho took some pressure off the left cheek then. He

said the little rotation is okay now since 's head has become more

symmetrical. I much prefer the rotation over worrying about the

cheek. Maybe, the rotation is what is causing the helmet to hit the

ears. As for the plagio, it has still visually improved as much as I

would expect at this point even with the rotation.

Can the helmet make the ears stick out more? 's right ear is safe

since we usually have it taped anyhow in an ear splint. I wasn't

planning on taping the left ear since it sticks out just a little bit

and it looks natural.

Thanks,

Kathy, mom to 20.5 months in Starband

Kazinsky wrote:

Hi!

I had the same problems like you with our Starband. My Ortho adjusted

it many times , but it kept rotating , rubbing the ears , covering the

eyes and leaving red marks.

We ended up getting a new one. It was free. The ortho told me that it's

covered by the warranty of the helmet.

So if you feel that it doesn't fit right ask for a new one.

Good luck.

Margarita

[Guest guest]

I'm guessing that the ortho really meant 25 mm in the areas that are not holding points. That is more consistent with what we had. When we first got the band, the ortho actually had to shave a little on the right holding point so it could not have been made loose there. It was very loose around the other areas of the band. My ortho told me that she typically needs to see about 3 or 4 cm of circumferance growth before she needed to shave out the back of a brachy band. Since my daughter grew less than 2 cm during her whole time in the band, we didn't need anything shaved from there either. I'm guessing that it's different in a plagio band since my coworker's son has had foam shaved out within his first 2 cm of circumferance growth.

I agree that it might work better if they made the bands a little closer to the head, but I don't know. It seems that my daughter's head did improve even while it was still looser.

Re: trouble with the STAR band

I'm glad your band is working. However I'm not that thrilled with the ortho's explanation. I know a lot about how, CT makes Docbands from talking to them. I also know some about starbands from our ortho and my own experience. To me the band should hold the head in the prominent area - and doesn't need extra room there, since there shouldn't be any growth. If there is some growth in that area it can be adjusted with the foam. But I think the entire time my daughter was in her starband (5 mo) no foam was removed from the part where she had extra width. Perhaps they did leave some room initially to account for the difference between when the scan was taken and when the band was delivered, I really don't know. If you look at my daughter's scan in the photos section (Our Plagio Babies S/Sydney M) you can see that where her head was widest there was almost no growth at all. I'm glad that your band is working, and don't mean to scare you, Lindsey. I'm just trying to tell others in the group that I don't agree with what your otho has said. I think with starbands it is true that there is sometimes "extra room" but I don't think this is a good thing. Problems like rotation really shouldn't happen - even if it works out okay in the end. It is something to keep an eye on, and to bug your ortho about. If it is there for the first week or two until the head grows a bit I wouldn't worry so much. However if it is an ongoing problem then I would think the band isn't fitting properly, and you won't get optimal results. I am not an expert in the banding from a technical perspective. Just a mom who has been in this group for over 3 yrs now.-christine sydney, 4 yrs, starband grad>> My little guy had the rotating problem with his StarBand as well. I asked right away if it was fitting wrong and what could be done. Basically he said nothing, and it's turned out to be fine. He did tell me a couple of things that helped me to understand the conundrum that follows with the helmet. You have two things going on... First, the makers of the helmet try to leave 25mm of space all the way around (circumfrence) for their head to grow during the reshaping process, which can sometimes leave unwanted room for it to shift (but he assured me that it was fine, and it was). Also, he did say that because there was that extra room, the helmet will tend to shift toward the flat spot, so for my Eli, his helmet rotated toward his right which was the side of the flat spot. When you looked at him straight on, it looked like the helmet was on a little crooked, which then it would touch his ears. Eli's helmet never pushed hard enough to pull the ears out away from his head though. If that's the case, definately have an open conversation with your ortho about it. > > To be really honest, this website has been so helpful, but it did make me a little paranoid about what my little guy was going through. Sometimes you just have to trust that it'll be alright, and in our case, it was fine. Trust your gut and pursue any hesitations and remember that your orthotist should be on your side so trust what they say.> > Hope this helps and I'd love to hear an update on how things go.> > Good luck,> Lindsey> (mom to Eli, 10 1/2 months, Starband 11.18.09-present)>