son is 16 mos - 2nd band, or try to stay in existing band past grad date???

[Guest guest]

My son will be 16 months Nov 11th. He is currently in his first DOCBand, which

he received at 13 months (Aug 9, 2010). At his initial eval, CT told us his

Cranial Vault Asymmetry was 14mm and that best we could hope for was 7mm, and

even that was being generous, and that he would likely be in 2 bands.

Thankfully, our insurance covered the first band in full.

When I've been going in recently for adjustments, CT is telling me that he

doesn't need the second band. I can see that he's made great progress, but I

can also see that he still needs correction. They did another set of

measurements for me on 10/25/10 and he's down to 5mm of asymmetry. This is

great news, but I also take it with a grain of salt, since we all know how

imprecise measuring with calipers is.

Honestly, I was disappointed to hear they didn't want to do the second band. I

was mentally prepared for two. He has adjusted to it without any problems.

Clearly, it's working. So, why would we give up now? Why would we let these

last few months of growth go by without taking advantage of them to capture the

growth and get additional correction?

Wanting to get more precise measurements, a second opinion, and some peace of

mind about not pursuing the second band, I took him for a STARScan on Nov 3.

They measured his diagonal asymmetry at 9.3mm. (I was a little surprised that

the difference between the calipers measurement & the scan was as big as it was.

(5mm vs. 9.3mm)) They could put him in a band, but by the time I get him in a

STARBand, he'd only be in it for about 1 month (since they are pretty confident

they'd take him out at 18 months of age). They agreed that he had made great

progress, that his head looks good. They also said his asymmetry measures

5/16ths of an inch and they have a goal of getting babies down to 4/16ths of an

inch or less. So, we only have 1/16th of an inch to go. Because of his age,

they were not confident that we'd see much, if any, change. They would do it,

but really didn't recommend it.

I left the STARscan appointment thinking, " Well, maybe I'll just keep him in the

DOCBand even after his scheduled graduation date of Nov 30. " It would just be

" unsupervised " from an orthotist perspective. It seems to me that his current

band still has " room " for his head to fill in those flat spots. At the same

time, I'm a little scared to do that... that I don't really know what I'm doing

and I don't want to mess up his head any further.

So, I went to CT for another adjustment and told my tech about the STARScan and

what I was thinking about keeping him in the band after graduation. She didn't

think that was wise since the band might not be fitting him correctly. She

finally relented and suggested that if I'm not going to be happy and not able to

let it go, I should move forward with the second band. But she cautioned me

that we would likely see very little change. I doubt insurance will cover any

portion of the second band. However, the financial aspect doesn't play into it

for me. I'll pay the money for the band without any regrets.

So, my questions are...

1. Has anyone banded this late in the game? (He'll be 16.5 months by the time

he gets a second DOCBand.) If so, did you see results? Were you happy you did

it? If you didn't see results, do you regret it? How old was your child when

they came out of the band?

2. Has anyone ever kept their child in a band after the graduation date? If so,

did you keep with 23 hours a day so your child would stay adjusted to it? How

did you monitor the fit? How much longer beyond graduation did you keep it on

your child (e.g., a few days, a few weeks, a few months)?

I appreciate any advice / feedback you can provide.

Thanks!