Therapy Time

Therapy.  Man did that make me nervous.  I don't know why. Maybe because I felt like I was terrible for letting Logan lay on his back so much.  Or I was terrible for not doing more to keep him from looking to the left...Either way, I was nervous what they were going to say.  I have some friends who have had kids in helmets, and it isn't the worst thing ever, but I was sure hoping to avoid it.  Below is the pic I took of his head the day before his first appointment.  

It's pretty bad...

Our physical therapist was Caitlyn Woolf.  She is awesome.  She was so sweet and helpful and encouraging.  She asked a bunch of questions and then did some evaluating of Logan.  

Checking for Torticollis
The first thing Caitlyn checked for was torticollis.  I didn't know what this was until our appointment, but it is a tightening of the neck muscles on one side which leads to a tilted head.  Fortunately Logan, had it only slightly and only sometimes.  He could hold his head straight if he wanted to, but in certain positions it was slightly tilted.

Such a cutie!
She also did some stretches with him and he did not like that very much.  He wasn't crying, but he fought her on it. Haha.  He kept trying to look away or pull away and not let her stretch him to the right.  It was very clear he preferred the left. ;)



By the end of the appointment Logan was getting quite tired.  He was not thrilled to have his head measured.  Poor kid.



Thank goodness for the binky!


After all was said and done, he had slight torticollis and a very bad flat spot.  They rate anomalies in head shape on a scale where 1-3 is normal, 4-8 is moderate and anything above 8 is severe.  Logan's measured at a 12. So it was pretty bad.  Fortunately, other than the flatness, there was hardly any asymmetries in his face.  He did have a slight bulge in his forehead above the left eye and his left ear was pushed forward, but other than that he was great.  The therapist gave us stretches and activities to do with him to loosen his neck, get him to look right, and to keep him off his head.  I was so grateful!  I knew there had to be something we could do, but I just didn't know WHAT to do.  With some direction I felt ready to work!

This picture isn't very good, but after just two weeks, we saw a
big improvement!
At Logan's second appointment the therapist was incredibly impressed!  Logan and I had worked hard and it had paid off!  He went from a rating of 12 (severe) to 8 (moderate).  In just two weeks!  It was awesome!  He was turning to the right on his own much more often and Caitlyn said she didn't see any torticollis.  I was overjoyed!



Looking to the right without being turned!


Because our home routine had been going so well, we decided to cancel our appointments since it wasn't therapy that he needed but mostly just time spent off of his head.  We have another appointment tomorrow and we will see how things have gone over the past month.  I have noticed that the progress has slowed down, but it still is looking so much better!  Please bless we get good news!

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