So far the boys don't seam too upset about the helmets. They had a pretty cranky day yesterday, but they were cranky all day, even during the times when the helmets were off. I think the crankiness is more from the teething than it is from the helmets. Kevin still is not eating very good On a side note I need to do some more research on this because the feeding schedule we have the boys on does not appear to be anything like the one that came from some company( Gerber or Good Start) . And Alex has gotten really stuff today.
Jamie works noon-4ish Wed-Fri this week. Since we wanted to keep the boys home I am attempting to work from home this week. Yesterday I literally did not have any time while Jamie was at work to get any work done. The only time there wasn't at least one boy crying was during Alex's first feeding, and that was just because Kevin was sleeping and Alex loves food. Since Kevin is not such a big fan of food right now he cries through his feedings.
Today went much better. The boys napped good. Then they played good. Then they ate. The eating still didn't go great, in fact the first feeding was mostly just the food then they refused to eat the bottles. Then the second feeding went pretty well. They actually played in their bouncy toys and on the playmat for quite a while by themselves today. I still had to go and occupy them for a while, but its always fun to get a little alone time with the boys. There was minimal crying but boy when Kevin cries he doesn't just cry he screams.
Tomorrow we are up to 6 hours at a time with the helmets on. That is actually a good thing. The only time the boys really get mad at the helmets is when we have to take them off or put them on. So the less we have to do that the better. Hopefully the next 2.5 months keep going like this.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Plagiocephaly Helmets
The boys got their helmets on on Tuesday. It was a very long appointment.
The doctor started out by measuring their heads again. This time both boy's heads had a circumference of 435mm. For Kevin this was good. It represented 4mm of growth, which is on the high side, but perfectly good. For Alex though, it was 10mm of growth, and the inside of the helmet was made to be 435mm, which means that the helmet is way small.
The helmets look like a wrestler's helmet, open on the top, circles around the head, obviously not covering the face, and cut outs for the ears. ( ) I'll add pictures of the boys to here very soon. Kevin has a dark blue helmet, and Alex's is light blue. The outside is a hard plastic shell, and the inside is hard Styrofoam.
The doctor spent quite a bit of time on Alex's helmet. When the helmet's come in they are purposely made to cover more of the face, ears, and neck than what they should. The doctor then puts the helmet on and draws some lines on the helmet for where he wants cut out for the face. He then used a grinder to trim down the size of the helmet. Because of how much Alex's head had grown he had to do quite a bit of grinding. Then he had to do some extra grinding on the inside of the helmet, due to the growth. We have to follow up with several appointments where the doctor will grind out the inside of the helmet to allow for growth of the skull. Well because Alex's head grew so much he had to grind out the inside already at delivery. We have a follow up on Monday, and then the doctor is going to rescan Alex's head and possibly make Alex a new helmet.
Kevin's head didn't grow quite as much so it didn't take nearly as long to grind out his helmet. But the one nice thing about the length of time sitting around and waiting was that the boys needed to eat shortly after the appointment started so we got a chance to feed them and let them take a nap.
We were surprised to find out that there is a ramp up period to wearing the helmets. We kinda thought it was just a go and put it on thing. But as it turns out there is a schedule to follow:
Day 1: 1 hour on 1 hour off
Day 2: 2 hour on 1 hour off
Day 3: 4 hour on 1 hour off
Day 4: 6 hour on 1 hour off
Day 5: 6-8 hour on 1 hour off
( not sure exactly why there is such a big range here )
Day 6: 8 hours during the day and then overnight
( this is the first time they have to sleep with the helmets on )
Day 7 on: 23 hours a day
Its kinda nice cause they get to gradually get used to the helmets. Of course Jamie has to work Wed, Thur, Fri this week. We don't want to stick that on my parents so I'm gonna work from home the rest of the week so that I can handle the schedule. At the doctor's office the boys didn't really mind having the helmets on too much, but they really were not big fans of the putting them on and taking them off process.
The bigger, better surprise was the length of time that they are likely going to have to wear the helmets. According to all the research I was doing; typically kids get helmets on around 6-7 months old and wear them for 10-14 months. And if its caught early and the helmets go on around 4-6 months ( the boys are right in that range now ) then the average time that they have to wear the helmets is 4-5 months. Well based on how the boys have grown up until now the doctor estimates that the boys might be able to get the helmets off in 2.5 months. That would mean end of October/beginning of November. Our hope was that they would get them off by Christmas time, but really we were thinking more like early January, so this is way better then we thought. Hopefully the next 2.5 months are just as good.
The doctor started out by measuring their heads again. This time both boy's heads had a circumference of 435mm. For Kevin this was good. It represented 4mm of growth, which is on the high side, but perfectly good. For Alex though, it was 10mm of growth, and the inside of the helmet was made to be 435mm, which means that the helmet is way small.
The helmets look like a wrestler's helmet, open on the top, circles around the head, obviously not covering the face, and cut outs for the ears. ( ) I'll add pictures of the boys to here very soon. Kevin has a dark blue helmet, and Alex's is light blue. The outside is a hard plastic shell, and the inside is hard Styrofoam.
The doctor spent quite a bit of time on Alex's helmet. When the helmet's come in they are purposely made to cover more of the face, ears, and neck than what they should. The doctor then puts the helmet on and draws some lines on the helmet for where he wants cut out for the face. He then used a grinder to trim down the size of the helmet. Because of how much Alex's head had grown he had to do quite a bit of grinding. Then he had to do some extra grinding on the inside of the helmet, due to the growth. We have to follow up with several appointments where the doctor will grind out the inside of the helmet to allow for growth of the skull. Well because Alex's head grew so much he had to grind out the inside already at delivery. We have a follow up on Monday, and then the doctor is going to rescan Alex's head and possibly make Alex a new helmet.
Kevin's head didn't grow quite as much so it didn't take nearly as long to grind out his helmet. But the one nice thing about the length of time sitting around and waiting was that the boys needed to eat shortly after the appointment started so we got a chance to feed them and let them take a nap.
We were surprised to find out that there is a ramp up period to wearing the helmets. We kinda thought it was just a go and put it on thing. But as it turns out there is a schedule to follow:
Day 1: 1 hour on 1 hour off
Day 2: 2 hour on 1 hour off
Day 3: 4 hour on 1 hour off
Day 4: 6 hour on 1 hour off
Day 5: 6-8 hour on 1 hour off
( not sure exactly why there is such a big range here )
Day 6: 8 hours during the day and then overnight
( this is the first time they have to sleep with the helmets on )
Day 7 on: 23 hours a day
Its kinda nice cause they get to gradually get used to the helmets. Of course Jamie has to work Wed, Thur, Fri this week. We don't want to stick that on my parents so I'm gonna work from home the rest of the week so that I can handle the schedule. At the doctor's office the boys didn't really mind having the helmets on too much, but they really were not big fans of the putting them on and taking them off process.
The bigger, better surprise was the length of time that they are likely going to have to wear the helmets. According to all the research I was doing; typically kids get helmets on around 6-7 months old and wear them for 10-14 months. And if its caught early and the helmets go on around 4-6 months ( the boys are right in that range now ) then the average time that they have to wear the helmets is 4-5 months. Well based on how the boys have grown up until now the doctor estimates that the boys might be able to get the helmets off in 2.5 months. That would mean end of October/beginning of November. Our hope was that they would get them off by Christmas time, but really we were thinking more like early January, so this is way better then we thought. Hopefully the next 2.5 months are just as good.
Kevin's First tooth
We think that both of the boys have been teething for the last few days.
Alex has not been sleeping through the night lately. He wakes up crying a couple times a night. Usually worst case is that we go pick him up for a few seconds to calm down and give him his Nuk and he will go back to sleep. His cheeks have been really rosy the last few days. Still no teeth though.
Kevin on the other hand has just refused to eat the last few days. He has not been real cranky or anything. However it does make him want food faster because he does not eat enough at any feeding.
Yesterday we were at the doctor's office waiting for the doctor to come in with the boy's helmet and we were sitting there holding the boys. We have been sticking our fingers in the boy's mouths a lot lately to see if there are any teeth in there. And this time Jamie found one little tooth starting to poke through in Kevin's mouth. I was at work the first time the boys rolled over so it was nice to be there with Jamie for the first tooth. We were hoping that Kevin would be back to normal now that he tooth came through, but no luck. He was still refused to eat yesterday and this morning. Maybe there is another tooth coming.
Alex has not been sleeping through the night lately. He wakes up crying a couple times a night. Usually worst case is that we go pick him up for a few seconds to calm down and give him his Nuk and he will go back to sleep. His cheeks have been really rosy the last few days. Still no teeth though.
Kevin on the other hand has just refused to eat the last few days. He has not been real cranky or anything. However it does make him want food faster because he does not eat enough at any feeding.
Yesterday we were at the doctor's office waiting for the doctor to come in with the boy's helmet and we were sitting there holding the boys. We have been sticking our fingers in the boy's mouths a lot lately to see if there are any teeth in there. And this time Jamie found one little tooth starting to poke through in Kevin's mouth. I was at work the first time the boys rolled over so it was nice to be there with Jamie for the first tooth. We were hoping that Kevin would be back to normal now that he tooth came through, but no luck. He was still refused to eat yesterday and this morning. Maybe there is another tooth coming.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Plagiocephaly Measurements
Getting the boys all measured up for their helmets was actually kinda interesting.
At the first appointment they did all the using rulers and stuff to get numbers. Then at the second appointment it was all electronic. They use a little scanner to make a digital image of their heads so they can make a mold out of it.
However the scanner only picks up white. So they take a white stocking and put it over the boys' heads. Then the cut out holes in the stocking for the face and the ears. Makes them look like robbers. Then to ensure that the scanner doesn't pick up anything around the head they take a black cape and drape it around their neck. Well I guess its not really a cape because it hangs down all the way around, not just on the back. Then they take a strap and wrap it around their head, under the nose in front and circles around the back of their head. On the back of the strap is some Velcro that a sensor gets attached to. The sensor tracks head movement so that as the boys wiggle their head around the scanner adjusts to the movement.
The boys did not especially like the process, but they were not too bad. The part that made them real mad was putting the sock over their head the first time to figure out where to cut out holes for their face and ears. Then the doctor had a little plastic train that made some noises and that kept the boys occupied pretty well while he did the scans.
Once the scans were complete they got a little cranky again. The scan produces a wire frame image of the skull. So the doctor had to go through the image and clean up little spots and make sure that everything was good. It only took him a couple of minutes after each boy was done, but while he was looking at the image the boy that just got scanned had to sit on my lap with the stocking still over their head and wires still attached.
The doctor said that with kids this young he tries to deliver the helmets in 10 days instead of the standard 14 days. But due to the doctor's schedule we had to wait the full 14 days to get the helmets...
At the first appointment they did all the using rulers and stuff to get numbers. Then at the second appointment it was all electronic. They use a little scanner to make a digital image of their heads so they can make a mold out of it.
However the scanner only picks up white. So they take a white stocking and put it over the boys' heads. Then the cut out holes in the stocking for the face and the ears. Makes them look like robbers. Then to ensure that the scanner doesn't pick up anything around the head they take a black cape and drape it around their neck. Well I guess its not really a cape because it hangs down all the way around, not just on the back. Then they take a strap and wrap it around their head, under the nose in front and circles around the back of their head. On the back of the strap is some Velcro that a sensor gets attached to. The sensor tracks head movement so that as the boys wiggle their head around the scanner adjusts to the movement.
The boys did not especially like the process, but they were not too bad. The part that made them real mad was putting the sock over their head the first time to figure out where to cut out holes for their face and ears. Then the doctor had a little plastic train that made some noises and that kept the boys occupied pretty well while he did the scans.
Once the scans were complete they got a little cranky again. The scan produces a wire frame image of the skull. So the doctor had to go through the image and clean up little spots and make sure that everything was good. It only took him a couple of minutes after each boy was done, but while he was looking at the image the boy that just got scanned had to sit on my lap with the stocking still over their head and wires still attached.
The doctor said that with kids this young he tries to deliver the helmets in 10 days instead of the standard 14 days. But due to the doctor's schedule we had to wait the full 14 days to get the helmets...
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