... dylan's plagio triumph ...

Miami, here we come

We've learned that the best treatment for plagiocephaly comes from a company called Cranial Technologies, www.cranialtech.com. They have developed a non-surgical treatment for plagiocephaly that involves developing custom helmets for infants that reshape their head and correct the deformities. There are other more general treatment options (i.e. companies who create leg braces, prosthetics, etc.), but Cranial Technologies is the only company who exclusively focusses on babies with plagiocephaly. Say no more - they're the solution for us.

They have clinics all across the country and we thought had one located in Atlanta. Weekly trips to Atlanta wasn't ideal, but certainly manageable. We found out last week that the Atlanta location closed earlier this year and the next closest clinics were Charlotte, NC or Miami, FL. The Charlotte location was booked until late June and considering the serverity of Dylan's condition we're too eager to get started to wait that long. So, we made an appointment for the Miami clinic for Friday, June 2.

We drove down for our first appointment. Don't asky why ... it seemed like a good idea at the time. Dylan was great for the first 4 hours then he'd had just about enough of the road trip experience.

The first step is to take a complete set of photos of Dylan's head to truly assess the condition. From these photos you can see the extent of the plagio. In the photo on the left you can see how the head is "slanted" and in the photo on the right you can see how his ears are misaligned and his forhead protrudes on the right.

Apparently we were a little ill-prepared for this appointment. I knew we were going for a "casting", but had no idea what that meant. They literally put a cast on his head - this serves as the mold for the custom helmet they make. We didn't take any photos, but here are a couple from their brochure.



It was pretty traumatizing for all 3 of us ... even though it only lasted about 15 minutes it was a very bizarre process. Mommy needed a drink when we left the appointment ...

posted by the jaynes family @ 11:58 PM