Today was the big day where we brought our daughter in to get her head evaluated and potentially fitted for a helmet. The official name is a cranial remolding orthosis, but helmet is a lot easier to write out. As I mentioned before, many children with torticollis also have a condition called plagiocephaly. Basically, its a flat spot on the back of their head and it may cause their head to have an asymmetrical shape. The helmet can correct the plagiocephaly by essentially remolding the head shape. Unfortunately, many insurances do not cover the helmet because its often deemed cosmetic. With a $2500 price tag, we were holding our breath to see whether or not they would recommend a helmet for her. The good news is that the evaluation appointment was free, so it wasn't like we had anything to lose by getting her evaluated.
I was pretty nervous about this appointment because the thought of having my baby girl in a helmet scared me. And I honestly was dreading strangers coming up to me and asking me what happened to my daughter. But after I looked at the office's website, I felt a lot more comfortable with the process. And my husband and I even had a helmet design picked out for her, just in case. I liked the hot pink camo pattern, but my husband vetoed that one.
When we arrived, we met with a super-friendly and helpful practitioner. She used this amazing scanner to evaluate Kellyn's head. The scanner is a laser scanning device that takes a 3-D picture of your child's head. This picture provides information regarding head shape, which offers the data necessary to decide whether or not a helmet would be deemed necessary.
The scanner spit out the data regarding her head right before our eyes. Her practitioner shared that the two main measurements both fell within the normal range. She did not think Kellyn needed a helmet. Yah! What a relief! That's one less appointment and medical thing I need to manage with Kellyn. I went home with a big smile on my face.
