Libby Update

OK so let me first say sorry for not informing everyone about our troubles with Libbs other than the post that I did on Halloween. I really thought that we had told the families about it before then.

So here is the update:

We went to our appointment at Primary Children's on Tuesday. We met our therapist. Her name is Lisa and she is just a cute little thing. (You know you are getting old when your children's medical team are younger than you are, or at least look like they are.) Anyway, she did a full exam on her and determined that she has Left Muscular Torticollis and Plagiocephaly. At this point her Plagiocephaly (un-round or mis-shaped head) is not bad enough for a helmet but they are going to continue to watch it. They have a ranking system that they use; 1-7 is mild, 8-14 is moderate, and 15+ is severe. Libby was measured at an 8. It looks to us like it has kind-of got a bit better since we started sleeping her on her side like her pediatrician told us to. So hopefully that will work and we will not have to do the helmet thing. As for her Torticollis, we have physical therapy once a week for awhile and we have stretches that we have to do with her twice a day. As you can see in the pictures, she does not like doing her stretches very much. Poor little thing. We also had to buy this cushion thing that we have to use in her car seat that makes it so that she can't flop her head over to the side. She also needs to learn to like her tummy. Lisa wants her on her tummy as much as possible which is kind of hard with her reflux but she is actually getting much better at it. We have even caught her looking over her left shoulder all on her own and that never happened before. We have our next therapy appointment on Monday night.

"Side Bending Stretch"

Libby does not like the "Side Bending Stretch" very much.
"Rotation Stretch"

Libby does not like the "Rotation Stretch" very much either.

We were given the following "medical explanation" and information about Torticollis and Plagiocephaly from Libby's therapist.

Congenital Muscular Torticollis is a condition in which a child's head is tilted to one side and turned toward the opposite side. It is caused by having tight muscles on one side of the neck and weak muscles on the other side of the neck.

Plagiocephaly is a condition in which a child's head is not shaped correctly. these conditions may be noticed:

* The back or side of the head may be flattened.

* The forehead and cheek may bulge on one side.

* One eye may appear larger than the other.

* The ear on the flattened side may be pushed forward.

* The jaw may be tilted.

We received a copy of the letter that the therapist sent to Libby's pediatrician. The following is an excerpt from that letter.

"Libby has a left torticollis due to left side tightness and right side weakness of the cervical muscles. Libby's head shape displays moderate plagiocephaly consistent with left toticollis. There is right sided flattening of the occiput and parietal bones as well as bossing of the frontal bones. An asymmetry index of 8 mm is present. Developmentally, Libby is doing well with the exception of low tolerance to tummy time and decreased prop on tummy."

Well, I hope that my novel of a post has helped clear up some of the confusion and the unknown for our families. We are certainly learning a lot throughout this whole deal. I will try harder to keep everyone informed and up to date.