'Lil Luv Bug: January 2007

Carter's Medical Update

Friday Jan. 26th Carter had his 6 month checkup. The doctor mentioned that he would like me to call a physical therapist to have an evaluation done of Carter's neck. He has a small flat spot on the right side of his head and the doctor thought it might be because he favors laying on that side due to a stiff neck muscle. The physical therepist would do an evaluation to determine if this was the case. He also mentioned that I might call a cranial specialist to have Carter's head shaped back round but that it would not be covered by insurance. As you might imagine I was a little bit upset that the doctor was suggesting that something medically could be wrong with Carter. I never felt that his head was that bad and had always heard in the past from the doctor that this would go away in time as he got older. He has never seemed to have a problem with turning his neck in either direction or shown favoritism to one side. But I went ahead and did as the doctor said and took him to the physical therapist for the eval. Jeff and I decided that we would call the cranial specialist depending on what the physical therapist thought. You will be happy to know that the physical therapist tested him for about an hour and found that he had full neck extension and head control. In fact she said that he actually tested stronger in these areas than typical 6mon babies. I was so happy and surprised to hear her say that. I expected she would claim he would need 3 days a week treatment in an effort to make money off of us even if he didn't need it. I guess I need to have more faith that there are honest people out there. We have decided not to take Carter to the cranial specialist as this would mean him wearing a helmet for 23 hours a day. When I mentioned this idea to the therapist she said that his head wasn't bad at all and that as he becomes more mobile it will shape itself. We are happy to hear it. We are considering changing pediatricians as while ours came with glowing recommendations from friends, we tend to leave his appointments upset. The therapist mentioned she wasn't sure why our doctor even sent us. She said he could have evaluated Carter himself and ruled out the neck problem. We think he is a great doctor but someone else might better suit our new parent needs. :)