Physical Therapy?

My son Carter is 4 months old and the doctor wants him to see a physical therapist. Even though Carter can move his head from side to side he strongly favors his right side. The doctor is concerned that he is favoring that right side too much and believes that the muscle may be tight.

Has anyone had to take their kids to physical therapy. Did it help? Tell me about your experience.

 

My cousin's daughter had torticollis in her neck (tightened muscles) and her head was always tilted to one side (her right). She started physical therapy through their state Early Intervention program when she was around 4 months old. She had to have PT for about 4 months, I think and her parents had to do the exercises at home with her too. But it helped tremendously!!

Good luck! And that is great that your pedi is on top of things!

 

My DS has torticollis and we too have a PT come to the house through Early Intervention in our state. It is great and the PT is awesome! Plus, it's so nice to interact with another adult. She plays with both my DS and DD and I'm sure my DS is doing more developmentally than he otherwise would without her.

 

My boys started PT around 3 weeks ago for torticollis and I can already see improvements. She works on more than just stretching and my boys are now finally turning over. I love PT!

 

My son Cameron has torticollis and he too favored his right side even though he could turn to his left. he couldn't turn ALL the way to his left, meaning chin to shoulder like he could to his right, but he also has plagiocephaly and that implied that he was not sleeping on both sides of his head. The torticollis made it more comfortable for him to sleep facing right.

he was sent to physical therapy and it has made a big difference. He'll sleep on either side now and his neck will turn even more to the left side. He's not perfectly turning all the way left, but he can turn more and you can see that he does not have to tilt his body slightly to turn that far left anymore. His head is also straightening out. The physical therapy definitely has made an improvement on not only the function of his neck, but influencing the correct shape of his head.

 

My babies dont have torticillis or whatever, but they are both in occupational and physical therapy. It has made a big dif. The best part is you will find out what things you should be working on with the babies!

 

One of my boys had torticollis and plagiocephaly. He favored his right side and would not turn his head to the left. Because of that he had flattening of his right side and it looked like his right side features were sticking out a little more than his left side. I noticed this and and called the ped right away. The ped said he had a mild case and said that he probably had it and not the other because he was baby "A" and that PT at home should do the trick. So he taught us the different stretches and we did those a couple times a day for a good month (I still do them every so often) and also made sure he was sleeping more on his left side by propping him with receiving blankets and things. The ped did offer to send us to PT but said we could try it at home first and then if we didn't notice a difference in a few weeks time that he would then recommend having home visits from PT or taking him there. Izak didn't like it at first, all the stretches, but soon became used to them. I think it probably feels good. We've noticed a total difference and it seems that his head has evened out and he now turns his head to left all the time. GL and HTH!

 

My ds had torticollis and was in PT from 4 months until 12 months. :good: I think PT definately helped him not only with his tort but kept him (and me) up on things he should be doing and at times, ahead of the game. Of course, I was not happy he was there (I felt that somehow I had done something to make him have it) but you have to look at the positives. By 9/10 months, his tilt was pretty much gone but we stayed. He enjoyed going and it really was a learning experience.


:hug: Don't forget to do the exercises at home. Every bit matters.

 

DS had a slight case of torticollis and it was starting to give him a flat spot on one side of his head. Now we've got both babies in PT, basically just monitoring them. The PT gave me some stretches to do with them that first visit, and ever since she just lets me know how to help them move along to the next milestone (neither are really behind at this point). Like with rolling, she showed me how to help them learn to kick their leg over, stop arching (which preemies tend to do a lot of), reach their arms out to get them out of the way, etc. It's been good I think, if anything to have that monthly assurance that they're ok and reminders of what we can be working on.

 

we're in PT right now for torticollis. they turn left, tilt right. jacob turned more than he tilted and owen tilted more than he turned. it was so bad in the beginning that if i had jacob in the bathtub he would look left to the blank tile wall instead of looking right to look at me.

the PT has helped tremendously, although we're not as faithful about doing the exercises at home as we should be. at this point we're seeing them equally able to tilt and turn, but all things being equal they'll sort of relax back into old habits and tilt/turn again. the PT feels like we'll see that habit fade as they spend more and more time upright and their muscles get stronger overall.

we started with one session a week, now we do one session every other week.