New gear

Cis gets to wear this helmet with chin strap for the next week to close her open bite. The distractors are growing her mandible at a downward angle, so this chin cup and the elastic tension will mold the soft new bone she's making to more of a straight out angle. This is pretty standard with this type of jaw distraction device. (However, usually they put elastics on teeth or a chin strap on a headband. Cicily's helmet is an experimental way to keep the chin strap in place on a toddler.) In the first day alone, I saw huge improvement- her mouth had closed a lot!

For anyone wondering, a real doctor did put this chin strap contraption together. Dr. Glick is the craniofacial orthodontist working with Cicily. We like her a lot! (of course! I don't really mention the very few doctors we don't care for on here :)) The chin cup is a Dr. Scholl's pad held in place with ortho elastics. Ingenious - and it's working!! After I added the flowers to the helmet, I talked to Chris' Dad and he mentioned it looking like Chris' football helmets- darn, I should have put a BYU sticker on there!
Cicily doesn't love the gear, but she's of course a huge trooper (Chris thinks a storm trooper ;))and got used to it after 4-5 hours. During her first fitfull nap after we got home from Dr. Glick's office though, I was nervous.

This is our last week turning screws and having Cicily wear any outer gear. Her screw extensions should be removed Tues. and the helmet also. Keep our fingers crossed! We're almost into bone consolidation (hardening for those who don't speak jaw distraction)!!!