We saw the PT this morning, and she had a couple small things she worked on.  She did a little bit of work on her head, at one of the spots between the cranial bones where the innervation for the tongue, mouth, and upper traps comes through (it was a bit tight), and a bit of work on her tongue and shoulders which appeared to be tighter on one side than the other.  She talked a lot about the effect that small tightnesses can have on various portions of the nervous system and how it controls mechanical movement.  She was hopeful that the changes she was able to see after adjusting her will make a difference (over the next week or two) in how Daphne feeds by making it easier for her to use her mouth symmetrically and by releasing some of the tension that may have been restricting movement.  She also suggested doing a little bit of work just training Daphne’s nervous system to understand how to move her tongue better by lightly touching the gums for some oral sensory input.

I feel both hopeful that this can make a difference and worried that this will be another partial solution that doesn’t quite get us where we need to go.  And, I’ll admit, I’m frustrated that we didn’t see the OT and PT at the same time (as I didn’t give enough credence to just how differently they would be approaching the issue) and that I didn’t pursue craniosacral therapy on her earlier despite my instinct that it was an important avenue to go down.  Learning to trust my mommy instincts isn’t  quite like I anticipated – sure, I feel confident saying that if my instincts tell me something is wrong, there is something wrong.  I wasn’t prepared for my instincts to be so accurate as to WHAT the problems are – craniosacral issues (likely from the birth) impact the neck, tongue use issues (possibly related), gas from reflux and foods…  Of course, now that I say that, I’m going to be wrong the next time. 😉

We go back to see the PT again in a couple weeks (July 6th?), and she’ll check out how things are going, not expecting to need to see us any more than that.  Keep your fingers crossed!