The Juice-Related Benefits of the Discontinuation of Head Gear

My daughter has been wearing head gear to bed for almost a year.  Head gear works with braces to pull the teeth back with additional pressure.  For the uninitiated, Kit Kittredge has agreed to demonstrate the look with her own equipment:

Kit wants you to know that wearing head gear while playing volleyball is not recommended.

At yesterday's appointment my daughter was told she no longer needs to wear the head gear.  She'll switch instead to an unpleasant configuration of rubber bands, but overall this was good news.  The head gear was uncomfortable and significantly limited her side and stomach sleeping.  It was also unfashionable. So for those reasons alone, she's thrilled.

At 4:30 this morning, the Dexcom buzzed.  "LOW."  A finger stick confirmed 60-something, so I got the juice.  "Sweetie, you need some juice.  Sit up," I nudged.  It was gone in 4 sips.

"Wow.  That was easier!" she happily remarked as she snuggled back under the covers with a smile.

You see the head gear, with its attachments both inside and outside the mouth, made drinking a true challenge.  First she had to figure out how to slip the straw in her mouth around the metal. Then, four ounces of juice would take a good minute of noisy slurping to consume.  The process was interspersed with verbal encouragement from the parent and attempts to roll over and go back to sleep from the kid.

Whether she was awake longer after the previous juice drinking marathons, or last night from the excitement of being able to drink easily I can't say.