Okay, I have to do this blog for my English project, but I also decided to just do it for my own sake, and for others who have scoliosis to read and feel that they aren't alone.
For the first post, I will just tell my story of my life with scoliosis, then in each future post, I will talk about something that has to do with scoliosis. I will be trying to put a lot of personal experiences and pictures into this, so people will really be able to connect their experiences to mine.
Everything started when I was in the sixth grade. I was 11 years old. I went to the Doctor for my 11 year old check up, just like every other 11 year old has to. i went thinking all would be perfectly fine and that I wouldn't have anything to worry about. I was half right. The doctor did all of the things that she would normally do. Then, she had me do something I had never had to do at the doctors office before. She asked me to bend forward and touch my toes. While I was bent over and touching my toes, she got out what is called a
Scoliometer.
A Scoliometer is used by running it down your back, centered over the spine. It has a small level in it that tells a doctor whether or not your spine is straight.
The doctor then told me that my spine was not straight. She had my mom come over and look at it. You could see, if you looked closely that my spine had a slight curve in it.
After that, I went into the x-ray room. The doctor quickly took and x ray and went to develop it. After she developed the x-ray she measure the degree of the curves in my spine. She found that I had two curves in my spine. They made my spine look like a backwards "S". The degree of the top curve was, 12, and the degree of my bottom curve was 16.
The doctor gave my mom the number to the orthopedic office at Primary Children's Hospital. The next day, my mom called and talked to one of the nurses. She told the nurse what my doctor had said about my spine, and the nurse said that it wasn't to bad, so to not worry about it, and also that they would check my spine again in my 7th grade P.E. class. After that, we never really thought about it again.
In 7th grade, the scoliosis screenings were getting closer. My P.E. teacher sent home a note and permission slip about it. I gave them to my mom and she read the note, and signed the slip. She also made note on the permission slip that we were already aware that I had scoliosis.
On the day of the screening, the school nurses came in, and explained what they were going to do. We were all asked to take off our P.E. shirts, and just be in a tank top and bra. I went in feeling very confident, and I told the nurse that I had been screened for scoliosis before, and knew that I had a slight case of it. She said okay, and checked me anyways. After she told me to tell my mom that she would be getting a letter in the mail in the next few days.
When my mom got the letter, at first she wasn't very worried about it. But after a few days, she decided to call the Orthopedic office again. She called, and they told her that it would probably be smart to make an appointment just to check and be sure. So, she did. About 3 weeks later, I was to go to Primary Children's to see a a specialist.
When I went to the doctor I was a little bit nervous. I wasn't sure what they would do if the curves in my spine had increased. I sat in the waiting room until a nurse came and called me back to a room. She then did what all nurses do when you go to the doctor. Weight, height, blood pressure, and temperature. After that, a doctor came in. She had me get into just my tank top, so that she would be able to see my spine more easily. She looked at it for a minute, then said that she wanted to take some x-rays.
After she took x-rays, she measured the degrees. She came back into the room that my parents and I were waiting in. She told us that my top curve had progressed to 29 degrees, and the bottom to 31. In less than 10 months, the curves had doubled in degree.
She told us that after a persons spine gets to 25 degrees, they need to get you a scoliosis brace. Se showed and explained to us what it was, and what it would do. We asked what other options there were than to wear the brace, and she said that it was either the brace or get surgery when the curves in my spine developed to 40 degrees, which would probably come faster than we would think. it would come faster, because of the age and rate that I was growing at.
A brace, is to hopefully prevent to curves in the spine from progressing and getting worse. Most people that wear a scoliosis brace still end up having to have surgery later in life.
The doctor then gave us the number to call the place that makes scoliosis braces. We called the next day, and got an appointment for the next week.
We went to the "brace place" (that's what I liked to call it.) The doctor came out to the waiting room and started talking to me, and getting to know me. She was extremely nice. She took me back to a room, and asked me to change into what looked like giant socks with the toe cut off. I put on four of those, and she came back in with about 4 or 5 other doctors. They had taken a copy of my x-rays form the Primary Children's doctor and made lots of marks and notes on it that I couldn't understand.
They asked me to lay on a table that had a bunch of little holes on it all over. It looked a little like a peg board. I layed on it, and they started to push my body around, by shoving pegs into the holes in the table after the pushed my body to the position they wanted it in. It wasn't comfortable at all, and I almost cried a few times. After they had my body all positioned how they wanted, they took the stuff that they use to make a cast for a broken bone, and started to plaster it all over my back. That felt REALLY good. It was really warm and wet! After they finished, and it dried, they cut one of the sock dress things off of me, which also made the mold fall off too. Then, they did the same thing, but on top of my stomach instead. They cut me out of another sock dress, and took off the mold for my stomach. Then they gave me a wash rag to wipe any "glue" off of me that they had splashed onto me.
After I cleaned up a little, I was able to change back into my normal clothes. The doctor came back in and told me to come back in 3 weeks to get my brace, and to be sure that it fit right.
After 3 weeks, I went back to the doctor. She had told me to wear a short sleeved under shirt, and to bring a shirt to put on top of my brace. I decided to just wear a sweat suit, so it would be easier to take on and off if I needed to. That, was a good idea. She put my brace on me, and then made a few minor adjustments to it, taught my parents how to put it on me, and sent us off.
After putting my brace on with even just sweats, my parents and I realized that most of my normal clothes would no longer fit me, because the brace made me have very defined hips. So, my parents took me to the mall and we went shopping for a few hours, by the time we were done shopping all I wanted to do was take my brace off. The doctor had told me that, that would happen. She said that at first, it would wear me out to wear the brace. Oh my was she right. For the next few days, I worked up to being able to wear my brace all night and for at least 6 hours a day. Luckly it was spring break, so I wasn't having to wear it at school for the first little while.
After a few days of having my brace, we realized that when I had my brace on, which was for around 16-20 hours a day, I didn't ever feel like eating, and I got tired very easily because it made it so that I had to have really good posture, and i was very itchy because I couldn't scratch, and I had stuff right up against my body all day long.
I told my mom that I wanted to wear my brace at school, so that I was able to come home and take it off for a few hours to go and do some activities, stretch a little, and just relax.
So, when school started back up after the spring break, she put together a meeting with the administration all of my teachers. She explained to them that sometimes I got really tired or sore sitting in a chair all day, because it would make my stomach be squished, more than it was when I was walking or standing. She told them that I would need to be aloud to leave class at any time for that reason. Most all of my teachers told me that I could just flash them a little sign or something then just leave, or just stand up and leave. I was very glad that they were all so understanding. After my mom explained that, she talked to the administration about me needing to take my brace off during lunch so that I could have a break, and also so that I would actually eat enough lunch. They were also very understanding, and said that they would have a place in the nurses room to keep my brace during lunch time.
I went to school, and did really well, I was mostly able to sit through my classes. No one really noticed that I had a brace, unless I had told then, or they bumped into my back or stomach. The next day though, I had P.E., luckily I had my cousin in my class with me. I had called her over the night before, to teacher how to help me take my brace off and on. Before P.E. started everyday, she would go into my teachers office, and help me to take my brace off. We, were allowed to be up to 5 minutes tardy without being marked tardy. That was a really nice thing. We were also excused about 5 minutes early, so that we had enough time to change, and get my brace back on before the bell rang.
My cousin was really nice about being willing to help me whenever I needed it. so were my friends, and the office ladies and other teachers and administration. My cousin like to brag about how I was her "Barbie' cousin, because I had a rock hard stomach. Some of my friends would even tell people I had rock hard abs, so they would come and punch me in the stomach. It would hurt their hand way more than it hurt me, if it even hurt me at all.
After wearing the brace for a few weeks, I started getting sores on my back, hips and stomach, from all the sweating and having the brace rub against my body all the time. It hurt to wear my brace, so I had to cut back on how long I wore it for everyday.
My mom started to do some research online about how to make me feel more comfortable while wearing my brace. While she was research she found a website called
clear-institute.org.
The CLEAR website was about a type of chiropractic that focused mainly on scoliosis, and a few other major back problems that most doctors would only fix with a brace or even surgery for some cases. It focused on having chiropractic work and physical therapy to help the decrease the curves in the spine. (The brace, would only prevent the curves from getting worse.) We liked this idea a lot more, and thought that it would probably be a lot more comfortable for me, than the brace was.
we started looking into where to go for this therapy. The main doctor for this, was located in Minnesota. We were ready to just pack up and go all of the way out to Minnesota for therapy. But when my mom told the doctor that we lived all the way in Utah, He told her that one of the other doctors that practiced the same thing was located in Fort Collins, Colorado. Then he gave her the number to call the other doctor.
We called him, and he said that he could fit me into his schedule in 3 weeks, so we got ready, and my parents and I drove out for a quick two day stay, to go see if we like how this chiropractor did things. we got there, and he took TONS of x-rays. Then he measured them all, and showed us what he was seeing, and what he would do to help with the problem. He had me try a couple of the machines that he had in his office, and set me up with a weighting system to help counter balance my spine and pull it straighter.
Two months later I went out for a two week intensive therapy. It was at least 7-8 hours a day of very hard and tiring therapy. i would go in at about 8 in the morning, and leave between 12:00 and 1:00 and then go back to do more therapy until around 5 or 6 at night, depending on how busy the office was that day.
Every night, I was to tired to go do anything, I usually ended up just laying around in the hotel room with a migraine -headache. It wasn't the funnest thing ever. And I really missed my friends. It was summer, and I was missing out on a lot of things that my friends were doing.
I went home after the two weeks, and then a month later went back for one more week of intensive therapy. It wasn't so hard and was a lot less of a stress in my body this time then it had been the time before.
I have been back to to Colorado for intensive therapies about 7 or 8 more times since then. It has helped my scoliosis decrease a lot, and has also helped other medical problems that were caused by my scoliosis.
This is an x-ray of my neck. It was at 43 degrees when this was taken. That is only 2 degrees from the "normal" It should be angled back at a 45 degree angle.
