Putting your back into getting some scoliosis
treatment. Give us your support!
How do you take some of the pain out of scoliosis?
Scoliosis treatment (sometimes written 'scoleosis') is a big
issue in our household. My wife has just turned 50 and the scoliosis she
was born with has taken a turn for the worse. She has an abnormal
curvature in her lower spine which induces pain into just about every
activity sooner or later. The irony is that she was the daughter of two
doctors - one (her mother) - a pediatrician but she was not diagnosed as
suffering from scoliosis until she was 16. By that age (and it is no
different today) the main scoliosis treatment measures are no longer
available. The doctor she did go to, though, assured my wife (in writing
and we still have the letter) that the scoliosis and the pain would not
worsen with age - this has not proved to be the case.
Up to the age of 16 (or thereabouts), the main scoliosis treatment is a
corset or support. This is used to both support and train the back into
some form of conventional shape. Unfortunately by late adolescence this
is less effective because the body is not as supple as it was.
Over the years we have tried a multitude of professionals - some more
deserving of the name than others it has to be said. The problem is that
either doctors don't really understand what might alleviate the pain or
they think they do and don't. Osteopathy is generally perceived to be a
bit of a fringe science and doctors don't see the value of it. That
said, some of the osteopaths we have visited have been worse than useless
with over-ambitious practitioners trying 'heroic' - not helpful when she
is having spasms and just wants to be nursed back to a stable condition.
The other forms of scoliosis treatment we have seen includes the rather useless
massage approach. This treatment is ideal for damaged muscles and to
improve skin tone but it does nothing to reduce the pain caused by her
spinal curvature and the consequently distorted vertebrae. Masseuses, on
the whole, know little to nothing about scoliosis anyway.
There is a course which runs in England which gives intensive assistance
by scoliosis experts with long term guidance as to how to improve your
prospects. Unfortunately it does not seem to have a very high success
rate among older patients. We have not entirely ruled it out but it is a
lot of money and disruption of our life for something which ultimately
we do not have much confidence in.
We have also visited a scoliosis specialist near Nice in the South of
France. They offer a bespoke corset making service and these are
designed to be worn 23 hours a day to give some support to the back. At
€2,500 a corset, it is a lot to pay for something which cannot provide
any improvement - merely some hope of maintaining the status quo.
Finally, and the form of scoliosis treatment we are pinning our hopes on
is regular exercise in the swimming pool. Given how crowded and over-run
with schoolchildren public pools are, we have invested in an indoor
exercise pool and a traditional outdoor pool for the summer. At the time
of writing we are in the final stages of commissioning these so we have
not yet had a chance to see any improvement or reduction in my wife's
pain.
We would be pleased to hear of any other form of scoliosis treatment.
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