Ever since I went to trial to sue for back injury from a car accident, I have been more concerned for my condition I believe to have had since birth. I started remembering all the pain I would go through in my younger years. I would feel this "locking" kind of pain where it hurt if I moved. My dad would have me lay flat on the floor with my feet up on the bed. Since this accident, which may actually have been a godsend, I have actual x-rays of this condition I never even knew existed before then.
I've been wondering how others with scoliosis are living their lives? I wish I knew the degree of the curve in my spine, but I feel awkward, physically. My upper body is noticibly skinnier than my lower body, which is more meaty (lol, yeah, good choice of words). In this one picture of me at age 16, I'm wearing this long tight-fitting red dress, and I could see that I wasn't "lined up". I slouch a lot, I constantly have to strech the kinks out of my back throughout the day. I hear a cracking noise when I do this. I ran track for 2 years but I was stuck on JV, so I now blame it on my back condition--lol, just kidding, but I did feel pain at times and didn't know why. The right side of my back doesn't feel even with the left side, and I think that my left leg may be slightly longer than my right because of it?? Some notice it (like an old h.s. track & field trainer--I thought he was crazy), others don't. I have trouble standing up in one place for long periods of time because I start to feel pain and stress on my lower back. This was embarassing at this job where everyone was standing up and I had to ask if I could sit down... ofcourse you know I got looked at wierd by a lot of people (some who gave suggestions on what kind of shoes to wear), and I had to keep asking the same thing with each supervisor or Manager I came in contact with. I had a hard time standing up doing the dishes and what made it worse where my parents who didn't believe me.
I can get through the pain, but it hurts when everyone around you sees you as nothing as an excuse giver, because you don't look "crippled" in their eyes. How do you guys deal with it?
I'm back in the gym now and hope that it helps. According to a doctor I saw 5yrs ago, there is nothing I can do about it other than back excersizes and stretching.
I had (and have) the same problem with scoliosis, mine is a little over a 30 degree bend to the left about half way up my back, my right leg is 1 inch shorter than the left, which I found out when I was in my late 20's! I have the same crunching and cracking sounds and standing for more than 15 or 20 minutes in one place is enough to drive me nuts. I shift my weight from one leg to the other back and forth trying to stay comfortable and after a while it just is to the point where I want to lay on the ground on my back. I was told the same thing, that unless it gets radically out of whack where it starts to affect your breathing or circulation, there's not a whole lot that can be done. If it's caught during childhood development they can put you in a brace of some kind to help straighten it as it is still growing, but once you hit late teens or so, it's too late. I found out I had it when I was 17 and it was only mildly uncomfortable at that time. Now it bothers me a lot more. It really bothers me when I have extra weight on, so keeping as fit as possible and keeping the back muscles strong is about the best thing you can do. The discs in my back are fine, the only lower back problem I really have is that I fell one time and didn't realize I cracked a lumbar vertebrae near the bottom (don't remember which one) where the tail fin (for lack of a medical term) comes off and down, and it allows the vertebrae to slide forward some because the crack never healed correctly. There is a term that I don't remember, that starts with spond.... something that describes this. I get an occasional psiatic nerve twinge out of that, but nothing serious. My neck on the other hand, has nothing but rapidly degenerating discs. The two bottom ones are the worst (C5-6 and C6-7) as they are ruptured and almost totally disintegrated now, and the ones above it are degenerating fast at varying degrees. I don't know if the scoliosis has anything to do with that problem or not.
I can relate well to what you are experiencing, I wish I had something good to tell you that would help other than keeping in shape and keeping the muscles strong in your back. I know hot showers and whirlpool baths help me a lot, as does applying one of the deep penetrating heat rub products. If you have someone who is generous enough to give you soothing back massages, I encourage you to take advantage of that. Heck even if you don't have scoliosis, I'd encourage that!
Keith
Reading about your problem is like reading about myself. I, too, have scoliosis but found out too late. As a child, I wondered why I couldn't do some of the cartwheels and stuff my friends were doing and always had pain. Seems I couldn't bend or twist like they could. When I was in my 20s, I suddenly started to experience horrible pain in my lower back. The medical doctor after taking x-rays told me I had arthritis and learn to live with it. Ha I couldn't stand for any length of time and always needed a chair nearby to sit on. Everyone thought I was a complainer, too. Eventually I developed double sciatica, a real nightmare of pain. Being the medical doctors couldn't and wouldn't do anything for me, some friends carried me to a chiropractor who took x-rays and told me I don't have arthritis but instead have a curvature of the spine and my right hip was an inch higher than the left and my right shoulder was lower than my left plus I have two compressed discs in the lumbar area. I looked like a walking "C" The chiropractor got rid of my sciatica and had me walking without pain in two weeks but couldn't do much with the curvature because it was too late for me but he did help it a lot. My chiropractor retired and as years went by, I developed sharp pain in my middle back and I tried to ignore it. Stupid mistake on my part. Then major dizziness set in, my right ear ached, my vision blurred, I had trouble breathing and coughed a lot, couldn't even think right, had major sinus trouble on the right side. My medical doctor kept blaming allergies and sinuses for all this and kept pumping all kinds of horrible sinus medicine into me and nothing helped, it only got worse. Then one day I blacked out and woke up on the floor feeling like I had a sword stuck in my back. My medical doctor sent me for a head and sinus scan to see why I blacked out and the x-rays all came back saying nothing was wrong, so the medical doctor says it's all due to a major sinus problem and allergies. A friend recommended a "gentle" chiropractor and she sent me for MRIs of my neck and back. No one could believe what those MRIs showed. Six vertabraes in my middle back actually rotated from the right side to the left side of my spine and the pressure caused two discs in my neck to herniate. No wonder I blacked out. This "gentle" chiropractor used her fingers to manipulate nerves and ligaments and has me almost put back together. She said this rotation of my spine took years to happen and it was probably the curvature of my spine that contributed to the rotation of the vertabraes. And the amazing end result is that now I don't have any dizziness or sinus problems, the coughing and breathing problems are gone, and the most amazing thing is that my eyesight came back 20/30 and I don't even need glasses anymore according to two eye specialists. All because the rotation was pressing on the spine and cluster of neck nerves. It's too late for anyone to do anything about my curvature because that has to be dealt with when you are very young. But this "gentle" chiropractor is keeping me going about a normal life.
--------------------------------------------
"Gentle" chiropractor means no stretching, no cracking, just very gentle finger manipulations. And it works.
And I thought I had it bad, mine is nothing compared to what you have gone through. I was diagnosed in my preteen years. My folks didn't have the money for regular care so that ended that. I can remember the pain in my lower back during phys ed class and never really new why. When I was on my own I did the chiro. thing untill the pain got bad. It got to the point that I could hardly stand up straight. My left let is shorter and my curve is to my left. At 47 yrs. of age I finally had to have reconstruction and became a whole new person. I have slowed down some but still feel a lot better now.
Someday I will probably have to move to the southwest before arthritis sets in, just for the longer warm climate. I do have one question for you though. Where(and how)did you find a "gentle" chiropractor? I have never heard of one before now, it's new to me.
I was diagnosed with scoliosis when I was 12. I can't remember the degree of my curves but it literally looked like a reverse 's' in the x-ray. Wanting surgery to be the last option, my parents took me to varios chiropractors in hopes of straightening my spine. Surgery was my only option, it would seem, after a year of pushing and shoving. At 13, I had a 9 hr surgery. Now, at 22, there isn't much i can't do. I've gone sky diving, snowboarding, skiing, bungee jumping,...etc. Sometimes I do get sore in the back but for the most part I see myself living life as normal as I did before I found out about my condition. I have to admit that I'm just recently coming to accept my scar (made me conscious)
Scoliosis... anyone? 
I do have one question for you though. Where(and how)did you find a "gentle" chiropractor? I have never heard of one before now, it's new to me.
Linear Mode
