Do you wear your brace to school??

[angelcake702]

Hi, my name is Tina and I wear a back brace too. I'm a freshman in high school, and even though I have to wear my brace for 20 hours a day, I don't wear it when I'm in school. I guess I'm embarassed, I have to wear a uniform, and the the brace sticks out . Also, none of my friends know about it..so it kinda sucks..sometimes, I want to wear it to school so I can get rid of the scoliosis quicker..but it's not that easy ...can anyone help me? lol This brace/scoliosis stuff is harder than it seems!! *Tina

[Alison]

Your brace

What kind of brace do you have? Why I'm asking that depending on the type/design of brace there are ways to minimise (best word I could think of) how much a brace can be seen. Ie if you wear a school dress, you could try a scool dress a size/two bigger to take a tightness empasis away. I know that is must be very difficult to be "different" from your friends, I remember it well I wore a brace from when I was 15 months old to when I was thirteen 23/24 hours a day and wore prvate schoool uniforms dresses, blazers etc for the whole time. I know that with scoliosis life can seem severley unfair, but unfortunately scoliosis never goes away, however much we all wish it did sometimes :-(

[dapsbounce8]

I wore a brace to school when I was in sixth and seventh grade, and I know it can be hard, but I wish I had worn my brace more. For a long period of time I wore my brace much less than I should have and it resulted in a large curve increase. I recently had to have surgery, and sometimes I wonder if it all could have been avoided if I had just listened to my doctor.

To avoid making the brace visible, try wearing looser shirts with a pattern, image, or textured fabric to the bumps are less noticible. Also, keep in mind that no one is judging you as harshly as you judge yourself. Whats the worst thing that someone might think - why does she have a funny bump in her shirt? Your health is more important than a bump that no one will even notice.

Good luck!

[shaneric25]

hey i know what you mean but i seem to be opposit of a lotta people becuase i usually wear my brace to school and not at home or to bed cuz i like to relax and such but ya at school dont really worry about what people will think the only thing that will get annoying is how many times people have to askwhat the hump is but that can be reduced just stand up straight and you cant really tell. also you can mess with peoples minds i actually convinced one kid it was a chasity belt and another kid that i had broken my back when i fell off of a motorcycle so my advice is embrace the brace.

[dapsbounce8]

Haha, thats funny Shaneric25, and I definately agree about the hump. I had a significant hump on my back - about five ribs were removed during surgery - but no one noticed it unless I was doing some serious slouching.

[laurenlovskevin]

yeah

i do wear it to school i was afraid at first that people would make fun of me but come to find out i wear a uniform and it is not even
noticeable. but it depends on what type of brace you have i have a boston brace so it is easy for me to hide it

[Hatty]

i wear my brace to school, its fine and no1 notices except me! except when im in the changing room for sport or swimming but most people know about it now and they are all fine about it but it annoys me when they keep asking questions so ive wrote it all down on a peice of paper and im going to copy it and keep some with me for when someone asks me about it! so i can just give them one and leave them to read it!

[fairylvr]

If people do find out you can just make up some lame story. one time this lady patted me on the back and said "So young and already you hurt your back?" and I said " Yeah, I got in an accident" she totally bought it until my mom had to tell her the truth!

[phaden]

My daughter has to wear her brace to school. She decided not to tell anyone, and spent a lot of effort trying to hide it. For example, when they change out for PE, she changes in the bathroom instead of the gym. When they play games that involve tagging someone, like relay races, she has to always stick her arms way out to make sure people don't touch her back. She wears her school jersey even when it's hot, because it covers the brace better, and so on. After doing this for the last several months she's getting bored of it, and wishes everybody just knew she had a brace on. If she announces it now, though, not only will she have to explain about the scoli, but she'll have to explain about why she's been hiding it for six months. She wishes she had just been open about it in the beginning.

Patricia

[Boo]

i wore my brace 23 hours a day and it still didnt work!
i felt really hot in it but i still told every 1 i had it every 1 just got used to it in the end

[kennedy]

yes

Yes i do wear my brace to school it off during pe. kara

[KRIS ATKINSON]

My daughter wore a brace 23/7 for almost 2 years. She told a few select friends who accepted it. Then it came time for a 3 day field trip. I arranged for one of her close friends to share her cabin, as well as about 8 other girls. When she took her brace off, which had air holes in it, girls were curious and about the worst that happened was that she ended up telling some girls not to play with the holes in it, that it isn't a toy. She also wore it for all physical sports and PE, by choice. She would have more trouble than some others with running out of breath, but she still insisted on wearing her brace and her teachers didn't bother her about it.