Surgery!

[swimbum]

Hello ummm I posted a thread a while ago asking wats gonna happen....well we went back to the doctor 3 months later and my thoracic curve jumped up 5 degrees to 55 and the lumbar went from 40 to 42. We debated about whether to keep waiting or get the surgery now. Well....we decided to set a date for Jan. 24, 2008. We aren't really sure if we are making the right decision or not. Is there any downside waiting to get surgery in the 60 degree range? Please give me some advice! My parents don't know anything about scoliosis and im tired of second questioning myself!!! oooooooooooo and by the way they are fusing T4 to L1.

[vndy]

Swimbum,

I am about a month post op after having T4-L1. I'm female, and a bit older, but if my experience can help you at all, please feel to ask. At this point, I'm not in too much pain, I'm just uncomfortable and very tired. The drawbacks to waiting to have surgery are that if you are in pain, you will live with that longer. Also, as you get older, your spine can get stiffer which makes it harder for the surgeon to correct the curve (that said, 5 years shouldn't make a huge difference). I would encourage you, however, to take care of it while you still have your parents to take care of you. It's much harder to do as an adult living on your own.

I'm hoping that, in the future, I will appreciate taking care of this surgery now, while I'm younger. You should also speak to LorDon, who's 17 year old son had surgery 3 weeks ago.

Best of luck to you.

[ariec924]

the biggest downside to waiting until your curves are in the 60 degree range is that they might not correct as straight as they will now. I had my surgery in October, message me if you have any questions

[samsmom]

Hi Swimbum,

My daughter age 16 is scheduled for surgery 2/5/08. From what I understand, the longer you wait, the more difficult and complex the operation becomes. She progressed from 45 degrees to 54 degrees in less than six months. We found out in November and just decided to go for the surgery as it was inevitable and was just hanging over her head.

Good luck to you!

[LorDon]

Hi Samsmom,
Welcome to the forum! The exact same thing happened to my son. His curves were in the 30's and within a year they jumped 17 degrees. At the time of his surgery they were 46T/55L. Good luck and keep us posted!

Swimbum,
The problem with waiting is the curves tend to progress and become more rigid and like Samsmom said, the surgery becomes more difficult. Chris' surgeon said that at 17, the surgery is more like an adults and is much more difficult. I'm glad that we did it now instead of waiting. Also, we weren't concerned about him being completely done growing because at the time of his surgery he was already 6 foot tall and he definitely gained an inch or two in height after the surgery.

Best of luck to you!

[swimbum]

Thank you all soo much for re-assuring me. My mom just keeps telling me we need to wait, but obviously it won't help things and just make the curve more difficult to correct. I went in for a pre-op consultation and my doctor said they might be fusing more of my back than we expected.

The weird thing about my scoliosis is that i have a pretty big trunk shift to the point where my head is 4 inches off the center of my body and one hip is 4 inches higher than the other.... yeeeah. Therefore I have horrible balance and the doctor wants to fuse more into the lumbar; just to make sure the balance issue is corrected.

We asked him if had seen anyone with this bad of balance before and he said no???? We were kind of shocked and worried. If you look at my x rays, i might pull them up on the forum sometime, the 55 degree curve really doesnt come back to center at all...it just keeps going off to the right. Is there anyone out there that has this problem?

[vndy]

Levels?

Swimbum -

I'm sorry, I can't give you any information about the balance issue. What levels did your doctor recommend fusing?

[sccrm08]

Swimbum,

I was totally off center, I'll try and post my x-rays later today. My Dr. did a fantastic job with the correction, I was very lucky as he never thought the spine would move so much.