Should I have surgery?

[Jennybear]

Should I have surgery? I'm 13 and I haven't hit my growth spurt yet. I have 3 curves. My worst one is my upper back and it's close to a 63. My second worst is my lower back and it's close to a 43. My last one is my neck and it's close to a 34.
I'm very nervous about surgery and i'm already taking iron for it and folic acid.( what is folic acid for?) If I do decide to have the surgery which curves should I get done.
I just dont know what to do and I dont want to miss school close to my final exams or I will have to redo grade 8.
If you have any advice please share it because I could really use the help.

[dani]

Hi Jennybear,
I'm afraid I can't be of much help to you, I really don't know what you should do. But I would get your doctor's opinion and then get a second opinion and maybe even a third. I know how comforting it was to me to have had that second opinion. It really helped my parents and me know that we should go ahead and do the surgery. If you do end up having to have surgery you could probably wait until the beginning of Summer so that you could recover while you're out of school. That's what I did. Best of wishes to you!!

[The Slice]

Jennybear, unfortunately surgery is probably inevitable in your case. This, however, is not an emergency like it would be if it were say, a ruptured appendix. If what you say is true about your growth spurt, the surgeon probably won't recommend surgery until you are near the end of your growth spurt. This will be determined by a simple x-ray of your hand to determine the status of the growth plates on the ends of the bones. This is expressed in the Risser scale of 1 - 5 (they're looking for a 4 or 5). This is not absolute, but it's a guideline. Factors that may affect this are dealing with pain, respiratory, or cardiac problems, nervous system effects. The nervous system effects are tingling, sharp pains, parasthesia (numbness) which might suggest that there is pressure on the spinal cord, or the nerve branches coming off it. (Not likely to be permanent.) The respiratory and cardiac problems are possible, but not too likely at this stage. Doing it when you are still very young (in your teens) is a good move as you are likely to be much more flexible which will make for a better surgical correction. There is no hurry here and you should be able to plan when you want to have the surgery so that it has the least impact on your routines. I would suggest that you or one of your parents talk to the surgeon about what exercises you can do safely to increase the flexibility in your spine. This will hopefully have a positive affect on the level of correction that is achieved. Here's the catch - if you're given exercises, they won't help unless you do them.

[Jennybear]

My surgeon is the head of pediatric surgery in Edmonton and he's supposed to be one of the best in Canada and he told me my only options are surgery or no surgery. He estimates that my curves will continue to curve ten degrees a year until after my growth spurt. Which would take my worst curve to about 80 degrees by the time I'm 16. I think I want the surgery because I'd be pretty hunched over by the time I'm like 30.