Hi, I feel like I know you all since I’ve been reading for the last couple weeks without being able to post. My registration somehow got held hostage but that has all been straightened out thank goodness. So many of your stories sound like my own I feel at least like I’m not alone in all this. I’ve been reading Emy’s thread and feel like I have a kindred spirit somewhere out there. My daughter is 13 and a half and was also diagnosed in December. She has played softball since age 5 and started learning how to pitch at age 8. By age 10 we had to take her out of the regular recreation league and put her on a competitive team.
She has injured her back twice while playing softball. The first time was at age 10 when she hurt the right side of her lower back while pitching. I attributed it to a muscle pull and we had her swim to rehab it. Within 6 weeks she was back to playing. Last summer she hurt her back again while batting. The week before had been a packed week for her so I attributed it to overuse and fatigue. This injury was on the lower left side of her back. I took her to the urgent care and they said it was a muscle pull. I mentioned to them that her scoliosis check at school had resulted in possible scoliosis. The NP lifted her shirt and basically said, nope, didn’t look like it to her. Because of how physical pitching is, she’s always been very muscular through the back and shoulders with her right side being bigger than the left because pitching is a one dominant side kind of activity. Hindsight being what it is, I now know that the area the NP said was swollen was actually the protrusion of the ribs. I also now recall my husband asking me during a game when she bent over to pick up a ball if her ribs always stuck out like that on her left side.
After Thanksgiving she was at a friends house and jumped on the trampoline. She came home complaining of pretty bad pain. I took her back to Urgent Care where they did a thorough check and said yes, most likely scoliosis. We ended up at the ER a couple days later instead of waiting for an appointment with the pediatrician because her back was hurting her so badly. X-rays were taken and you know it isn’t a good thing when all the nurses are huddled around the monitor looking at the results. They said her curve was at 43* and referred us to a local neuro/spinal surgeon who doesn’t normally see kids but would make an exception and see us.
When we went to the spinal surgeon we found out that she actually has an S curve, but he didn’t confirm the 43* given to us by the ER or give us any idea of what the other curve may be. I thought for awhile that all the pitching she has done for so many years may have made it worse, but from what I’ve read here, I now think it’s probably just the opposite. I think that all muscle she had in her back and core acted like an internal brace for her. Her pain didn’t really start or increase until a couple weeks after she stopped playing for the season when her activity level pretty much decreased to nothing. We usually make her swim to keep her active, but we had missed the signups. She was an early bloomer but really hasn’t grown much in the last year. I think that the lack of activity combined with her body trying to have one last hurrah of a growth spurt is what finally caused her to start having pain. I stopped growing when I was 14 and thought it odd that her growing had stopped as early as it did. She never really had growth spurts; she pretty much grew 2 inches every six months like clockwork.
The funny thing is that when I found out about this the first thing I did wasn’t research treatments, bracing, different surgeries, etc. I looked for athletes that had overcome this. I found a couple, and actually reached out to a local girl that was diagnosed at age 15 after making the US Olympic Ski Racing Team. After her surgery in 2000 she went on to ski for her college for four years. She has been absolutely awesome and assured me that this isn’t the end of her dream to play college ball. I was able to pass her story along to my daughter to instill the hope back in her. I don’t know if she’d ever achieve that goal, but I don’t want her scoliosis to be the determining factor. She is now determined that she will be the next “bionic woman”.
She doesn’t want to be put in a brace and we are hoping that she is too old for that option anyways, and if she really is at 43* it seems like that’s over what they usually brace anyways. I know it sounds crazy but we really just want them to tell us that she is a candidate for surgery and just fix it now and let her move on with rehabbing and hopefully get back to playing. The thought of the pain involved doesn’t scare her. There have been many Monday mornings when she was so sore from pitching over the weekend that she couldn’t get out of bed, so she’s no stranger to pain.
I’m sorry if I rambled, but thanks for listening!
Oh, and Ed, if you happen across this I left you a PM on the Scoliosis support site a few days ago before I could post here. You’ll see why.
I see that i forgot to add that we have been referred to Shriner's - but the soonest appointment we could get is mid-February. It's frustrating when things only seem like an emergency to you because it's your kid that's in pain! So for now, we are just waiting and wondering what path they will want to go down with us. Any opinions would be helpful!
She has injured her back twice while playing softball. The first time was at age 10 when she hurt the right side of her lower back while pitching. I attributed it to a muscle pull and we had her swim to rehab it. Within 6 weeks she was back to playing. Last summer she hurt her back again while batting. The week before had been a packed week for her so I attributed it to overuse and fatigue. This injury was on the lower left side of her back. I took her to the urgent care and they said it was a muscle pull. I mentioned to them that her scoliosis check at school had resulted in possible scoliosis. The NP lifted her shirt and basically said, nope, didn’t look like it to her. Because of how physical pitching is, she’s always been very muscular through the back and shoulders with her right side being bigger than the left because pitching is a one dominant side kind of activity. Hindsight being what it is, I now know that the area the NP said was swollen was actually the protrusion of the ribs. I also now recall my husband asking me during a game when she bent over to pick up a ball if her ribs always stuck out like that on her left side.
After Thanksgiving she was at a friends house and jumped on the trampoline. She came home complaining of pretty bad pain. I took her back to Urgent Care where they did a thorough check and said yes, most likely scoliosis. We ended up at the ER a couple days later instead of waiting for an appointment with the pediatrician because her back was hurting her so badly. X-rays were taken and you know it isn’t a good thing when all the nurses are huddled around the monitor looking at the results. They said her curve was at 43* and referred us to a local neuro/spinal surgeon who doesn’t normally see kids but would make an exception and see us.
When we went to the spinal surgeon we found out that she actually has an S curve, but he didn’t confirm the 43* given to us by the ER or give us any idea of what the other curve may be. I thought for awhile that all the pitching she has done for so many years may have made it worse, but from what I’ve read here, I now think it’s probably just the opposite. I think that all muscle she had in her back and core acted like an internal brace for her. Her pain didn’t really start or increase until a couple weeks after she stopped playing for the season when her activity level pretty much decreased to nothing. We usually make her swim to keep her active, but we had missed the signups. She was an early bloomer but really hasn’t grown much in the last year. I think that the lack of activity combined with her body trying to have one last hurrah of a growth spurt is what finally caused her to start having pain. I stopped growing when I was 14 and thought it odd that her growing had stopped as early as it did. She never really had growth spurts; she pretty much grew 2 inches every six months like clockwork.
The funny thing is that when I found out about this the first thing I did wasn’t research treatments, bracing, different surgeries, etc. I looked for athletes that had overcome this. I found a couple, and actually reached out to a local girl that was diagnosed at age 15 after making the US Olympic Ski Racing Team. After her surgery in 2000 she went on to ski for her college for four years. She has been absolutely awesome and assured me that this isn’t the end of her dream to play college ball. I was able to pass her story along to my daughter to instill the hope back in her. I don’t know if she’d ever achieve that goal, but I don’t want her scoliosis to be the determining factor. She is now determined that she will be the next “bionic woman”.
She doesn’t want to be put in a brace and we are hoping that she is too old for that option anyways, and if she really is at 43* it seems like that’s over what they usually brace anyways. I know it sounds crazy but we really just want them to tell us that she is a candidate for surgery and just fix it now and let her move on with rehabbing and hopefully get back to playing. The thought of the pain involved doesn’t scare her. There have been many Monday mornings when she was so sore from pitching over the weekend that she couldn’t get out of bed, so she’s no stranger to pain.
I’m sorry if I rambled, but thanks for listening!
Oh, and Ed, if you happen across this I left you a PM on the Scoliosis support site a few days ago before I could post here. You’ll see why.
I see that i forgot to add that we have been referred to Shriner's - but the soonest appointment we could get is mid-February. It's frustrating when things only seem like an emergency to you because it's your kid that's in pain! So for now, we are just waiting and wondering what path they will want to go down with us. Any opinions would be helpful!
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