Originally posted by flerc
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If you look back into the Schroth thread, I had a TON of questions! I was seriously considering going to the clinic for the two week in-house stay. There was another member on here that was going to go, too. Her insurance denied it and I thought she was going to try to find a way to do. If I remember correctly, she did some research and decided against it for her own reasons.
For me, my main consideration for contemplating Schroth was for pain management and to halt curve progression. I have a curve that can not be touched by ANY method other than surgery, and that would be extremely dangerous with a not so good outcome as a real possibility. I'm stuck. There was NO brace that could touch my curve as a kid, not even the dreaded Milwaukee brace, which is what they were talking about with each other as they looked over my neck and upper back. My problem now is that I have a now structural compensatory curve that keeps increasing. When it increases 10o, then my other curve seems to increase 3o-5o. They are within a few degrees of each other at this point. I'm afraid that the lower curve will eventually overtake the upper curve. I considered Schroth for this reason. I even looked into CLEAR and watched their very convincing (until you take a closer look) infomercial. It reminded me way too much of what I was put through as a teenager at the hands of a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO). I knew at my age that program would be way too painful for me to endure.
I looked over their website and read what they had to say. No one convinced me away from this method. I use PT all of the time and have had some great success with pain management. I'm NOT a Schroth expert. I don't know how to do a "side-shift" exercise that everyone keeps talking about. I just decided that Schroth wouldn't be able to give me what I really wanted for the amount of time and money that would be invested. There is NO exercise that can target my curve. I was already happy with the cosmetic appearance that my lower curve progression had given me. My shoulders are completely level, but not the muscles. You have to look pretty closely at me to see my deformity while I'm dressed. I've learned to dress it down.
As it turns out, I have a bunch of other stuff going on with me that is contributing to my pain and lack of mobility. Schroth wasn't designed to help people like me, so I made the right decision.
As for bracing? I do know a thing or two about it. My son married a lovely young woman who was braced for three or four years AND had to have surgery anyway. She showed me pictures of that torture contraption. It gave her sores and squeezed her so tightly that she could barely breathe or eat. When I was first getting to know her I asked her if she would go through the bracing again, knowing what she knows. She said, yes. Now she says, NO WAY! That's why I said what I did about people changing their minds about whether they felt a treatment was successful or not. It turns out that she originally said "yes" because she wanted to have some justification in her mind that she didn't go through that for nothing. Now she realizes that even if the brace DID work at slowing the curve progression, she would have just had to have surgery a couple of years earlier with the same outcome she has now. Her brace was a custom brace. She said being fitted for it was totally humiliating and wearing it made her feel like a social outcast. She had a LOT of trouble adjusting and has symptoms of PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) as a result of that brace. As an adult, she feels that holding off surgery for a couple of years was NOT worth the trauma of that brace. She feels like it destroyed her life. She still gets teary eyed when she talks about her life "in brace".
Now they are talking about starting a family. My DIL is not opposed to exercise for scoliosis. But she knows there are limitations. To be quite honest, I'm extremely GRATEFUL that Mariaf is on this forum! Without her, I would never have known about the possibility of fusionless surgery. There's a good chance that my grandchildren may have scoliosis. We will be EVER vigilant! IF it shows up, they will be followed by someone who knows what they are doing. I highly doubt that she would allow her children to be braced. I do know that she would choose fusionless surgery over spinal fusion if that day ever comes. Mariaf has opened my eyes to a whole new world of possibilities that I never knew existed. So please, don't talk bad about her!
I know your daughter has scoliosis. But, unless you've lived in a body like that there's no way of fully comprehending what it's like.
I'm not about to repeat all of the discussions that I've already had on other threads. I don't even know what all I said!
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