Hello all! I am new here. I have been reading posts for a fex days and have decided to join. My daughter, Lydia, was diagnosed with scoliosis at 7 years old. She just turned 11 years old in February and has been in a Providence brace for the past 2 years.
In the past 6 months her upper curve has progressed 6 degrees to 40 degrees (the 18 months prior to that she had very little progression in her curves) and her lower curve is somewhere in the 20s. At her visit two weeks ago, her doctor told me she needed surgery and continuing to wear the brace would not help. He said the surgery wasn't an emergency situation, but he felt he could get a better correction and eliminate her rib hump if we go ahead with the surgery within the next 6 months or so. I was shocked because I had expected just a routine visit. We have an appointment on Wednesday (she is getting an arm cast removed because she had broken her arm doing gymnastics 6 weeks ago) and the doctor will answer any additional questions we have then. I think they will do bending x-rays at this visit also because Lydia has never had them before and I asked them how far she would have to be fused. I do know that her Risser is a zero. She is now 5 feet tall and one of the taller girls in her age group of friends, but I expect her to be maybe 5'8" at full growth. I was very concerned about the fact that she will not grow anymore in the fused area, but the assistant told me that growth in the possible fused area of the spine would not be that significant to overall growth in height (I'm not sure what I think about this).
My Dad is a Shriner and he really wants us to get an opinion from the Shriner's Hospital, so we have applied to go the the Shriners Hospital in Greenville, SC. We had not gone before because it is about 4 hours away (I think) and it was just more convenient to see a closer pediatric orthopedic surgeon at NC Baptist Hospital (Wake Forest).
Another issue is this, when Lydia was first diagnosed, they did an MRI because she was so young and they told us she had a syrinx (fluid inside the spinal cord which can somehow affect scoliosis). We saw a pediatric neurosurgeon, and he told us it was a very tiny syrinx and not a concern unless it got larger which I read could happen in adolescence(and, if that happened it could be quite debilitating). Anyway, we had another MRI done 2 years ago and everything was the same. The neurosurgeon then told us that the little place in her spinal cord might not be a syrinx, but just a hollow area where the cord did not close all the way up when it was formed. He said we might want to have another MRI when she was grown, but saw no need to follow her. She has no neurologic symptoms and no other health problems. I am now questioning whether she should have another MRI just to make sure nothing has changed since the scoliosis has progressed so much.
If anyone has any advice or input I would greatly appreciate it. Also, if you know of any questions I should ask the doctor on Wednesday, please let me know. Thanks in advance for you help.
Alice
In the past 6 months her upper curve has progressed 6 degrees to 40 degrees (the 18 months prior to that she had very little progression in her curves) and her lower curve is somewhere in the 20s. At her visit two weeks ago, her doctor told me she needed surgery and continuing to wear the brace would not help. He said the surgery wasn't an emergency situation, but he felt he could get a better correction and eliminate her rib hump if we go ahead with the surgery within the next 6 months or so. I was shocked because I had expected just a routine visit. We have an appointment on Wednesday (she is getting an arm cast removed because she had broken her arm doing gymnastics 6 weeks ago) and the doctor will answer any additional questions we have then. I think they will do bending x-rays at this visit also because Lydia has never had them before and I asked them how far she would have to be fused. I do know that her Risser is a zero. She is now 5 feet tall and one of the taller girls in her age group of friends, but I expect her to be maybe 5'8" at full growth. I was very concerned about the fact that she will not grow anymore in the fused area, but the assistant told me that growth in the possible fused area of the spine would not be that significant to overall growth in height (I'm not sure what I think about this).
My Dad is a Shriner and he really wants us to get an opinion from the Shriner's Hospital, so we have applied to go the the Shriners Hospital in Greenville, SC. We had not gone before because it is about 4 hours away (I think) and it was just more convenient to see a closer pediatric orthopedic surgeon at NC Baptist Hospital (Wake Forest).
Another issue is this, when Lydia was first diagnosed, they did an MRI because she was so young and they told us she had a syrinx (fluid inside the spinal cord which can somehow affect scoliosis). We saw a pediatric neurosurgeon, and he told us it was a very tiny syrinx and not a concern unless it got larger which I read could happen in adolescence(and, if that happened it could be quite debilitating). Anyway, we had another MRI done 2 years ago and everything was the same. The neurosurgeon then told us that the little place in her spinal cord might not be a syrinx, but just a hollow area where the cord did not close all the way up when it was formed. He said we might want to have another MRI when she was grown, but saw no need to follow her. She has no neurologic symptoms and no other health problems. I am now questioning whether she should have another MRI just to make sure nothing has changed since the scoliosis has progressed so much.
If anyone has any advice or input I would greatly appreciate it. Also, if you know of any questions I should ask the doctor on Wednesday, please let me know. Thanks in advance for you help.
Alice
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