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My Adult Scoliosis Story

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  • #91
    Hey Linda,
    My last one's weren't since 2011 / 2012 so I'm going to get them done again as soon as I can.
    (these are the only semi-recent ones I have images of)
    I've got the referral already for my xrays and it includes a request for the lateral views.
    They'll be on disk and I'll measure them with the Inteleviewer software and post them like I did with the others.
    I'll have another look at the ones I have and if there's anything worth posting I'll add them.
    Thanks

    Comment


    • #92
      Originally posted by sjmcphee View Post
      Hey Sharon,

      Yeah I get what you are saying about the nerves in my neck, and I'm not debating it, but an actual structural injury did occur around T3-T6.
      I heard it, felt it, felt the result of it, and the Chiropractor noted the inflammation there.
      Maybe something happened up in my shoulder / neck area as well, since it was partially caused by the movement of my arm (and lateral flexion) and partly from flexion / extension (leaning over the box).

      My legs were measured by a leading orthopedic surgeon, the head of orthopedics in my state.
      But he did it with one of those soft plastic dressmakers measuring tapes by hand, and said there was a 1cm difference.
      Sometimes you can hear and feel a sudden "injury" (not saying you didn't injure yourself). But it could be a POP in the spine just like your knuckles pop. People crack or pop their backs all the time. That doesn't mean you have structural damage. You could definitely have swelling in the soft tissue from the strain/sprain. Sometimes a sprain can be worse than a broken bone because soft tissue actually tears.
      Be happy!
      We don't know what tomorrow brings,
      but we are alive today!

      Comment


      • #93
        Originally posted by sjmcphee View Post
        but an actual structural injury did occur around T3-T6.
        I heard it, felt it, felt the result of it,
        What exactly was the result of the injury around T3 to T6 that you felt?

        By the way that website you found of the nerves that are controlled at each level was excellent.
        Last edited by Pooka1; 01-31-2016, 12:20 PM.
        Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

        No island of sanity.

        Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
        Answer: Medicine


        "We are all African."

        Comment


        • #94
          Hey Rohrer,
          My knees are like that, they click a lot of the time when I bend them.
          It was more of a crunch (x2) than a pop, but similar to a chiropractor making an spinal adjustment.
          Only, there was tingling and numbness in my arms and I had no strength to hold things, and I could feel that something was structurally out of place in the spinal column.
          I think there probably was some soft tissue damage.

          If you asked me if I truly believed there was a structural element of lordosis locked in the thoracic region of my spinal column, then I would say yes, I'm certain of it, and it is the basis for all the bad structural loading - 'altered biomechanics' that I've been trying to say for all these years has been occurring as a part of my scoliosis, which began as a result of that work injury. - Yes.

          To put that in some kind of perspective though...

          First I understood that I'd done something serious to my spinal column and that its normal oreration had altered.
          Secondly, I understood what was going wrong, so I was frantic but believed I had the knowledge to fix it.
          Thirdly, I thought I could help all of you as well.

          I mean what are the chances that someone witnesses a biomechanical system of instability within a curve pattern involving concaves and convexes structurally, but it turns out that this does not have anything to do with the majority of scoliotic cases?
          It seems that this may indeed be the case, and what I did may be something completely different that doesn't usually happen in other scoliotic cases, even though I believe that the underlying system of instability I've tried to define can indeed apply to other curve patterns.
          I had every reason to think I was right, though I also have to look at whats missing.
          The reason why other patients didn't come forward with similar information, probably isn't because I'm any smarter than anyone else, its most likely because they never had the same things occur as part of their scoliosis in order to define as I did in the first place.

          I wasn't wrong to come forward and to try to get the questions answered.
          I've been witness to a biomechanical system of instability in my scoliosis and this is still important knowledge, and as a patient, I also don't fit into any normal scoliosis category so its not unreasonable for me to seek some kind of an explanation.

          Comment


          • #95
            Hey Sharon,

            The actual result of the injury.

            I've tried to explain this before, but its hard to kind of visualize it with the limited sort of into I can give.

            Thinking about the first crunch.
            It didn't occur by accident, I must've somehow first put forces upon my spinal column in a manner that when my arm passed parralel to my body that the injury could occur.
            So in the movement that 'lined me up' for the injury I leaned forward over the box activating flexion/extension.
            I also didn't bend my elbow and lift it over the box, I kept my arm straight and reached it up and around and onto the top of the back of the box (kind of like when you write the 'top side' of a 'figure 8' and a little bit like that box shovellers movement)
            So I did this at the same time I was bending forward...
            And I'd pretty quickly and accurately slap the tape gun down on the back of the box and then almost without pause and in a almost in an entirely single movement continue on with the movement of taping the seam of the box with my arm straight and cut the tape off as soon as my arm cleared the box and passed parralel to my body. CRUNCH

            Also, the box was too big for me.
            The box was probably about an inch or two too high for me to do this without putting a large amount of pressure and stress in my shoulder and spinal column to clear the box.

            It was in the way my spinal column was in that bad position and motion that the forces of flexion / extension and lateral flexion on my spine through that motion that something went wrong somewhere.

            The 'crunch' equals a structural spinal adjustment thats created a level of axial rotation.
            Theres only a certain number of moving parts in there articular facets and rib facets.

            The first crunch somehow changed the structural loading of my spine so that when I brought my arm back parallel to my body another crunch took place.

            I cant say for sure the combination of what went wrong whether its rib facets on different levels to produce opposite directions of axial rotation of one articular facet and one rib facet but I know theres both a coronal and sagital component to what the result of the bad loading is.
            And if I had've been able to take my research ideas to the next level I could've figured out exactly.

            In the days following the injury I could feel the small structural deviation changing and it seemed to be following a system and getting worse. It was unstable and changing, but the changes followed a system.

            A concave on top of a convex changing to become a convex on top of a concave.

            I tried to exert all sorts of forces on my spinal column in order to try to put it back into place, and through placing these forces on my spinal column I saw that if I tried to place the forces of flexion / extension and lateral flexion in my spinal column in a way that placed pressure on that concave/convex I found I couldn't put it back into place but something else would happen.

            If I tried to straighten the bend at the concave (that intervertebral element of lordosis) the forces of trying to straighten the concave would in turn accentuate the convex, and likewise if I tried to straighten the bend of the convex it would accentuate the curvature of the concave.

            The result of that injury was a region to region system of bad loading where the loading of the entire spinal column has become compromised.
            Last edited by sjmcphee; 01-31-2016, 07:24 PM.

            Comment


            • #96
              Scott, so the result of the injury near T3-T6 was the changed loading, not pain, right?

              If there was no pain, how do you know there was an injury or even a change in that area of your spine?

              And if there was pain, how do you know it wasn't all soft tissue?

              I am just trying to understand what happened and how you are interpreting it. You now know the arm issues were associated with a neck injury and not an injury to T3-T6. So I am wondering why you think anything to do with your spine happened in T3-T6 if you had no pain or only soft-tissue pain. If there was no pain traceable to T3-T6, why not assume some or all of the rest of your spine that also doesn't have pain was altered? Why not assume it is all soft tissue except your neck which clearly was injured because of the arm symptoms?
              Last edited by Pooka1; 01-31-2016, 07:39 PM.
              Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

              No island of sanity.

              Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
              Answer: Medicine


              "We are all African."

              Comment


              • #97
                Hey Sharon..
                Yes it was a good little interactive feature on that site, I'd like for scoliosis websites to have a lot of cool features like this that utilize the webs capabilities.
                I've only done a little bit of playing around with flash, and all these different kinds of web software takes time and perseverance to learn.

                I've been looking at charts in the last day or so and how I could utilize them into articles for scoliosis websites.
                Studies and statistics and things... Maybe even just general articles if they can be of use.
                There's a demo of these charts here down the bottom of the page but I don't have them on the template I'm using atm.
                http://demo.rockettheme.com/joomla-templates/xenon/

                I tidied up my scoliosis test website and forum from 2013 a little bit here, yes I know the color scheme is terrible.
                (And yes I did steal the forum categories from here but its only a test, I don't intend running or moderating a forum of my own, unless its a forum for scoliosis website improvements)
                I want to create some fake pages next and figure out how to best link specific articles to specific forum topic discussions. Related Topics/Forums etc
                My test site
                I created a login with permissions to create, edit and publish articles on the website as well as also having global moderator privileges, because I've turned off new user registrations.
                I'm testing this functionality out.
                The Username is 'Demo' and Password is 'Scoliosis2016' if anyone wants to try it out.
                You'll notice that once your logged it you have access to not only moderate the forum, but also modify the main website pages.
                Usually you'll see a text input box like in the forum, only I'm using a code editor instead.
                Please don't save any changes, but you are welcome to look.

                Comment


                • #98
                  Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
                  Scott, so the result of the injury near T3-T6 was the changed loading, not pain, right?

                  If there was no pain, how do you know there was an injury or even a change in that area of your spine?

                  And if there was pain, how do you know it wasn't all soft tissue?

                  I am just trying to understand what happened and how you are interpreting it. You now know the arm issues were associated with a neck injury and not an injury to T3-T6. So I am wondering why you think anything to do with your spine happened in T3-T6 if you had no pain or only soft-tissue pain. If there was no pain traceable to T3-T6, why not assume some or all of the rest of your spine that also doesn't have pain was altered? Why not assume it is all soft tissue except your neck which clearly was injured because of the arm symptoms?
                  No it was definitely painful, it was why I was taken by my work foreman straight to a doctor, where I was immediately given a week off.
                  Everything from my shoulder down to T6 felt red raw... if that's any description.
                  I spent the whole week laid up on my back and even when I went back to work it was still somewhat painful and I knew it wasn't right and getting worse.
                  That's when I went to the chiropractor and was diagnosed.

                  (I've always kind of known and never disputed that the numbness in my arms was related to my neck area.
                  Maybe it pinched a nerve up there in part of the way my spine 'lined itself up' immediately before injury itself occurred.
                  Maybe in order to create an element of lordosis in thoracic it had to take something from the lordotic curve)

                  How do I know it wasn't just soft tissue - because I could feel a structural change -(like actually feel it - reach around with my left hand and feel it there) and I also felt the changes occurring across my entire spinal column and see that they occurred as a complicated 'system'.
                  I am going to figure out more creative ways to explain myself better though in time, well I hope to anyway.

                  Comment


                  • #99
                    Originally posted by sjmcphee View Post
                    Everything from my shoulder down to T6 felt red raw...
                    Yes but how much of that was soft tissue and how much from anything to do with your spine (besides the obvious injury to your cervical spine as evidenced from your arm issues)?

                    Essentially you had obvious symptoms from a nerve issue in your neck but no obvious symptoms of spine injury below that, yes?
                    Last edited by Pooka1; 01-31-2016, 09:06 PM.
                    Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                    No island of sanity.

                    Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                    Answer: Medicine


                    "We are all African."

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Pooka1 View Post
                      Yes but how much of that was soft tissue and how much from anything to do with your spine (besides the obvious injury to your cervical spine as evidenced from your arm issues)?

                      Essentially you had obvious symptoms from a nerve issue in your neck but no obvious symptoms of spine injury below that, yes?
                      I might have had pins and needles down the insides of my legs as well but I honestly can't remember now and wouldn't like to say for sure, it was 17 years ago.
                      I might have written this fact down in one of the earlier recounting of the events about my scoliosis that I wrote years ago, but I'd have to search through my computer through these old documents and look, and my computers a little messy atm.
                      I know I had it in my arms because I couldn't hold an air drill when I tried to do a different job (putting together the bbq hoods) before I asked to be taken to the doctor.
                      The pins and needles and numbness went away after a day or so but it was the structural problem that remained and that was getting worse which gave me reason for real concern.
                      It was slightly misaligned, it wouldn't realign and this what I focused my attention on in the days that followed as I took time off and looked towards getting back to work.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by sjmcphee View Post
                        I might have had pins and needles down the insides of my legs as well but I honestly can't remember now and wouldn't like to say for sure, it was 17 years ago.
                        If you had them, they don't map to T3-T6. They map to much lower. It seems like you didn't injure your spine in T3-T6 but only the soft tissue near there because you have no spinal injury symptoms from that area.

                        The pins and needles and numbness went away after a day or so but it was the structural problem that remained and that was getting worse which gave me reason for real concern.
                        Is it possible you are interpreting a soft tissue injury as a structural problem given you had no effects of a structural problem other than your neck associated with the injury? The small curve lower down was pre-existing and so is not related.
                        Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                        No island of sanity.

                        Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                        Answer: Medicine


                        "We are all African."

                        Comment


                        • I have not followed this post totally but I can make a comment on the arm pain and pins and needles. I have been dealing with that for awhile. Some of these sensations can be attributed to the brachial plexus. If you work with your hands by reaching out or overnight head you can flare these nerves. The nerves come out of the cervical 5,6,7 and travel through the shoulder and arm. It can cause extreme pain and strange sensation.
                          I also have several ribs that have developed deformed because of scoliosis. They snap at the spine when I move in certain ways. But I am already fused in that area and I think you may not be.
                          T10-pelvis fusion 12/08
                          C5,6,7 fusion 9/10
                          T2--T10 fusion 2/11
                          C 4-5 fusion 11/14
                          Right scapulectomy 6/15
                          Right pectoralis major muscle transfer to scapula
                          To replace the action of Serratus Anterior muscle 3/16
                          Broken neck 9/28/2018
                          Emergency surgery posterior fusion C4- T3
                          Repeated 11/2018 because rods pulled apart added T2 fusion
                          Removal of partial right thoracic hardware 1/2020
                          Removal and replacement of C4-T10 hardware with C7 and T 1
                          Osteotomy

                          Comment


                          • Scott I just wanted to make one more comment about proprioception. You had that curve in your lower back for years and your proprioception completely failed you in letting you know that was there.

                            Given that, how can you rely on your proprioception to detect changes in you upper spine that are too small to show up on a radiograph? Again, I think if you ever take riding lessons you will never trust your proprioception at all for determining anything about your spine or legs or whatever.

                            Just a comment.
                            Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                            No island of sanity.

                            Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                            Answer: Medicine


                            "We are all African."

                            Comment


                            • Instead of all being constant naysayers why don't you instead do something constructive, like help me give scoliosis on the internet a facelift?
                              Form an 'NSF internet improvement committee' and we'll work together with ideas to get professional fundraising established to that we can actually do some real good?
                              I want to do constructive things not go around in circles.
                              My circuitry isn't wired that way and I don't have the patience for it, sorry.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by sjmcphee
                                I don't see you coming up with any answers of what category of scoliosis I actually belong to???
                                Only a surgeon can tell you but I would bet you either have a small AIS curve or a small functional scoliosis associated with a LLD. A surgeon or radiologist would have to determine if there was rotation evident on the radiograph to determine if it is AIS or a functional scoliosis. The curve may be too small to detect rotation even if it is AIS. In any case, I bet you could bend it out even if structural because it is so small.
                                Sharon, mother of identical twin girls with scoliosis

                                No island of sanity.

                                Question: What do you call alternative medicine that works?
                                Answer: Medicine


                                "We are all African."

                                Comment

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