If you’ve recently been diagnosed with
scoliosis and your spinal curvature is – for the moment – still relatively small, you may be wondering how your condition will affect you as it progresses (i.e. as the curve becomes more pronounced).
As your
Cobb angle increases, the curve in your spine may impact your day-to-day life in a variety of different ways. However, please bear in mind that no two cases of scoliosis are completely identical, and some symptoms that appear prominently in one patient may not appear at all in the next! There is no guarantee that you will experience all of the below effects if your spinal curve continues to grow; the aim of this list is to give newly-diagnosed scoliotics a general idea of what to expect as the condition progresses.
How will scoliosis affect my appearance?
The visual symptoms of scoliosis include:
- Visibly curved back
- Leaning to one side
- Shoulders sitting at different heights
- Uneven hips/waist/legs
- One shoulder blade / one side of the rib cage protruding more prominently than the other
The visibility of these symptoms varies hugely from one patient to the next, although a greater curve will generally result in more immediately visible prominences and unevenness.
What will scoliosis feel like as it progresses?
As your curve grows, you may experience any or all of the following physical symptoms (again, severity varies massively from one case to the next):
- Back pain
- Pain in other parts of the body (e.g. legs, neck)
- Reduced flexibility
- Muscular imbalance (i.e. a weakening of the muscles on one side of the body)
- Compromised breathing
How will scoliosis affect my everyday life?
Mild cases of scoliosis usually don’t have a significant impact on the patient’s mobility – it is reasonably rare for scoliosis to become so advanced that it
qualifies as a disability. However, while you should be able to get around without too much difficulty, your spinal curvature may cause problems if you participate in sports (or other physically demanding pursuits) on a regular basis. As noted above, scoliosis can limit flexibility/range of movement and create a noticeable muscular imbalance, and these symptoms can be hugely detrimental to one’s performance in certain sports.
If you experience pain as a result of your spinal curve, you may need to start taking pain relief medication as it grows larger. The type and strength of the painkillers you take will depend on the degree of pain you are feeling – be sure to consult your GP if necessary, as they will be able to prescribe certain medications that are not available over the counter. Chronic pain can have a significant impact on a person’s overall quality of life, making it harder to work, socialise and relax, but taking pain relief medication can help to minimise that impact (although most painkillers come with risks and side-effects of their own).
Most of the above symptoms/effects of scoliosis can be halted, minimised, or even eliminated completely through proper treatment. Treatment options include bracing, surgery, and physical therapy programmes such as the ScolioGold treatment courses we provide here at Scoliosis SOS – click here to find out more.
Idiopathic scoliosis is the most common type of
scoliosis (a condition where the spine curves sideways). Approximately 8 out of 10 cases of scoliosis are classed as ‘idiopathic’, meaning that there is no known cause for the patient’s spinal curvature.
What does ‘idiopathic’ mean?
The word ‘idiopathic’ essentially means ‘without a clear underlying cause’. It is derived from the Greek words ‘idios’ (one’s own) and ‘pathos’ (suffering). If a disease or condition is idiopathic, it seemingly develops on its own rather than as the result of another condition.
While the cause of idiopathic scoliosis is often a complete mystery, it is believed to occur for any number of reasons, including:
More commonly, however, scoliosis occurs with no apparent underlying cause. This is called idiopathic scoliosis.
Who does idiopathic scoliosis affect?
In theory, idiopathic scoliosis can affect anyone at any time of life. In the vast majority of cases, however, idiopathic scoliosis develops during adolescence, with the appearance of the curve roughly coinciding with the onset of puberty.
- Infantile idiopathic scoliosis is diagnosed in children between 0 and 3 years of age.
- Juvenile idiopathic scoliosis is diagnosed in children aged between 3 and 9 years of age.
- Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis is diagnosed between the ages of 10 and 18
These are the most common times for idiopathic scoliosis to be diagnosed and early detection allows children and young adults to be monitored and treated before their curvature becomes too severe. If not treated early, idiopathic scoliosis patients may require spinal surgery.
Scoliosis is
more common in females than in males, and adolescent girls are more likely to develop idiopathic scoliosis than any other sex/age group, so it’s important you check your child for idiopathic scoliosis regularly if you think they may be at risk. We teach you how you can check your child for scoliosis at home
in this blog.
What causes idiopathic scoliosis?
The cause of idiopathic scoliosis is, by definition, unknown. If we knew why it happened, it wouldn’t be idiopathic!
That being said, it is widely thought that idiopathic scoliosis occurs due to
genetic factors. In fact, it was reported in 2016 that researchers at a Japanese university had potentially identified the gene responsible for triggering spinal curvature: it’s called LBX1 and
you can read about it here.
Is there a cure for idiopathic scoliosis?
Idiopathic scoliosis cannot be ‘cured’, as such, but it is often possible to arrest and even reverse the progression of the patient’s spinal curve before it grows too severe. Depending on the patient’s circumstances and the severity of their condition, they may be treated via bracing, surgery, physical therapy, or a combination of these methods.
Click here to learn more about treatment options available to idiopathic scoliosis sufferers, or visit our
ScolioGold page to learn about how we treat curvatures of the spine here at the Scoliosis SOS Clinic using exercise-based therapy.
If you have any questions about idiopathic scoliosis, or if you’re interested in our treatment options, give us a call on 0207 488 4428, or fill in our enquiry form below.
If your child is suffering from back pain, stiffness or discomfort, it may be a good idea to check them juvenile scoliosis. Juvenile scoliosis is usually diagnosed between the ages of 4 and 10. In patients aged 4-5, the condition is equally common amongst boys and girls; however, from the age of 6 upwards, the rate of occurrence of juvenile scoliosis is higher amongst females.
Unfortunately, juvenile scoliosis carries with it a relatively high chance of progression into a more severe form of the condition. The statistics state that as many as 7 out of 10 children with this condition will see it worsen as they grow, and in most cases of juvenile scoliosis, the curve will not rectify itself over time.
Diagnosing juvenile scoliosis
You can check your child for signs of juvenile scoliosis by looking to see if they have uneven shoulders, hips or ribs. The most common test used to assess juvenile scoliosis is the Adams forward bending test, which requires the child to bend at the waist, let their arms hang down, and place their feet together. In this position, it is easy to observe any abnormalities your child may have. We talk you through a simple test for juvenile scoliosis here.
See also: Will my child have scoliosis?
A medical professional should be consulted to professionally diagnose your child if you suspect they may have juvenile scoliosis. At your consultation, the examiner will be able to accurately measure the severity of the juvenile scoliosis. If scoliosis is suspected, the next step of the diagnosis will be an MRI scan to ensure that the curvature is not being caused by any underlying conditions that might be affecting the spine.
What causes juvenile scoliosis?
Sometimes the MRI scan will reveal the underlying cause of the patient’s spinal curve, but in most cases, the cause of juvenile scoliosis is unknown. However, it is widely believed amongst most medical professionals that scoliosis can be inherited. The reason for this is because scoliosis often develops in multiple members of the same family.
Nevertheless, genetic inheritance cannot be proven as the cause of juvenile scoliosis because the condition does not develop in a traditional pattern. Many scoliosis sufferers have children who never develop a spinal curve; likewise, many children who do develop scoliosis have no history of spinal problems in the family.
Treating juvenile scoliosis
There are several ways to treat cases of juvenile scoliosis, including physiotherapy, bracing, serial casting, and in severe cases, surgery. Physiotherapy is usually recommended for mild juvenile curves (between 10 and 20 degrees), whereas curves greater than 20 degrees may require both physiotherapy and bracing.
Once a curve surpasses 45 degrees, hard bracing is usually recommended until your child is of a suitable age to undergo surgery. This helps stunt the progression of the curve and provides more comfort for your child until their juvenile scoliosis can be rectified.
Here at the Scoliosis SOS Clinic, we provide surgery-free treatment for people of all ages who are suffering with scoliosis. Our treatment courses are effective for any degree of scoliosis, helping to halt and even reverse the progression of the spinal curve. Visit our Results page to see some before/after photos of our younger patients with juvenile scoliosis.
Click here to find out more about our non-surgical scoliosis treatment programme for children and adults. If you think you or your child may be suffering from scoliosis, contact us today to book your initial consultation with Scoliosis SOS.
Scoliosis is a complex condition that comes in many different forms, varies greatly in severity from one patient to the next, and manifests itself in all kinds of different ways. The
symptoms of scoliosis are many and varied: a curved spine can cause pain, stiffness, muscle imbalance, and even heart/lung problems in particularly critical cases.
However, for many scoliosis sufferers – particularly those who are young and have only recently been diagnosed – the most daunting potential consequence of spinal curvature is the impact it can have on one’s appearance.
How does scoliosis make you look?
Curvature of the spine can affect your appearance in a number of different ways. Common visible symptoms of scoliosis include:
- A sideways lean
- Uneven or tilted shoulders, hips, legs and/or rib cage
- Unusually prominent shoulder blade and/or ribs on one side
The severity of these symptoms varies greatly. Some cases of scoliosis are virtually invisible (particularly when the patient is clothed), whereas more pronounced curves may result in very noticeable prominences and asymmetries that are difficult to conceal.
Scoliosis patient gallery
To give you a better idea of what scoliosis looks like, here are some photos of scoliosis sufferers who came to the
Scoliosis SOS Clinic for treatment (N.B. these photographs were taken before treatment commenced).
How to combat the visible symptoms of scoliosis
If you are concerned that your curved spine may have a dramatic impact on the way you look, there are a number of ways to minimise the visibility of your condition:
- Certain types of clothing are better at concealing the signs of scoliosis than others – click here for advice.
- If your scoliosis is particularly severe, you may require spinal fusion surgery to correct it. This procedure will diminish the visibility of your curve, but it is usually only offered to patients with a Cobb angle of at least 40-50 degrees.
- Completing an exercise-based scoliosis treatment course can go a long way to reducing the visibility of your spinal curve. Here at Scoliosis SOS, we treat scoliosis sufferers using a method known as ScolioGold therapy that has proven very effective when it comes to reducing curve size.
