• Visit to our Clinic – If you are able to travel to our London clinic, one of our consultants will evaluate your symptoms in an appointment lasting 40 to 60 minutes.
• Remote Consultation via Telephone/Skype – We treat many patients from all over the UK and the rest of the world, and so we are more than happy to carry out your consultation over the phone if you are unable to visit our clinic in person. These appointments are conducted in the same way as our face-to-face consultations, although we will require you to send over some photographs of your back and/or your X-rays beforehand so that we may assess your condition properly.

First, one of our expert consultants will go through your medical history and symptoms, gathering information about your condition and any previous treatments you may have received. The consultant will then evaluate your spinal measurements, a process that includes a radiation-free back scan if you visit our clinic in person. The consultant will then outline the treatment options available to you, offering their recommendations for a treatment plan along with expected outcomes and a rough time scale.

If you are interested in finding out how our treatment courses could dramatically alter the symptoms of scoliosis without surgery, get in touch with Scoliosis SOS and book your initial consultation today!

As there is currently no cure for Marfan syndrome, it is important that the syndrome’s symptoms are managed in the best way possible in order to provide relief from pain and to reduce the risk of further complications. Although surgery is sometimes suggested as a solution for the symptoms of scoliosis, this is a fairly drastic form of treatment that comes with many risks to the patient. It also comes with a long healing time, which is an added inconvenience, particularly for younger patients.

At Scoliosis SOS, we take a different approach to treatment, using a variety of non-surgical therapies to deliver long-lasting results. Combining specially-devised exercises with osteopathic principals and other methods of treatment, the ScolioGold programmes delivered at our clinic are able to provide substantial reductions in spinal curvature. They also allow our patients to continue their progress at home, allowing them to see continued progress and experience ongoing relief from pain.

As we’ve discussed previously on this blog, the causes of scoliosis are often unclear. However, according to a report from Asian Scientist, we are now one step closer to a solid answer: experiments on zebrafish have linked the development of scoliosis to an overactive gene called LBX1. 

It would seem that too much LBX1 activity can cause the spine to become misshapen as time progresses, resulting in scoliosis. This link is supported by the results of two different experiments:

• #1 – Researchers injected a group of zebrafish embryos with extra LBX1 proteins. In these embryos, the cells that would eventually become the fish’s backbone were notably wider than in embryos with normal LBX1 levels. The LBX1-boosted embryos that survived long enough to do so eventually developed misshapen bones in their backs, resulting in scoliosis.
• #2 – A second group of fish were genetically modified to promote extra LBX1 activity in some cells over the course of their lifetimes. Unlike the other group of embryos, some of these fish developed healthy backbones at first, but the spines still began to display a scoliotic curve as they grew older and entered adulthood.

We at the Scoliosis SOS Clinic love getting feedback from our patients and their families. Reviews help us to make sure that we’re doing everything we can for the people who visit our clinic, and so we’d really appreciate it if you could take a couple of minutes to give us a rating and tell the world about your Scoliosis SOS experience.

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Many discussions about scoliosis – and the treatment of scoliosis in particular – centre on something called the Cobb angle. The Cobb angle is among the most important indicators of scoliosis severity, and Cobb angle reduction is the primary goal of the non-surgical scoliosis treatment courses we deliver here at Scoliosis SOS.

The X-rays below show Cobb angle measurements for five different scoliosis sufferers (all of whom were treated here at the Scoliosis SOS Clinic). The patients’ ages range from 7 to 32 years old.

 

 

More Cobb angle examples can be found here.

Scoliosis can only be diagnosed (and its severity assessed) by an experienced practitioner. However, here is a rough guide to what the Cobb angle means:

• A Cobb angle of less than 10° is entirely normal – there is no such thing as a perfectly straight spine, and everyone will have some slight deviation in their spinal alignment.
• 10° is generally accepted as the threshold for determining if somebody has scoliosis. Scoliosis will not be given as a diagnosis unless the patient’s Cobb angle is 10° or more.
• When the Cobb angle is between 20° and 40°, a back brace is usually recommended; back braces come in many different shapes and sizes, and some are worn only at night. However, some patients may be prescribed a brace at 15° or at 50° – it all depends on the hospital that’s administering treatment.
• How large does a patient’s Cobb angle need to be before an orthopaedic surgeon will recommend surgery? The answer varies from country to country and is often influenced by whether the patient is already wearing a brace and/or undergoing scoliosis-specific physiotherapy. In the UK, the threshold is often 40°; in continental Europe, it’s more frequently 50°.
• 12° to 120°: This is the range of Cobb angles we treat using our ScolioGold therapy programme (although the majority of our patients exhibit curves of between 20° and 65°).