When Erika Maude founded Scoliosis SOS
back in 2006, she opened a clinic in Martlesham, a village in her home county of Suffolk. Word quickly spread, and patients flocked to the Scoliosis SOS Clinic from miles around, eager to see if the Clinic’s exercise-based scoliosis treatments could give them a better quality of life and eliminate the need for invasive surgery.
In 2009, Erika and the Scoliosis SOS team decided that, in order to better serve the needs of scoliosis sufferers from further afield, the Clinic should relocate to its present-day home in London. Non-surgical scoliosis treatments are still not widely available in a lot of countries, and many scoliosis sufferers wanted to travel to our clinic from abroad but found it difficult to get to a small village in Suffolk.
Left: Our old clinic in Martlesham, Suffolk.
Right: Our current location in the City of London.
By contrast, our current location on Mansell Street in London is easily accessible from just about anywhere. London, of course, is served by several international airports, and Mansell Street is within easy walking distance of several railway stations (Fenchurch Street, Liverpool Street) and London Underground stops (Aldgate, Aldgate East, Tower Gateway and others).
Our clinic was established in 2006 – this year, we celebrate our 10th anniversary!
What were you doing 10 years ago? 2006 was the year when Sven-Göran Eriksson stepped down from his role as England manager, Top Gear presenter Richard Hammond cheated death after crashing a jet powered car, and Daniel Craig made his triumphant debut as James Bond, with Casino Royale becoming the highest-earning 007 movie to date.
It was also the year when the Scoliosis SOS Clinic opened its doors for the very first time. Erika Maude, the Clinic’s founder, had recently returned from a trip to Spain, where she completed an intensive regime of exercise-based treatments to correct the curve in her spine. Erika was diagnosed with scoliosis at the age of 11, and after a back brace failed to improve her condition, she was told that she would probably need to undergo a complex surgical operation in order to straighten her back.
However, Erika decided to refuse surgery, and instead journeyed to Europe to try something called the Schroth method. This technique uses stretches and exercises to correct the patient’s spinal curvature and improve their overall quality of life (e.g. by reducing pain and improving mobility). Erika’s Schroth treatment worked exceptionally well, and it was this experience abroad that inspired her to found the Scoliosis SOS Clinic upon her return to the UK.
The Clinic’s original location was in Suffolk, and as the first non-surgical scoliosis clinic in the UK, it quickly became very popular indeed, with countless scoliosis sufferers travelling great distances to receive the treatments that Erika had brought back from Spain. To begin with, Scoliosis SOS patients were treated using the Schroth method alone, but over time, it became clear that the Clinic’s patients would be better served by a treatment programme that incorporated a range of different techniques rather than focusing on just one.
And so the ScolioGold method was born. This multi-faceted treatment method includes a number of different therapeutic techniques from all over the world, including:
- Schroth Method (Germany)
- Rigo-Schroth Method (Spain)
- Osteopathy (USA)
- Taping (Japan)
- FITS Method (Poland)
- SEAS Method (Italy)
- Myofascial Release (USA)
- Orthopaedic Medicine (UK)
- Trigger Point Therapy (USA)
With this new, more effective treatment programme helping scoliosis sufferers to achieve even better results, Scoliosis SOS continued to grow, and in 2009, the Clinic relocated from Suffolk to its current home in
London. Moving to the UK capital made ScolioGold therapy significantly more accessible to patients from further afield, and as a result, the Clinic’s patient list has grown exceptionally diverse over the last few years. Visit our
Overseas Patients page for a few examples – we’ve welcomed people from many, many different countries where non-surgical scoliosis treatments simply aren’t available at present.
It’s now 2016, and we at Scoliosis SOS have been treating patients for a full 10 years. Throughout that time, our primary goal has always remained the same: to offer scoliosis sufferers a real alternative to surgery and help them to live their lives to the full. Scoliosis (and the other conditions that we can help with, such as
hyperkyphosis) can be severely debilitating, causing extreme suffering for innumerable people across the globe. But our exercise therapy has given hundreds of people – including young children, seniors, and everyone in between – the chance to lead a better life, one free of back pain and the constant, looming fear of a risky operation.
Our treatment methods are becoming more advanced and more innovative on a daily basis, and the Scoliosis SOS Clinic remains one of the world’s leading lights in the field of non-surgical spinal treatment. We hope to keep it that way for many years to come – here’s to the next decade!
If you suffer from scoliosis or hyperkyphosis, please contact Scoliosis SOS today to find out more about how we can help you.
Have you attended one of our scoliosis treatment courses? If so, we’d love to read your review!
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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Need to get in touch with the Scoliosis SOS Clinic? Give us a call on 0207 488 4428 or click here to submit an enquiry online.
