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hey everyone
welcome to my story after dealing with
scoliosis
and sometimes feeling bad because of it
i want to share what it's been like
oh right um scoliosis yeah yeah yeah
let me explain that part in case you
don't know or could use some help
to quote the internet scoliosis is a
sideways curvature of the spine
that occurs most often during the growth
spurt just before puberty
scoliosis can be caused by conditions
like
cerebral palsy and muscular dystrophy
but the cause of
most scoliosis is done
unknown or idiopathic as the doctors
call it
there are a few ways to treat it
depending on how bad your curve is
and how much worse it gets one of the
options
is watchful waiting
which is just that just waiting to see
how things
progress without intervention
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then there's bracing it's kind of like
this
clamshell thingy that you wear for as
many hours a day as your doctor says
usually 23 hours until you grow a little
more
bracing is used as an external
intervention
that's used to try and steer your spine
from the outside
it works for some people and if it does
work you probably won't need
surgery but it didn't really work for me
if you're like me and bracing doesn't
work the next option would be
surgery yeah surgery
is always scary and there are risks
but my parents did tons of research to
find out which surgery would be best for
me
while they were researching there was
one thing they found that was
different than all the rest it's called
vertebral body tethering
and it's actually what they call a
humanitarian device
they found a website called
myscoliosis.com
that taught us all about how the surgery
works
they basically take these screws and
screw them into the side of the spine
the outside of the curvy part and then
use this cord to pull the spine straight
bit by bit then lock it down
boop boop and that starts to straighten
out the spine
not every doctor does vertebral body
tethering so
my mom went to the surgeon locator to
find someone who did next thing i know
i was at my first post-op checkup with
my new
straighter spine one of my favorite
parts
is that this one lets me keep growing
and lets my spine stay flexible
unlike the other surgeries now it didn't
100
fix my curve my doctor says it doesn't
need to be perfectly straight
and that over time as i grow the cord
will help straighten things out
he also said he's gonna keep watching my
progress
to make sure the cord doesn't over
correct my curve
or break so yeah
um everyone will have a different
outcome after surgery but my scoliosis
is on its way to being straighter and
four weeks after my surgery
my doctor said i could go back to my
regular activities
and back at school back to spending time
with my friends
and i'm back to being active again
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so this is my story thanks for listening
to it
if you have scoliosis like me your
parents can get more info
at myscoliosis.com like my mom did
and when they find a doctor they can ask
if you'd be a good candidate for
vertebral body tethering
anyway until next time this is me
signing off
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bye
you