I went to the doctor a couple of days ago about a sore spot on my spine that has been there for several months. After taking a look, he said, “Well, your spine doesn’t look straight there” and gave me a referral to the X-Ray clinic.
I’m going tomorrow, but it got me thinking.
I know that children with curved spines can wear a brace that helps straighten the spine as they grow. Of course, this method wouldn’t work for an adult, as the adult isn’t growing anymore; it may at best help stop or slow the curving of the spine, and help with pain. So is the only way to FIX it by surgery (which you likely wouldn’t be able to get unless it was serious)?
Furthermore, how the heck does an adult spine suddenly show signs of “not being straight”?
Do you have some confirmation that the “sore spot” is being caused by the scoliosis? Lot’s of people have mild curvature (myself included) with no issues related to it. Be sure they are related before you proceed with anything that’s going to effect the curvature of your spine.
I’ve corrected mild, adult onset scoliosis through myofascial release (which will probably be denounced as witch doctorin’ pseudoscience in the rest of the thread.) Basically, the muscles and fascia can get tight and start to pull on the bones (sometimes very quickly, like in a car accident, and sometimes slowly over time due to poor posture or a sucky work station) and yank the bones out of line. Get in there with some very deep fingers and get those suckers to let go, and your bones are free to return to their normal upright positions.
IMHO, chiropractic, which will indeed snap bones back into alignment if they’re only out a little bit, works much better and with longer lasting results if combined with myofascial release. Without it, you can move the bones around, but the tight muscles and fascia still keep pulling the bones back out of whack.
I’m not “denouncng” anything but this “myofascial release” basically sounds like deep tissue massage. How is this going to “straighten out” a curved spine?
Yes, it’s also called deep tissue - I like “myofascial release” better because it’s more technically descriptive of the goals. “Deep tissue” can be therapeutic, or it can just feel fantastic to people who like deep work, so some people market “deep tissue” as relaxation massage.
Many, if not most, adult onset scoliosis happen because the bones move out of a straight line in relation to one another. Imagine a tower of blocks (each block is a vertebrae) tethered with ropes coming off each side (each rope is a muscle group). If you pull the ropes on the left hand side of a few blocks, the stack will curve - a scoliosis. If I can stretch those left hand ropes and give them the same slack as the right hand ropes, the bones will move back to center.
This does not apply, of course, to scoliosis due to osteoporosis, bone degeneration or congenital scoliosis due to malformation of the bone or hemivertibrae (half-vertebrae), butterfly vertebrae (X shaped vertebrae) extra ribs, etc. Those are gross malformations in the bone, and will not respond to myofascial release.
My son, for example, was born with one hemi and one butterfly vertebrae in addition to his regular allotment, as well as an extra rib on his left side. He required surgery when he was 11 for a pretty serious scoliosis and had that rib removed and the vertebrae shaved and bonded, as well as rods put in as handles so the surgeons could lever his spine as straight as possible before screwing and wiring it in place to heal. Myofascial wouldn’t do squat for him, and in fact was very painful when I tried it because so many of his muscle groups were locked into place simply compensating for his deformities and keeping him upright.
It should also be noted that there are two schools of thought on myofascial release: the gentle school and the Rolfing school. Rolfers are taught to pull the fascia into place, often painfully and abruptly, and then let the muscles and fascia relax into the shape the therapist desires as they hold it there. It’s ouchy, and I hate it. I was taught in the gentler school, which likens muscle tissue to oobleck - ram your hand in there, and it’s gonna tighten up and act like a solid. Go in slowly and gently, and things just melt around your fingertips. Much less painfull, although it can still be intense when my fingers are threaded through your intestines touching the anterior surface of your spine through your belly!
I have had surgery for serious scoliosis, and am responding based on what I learned in the process. It is very common to have some curvature of the spine. You may have had non-symptomatic curvature for a long time. If the curvature is not serious (like, not pressing on organs & stuff) you may be able to treat your symptoms (pain) with exercises and/or being careful about things that bother your back. It really depends on what you mean by “fix.” I am skeptical that you would be able to fix the curvature without surgery (which is by the way no picnic), but fixing the pain may well be possible. Good luck!
Thanks for the insightful answers. Again, I have no idea what, exactly, is causing my back pain. All I know is that the doctor said “Your spine doesn’t look straight there”. I took a gander when I got home, and nothing looks curved to me. Though then again, I’m not a doctor who looks at spines all day.
Luckily, the X-ray tomorrow should give specifics, but it’s good to know that it’s not uncommon, nor difficult to treat in one way or another.