Dealing with Scoliosis

Since I was about 7 or 8 years old, I have been dealing with Scoliosis. Although I have never really talked about it, it has caused me a great deal of emotional stress over the years. For those who don't know, scoliosis is an abnormal curvature of the spine, put simply. Many people have a VERY MILD curvature to their spines (less than 10%), which is normal.

Physically, over the years, having scoliosis has caused me some pain. Although it hasn't been to the point where I needed any major medications, there have been times where I haven't really been able to do much for a couple days. I do admit, as of right now, I am not in the best of shape, which is part of the reason why I am currently having pain and my weight doesn't help much either. A majority of my pain over the years have been in my lower right back and if I let it get to bad without laying down, the pain will shoot down to my knee, ankle and foot. I also experience allot of pain on my left ribcage area along with that part of the spine. It feels like someone is pulling my spine to the left. Most of the time, I am able to manage this but it can be difficult when I am carrying around too much extra weight and under stress. Working out and staying in shape can really help reduce the amount of pain, but it won't necessarily help improve the disease by any amount.

Emotionally, I have always struggled with the way I look. Although my scoliosis has never been severe enough to be able to qualify for the surgery, there has been many times where I wish I could have it to look normal. At my age, it isn't logical for me to wear a back brace anymore either because if I do wear it, my muscles will learn to depend on it for strength and I can't have that, since I am only 21. I am only starting to learn how to deal with it emotionally. As a kid, it didn't really bother me because I didn't understand it but as I got older, I got more and more insecure with the way I looked.

As time goes on and I do more research, I am going to write more on how to deal with this disease both emotionally and physically. I will be posting on here and on my personal blog about my medical journey on dealing with this. You can click here to go to my personal blog.