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My name is Jamie; I'm
20 years old and I was first diagnosed with scoliosis when I
was 12. I had a 35 degree S-shaped curvature that curves to
the left near my shoulders and to the right near my pelvis.
My scoliosis was not immediately obvious because my spine
compensates for itself by twisting one way and then back to
the other.
Several of my doctors say they would
like to have caught my scoliosis at a younger age while I was
still growing – I was already 5’ 7” at age 12 and am about the
same height right now. (Michigan public schools are required
to screen for scoliosis in elementary and middle school
students, but I have always attended private schools that did
not screen.) But, despite the doctors’ regrets, I am very
glad my scoliosis was not detected until 8th grade.
I never had any back pain or trouble
with the condition until after they started treating
me. In middle school, I ice skated, took tap, jazz, and
ballet, and played the piano and saxophone without problems.
When I brought up this point in a recent conversation, my
orthopedic surgeon retorted that eventually I would have had
much worse back pain than I have now if he had not treated me
the way he did.
So, here is what happened: I ended up
seeing two orthopedic surgeons throughout 9th grade
who convinced my parents and me that I needed to wear a
brace. They said I was ‘fortunate’ that the curvature was not
quite 40 degrees because they would have recommended
corrective surgery in the form of metal screws in my spine.
The thought of surgery made me leap for the brace, which I was
supposed to wear for 23 hours a day, two years straight.
I wore the brace to school under my
clothes but, to be honest, I cheated during field hockey and
at home. Wearing the brace gave me some of the worst pain I
have ever experienced and I spent a lot of my time lying flat
on the floor with my feet propped up on a chair. My skin was
always bruised from the force of the brace. It was hot; I had
limited mobility. I was miserable overall. In addition to
this awful back pain, I started developing other problems in
my knees and ankles that made it difficult to walk. My back
pain has progressively gotten worse since I stopped wearing
the brace about six years ago. However, my orthopedic surgeon
still considers my case to be successful because my curvature
was corrected from 35 degrees to about 29 degrees.
When I first went to see Dr. Pierre
Gremaud, I could hardly stand for more than a few minutes
without shifting around in pain. In fact, sitting was often
just as uncomfortable. I have spent the last few years
sitting, standing, sitting, and moving back and forth because
no position was comfortable for my back. Walking long
distances gave me pain in my back, hips, knees, ankles… I can
feel all of this changing since going to Dr. Pierre. He has
shown me that fixing my spine is not as simple as throwing a
brace on and forcing it into place. Advanced
BioStructural Correction™
is correcting my spinal curvature as well as the muscles in my
back that have begun to degenerate from years of misuse. It’s
a completely different approach to treating scoliosis than
what I’ve been accustomed to.
I really
cannot say enough about what Dr. Pierre and Dr. Jim have done
for me in our short time together. This is the first time in
a very long time that I can sit comfortably, something that
should be simple for anyone. I know that I still have at
least another year to go before I am ‘cured’ but I feel great
with the progress we have made. And, the muscle scans Pierre
has done are proof that the
ABC™
method is working. It really is a shock for me to look at
the scans from April compared to my most recent scans in
July. I am so happy I found this practice when I did because
it has taken away a lot of my pain and improved the quality of
my life.
I hope my story helps you in your
decision about how to treat scoliosis. Please don’t hesitate
to email me if you have any questions.
Sincerely,
Jamie (Cornell
pre-med student)
After reading the story below you might
want to go to the Understanding Why There Seems To Be No Help
For Scoliosis page
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