Scoliosis Blog

Happy 2012.  2011 was a life changing year. I hope that all readers of this blog have a happy and healthy 2012.

We recently received our first letter from a scoliosis surgeon. The letter was written in response to a patient that I had seen and although this particular case falls into the domain of possible conservative management, I still felt it essential that the scoliosis surgeon is involved in the early stages of the case.

Although the surgeon was not supportive of Schroth, at least he wrote back, which is a start.  He wrote that although some early positive work had come out of the schroth clinic in Germany, it had not been able to be reproduced outside of Germany.  I suspect it will take a long time to "convince" these surgeons of the work that we do. It also seems that the publications coming out of Italy regarding the effectiveness of SEAS is not filtering down to the local Australian scoliosis surgeons.

I did however receive the following email

"Just letting you know that the last x-ray that R had on 25th October 2010 showed that R's curve went from about 45 degrees to 25 degrees. Her hand x ray showed that she is nearly at the end of her growth, we will find out in February if she has stopped growing. We have been doing your exercises every day, but now that we are seeing R she changed exercises because her curve has changed. Her next appointment at the Royal Children's is at the end of February. I will keep you informed about her progress after her next scan. Thanks for you help this year, R really pushed herself to do the exercises and we can see an amazing change. Dr T couldn't believe the results. We told Dr T about the schroth method exercises and that we are seeing a Chiropractor weekly. He didn't seem keen on the idea but then told us to keep doing what we are doing."

I cannot push the scoliosis surgeons into believing what we do as sceptics cannot be convinced with pure information. (I am the same). Sceptics are only convinced through experience and hopefully as we continue with our work they will come around. There has also been some new conservative management clinics opening up in Sydney.  I guess I am like the scoliosis surgeons who am very concerned that these people are treating scoliosis without the necessary scientific evidence and that they have the potential to create real damage.

We have also seen some Very large adult curves or post fusion curves in adults. These adults have been told that that although their curves are large, the surgeons are not yet willing to commence or re-do surgery. They present complaining of significant pain. It has been very interesting working with them and rewarding to be of help

I will be leaving in 3 weeks time to meet up with Dr Rigo again in Wisconsin.  Scoliosis Rehab is hosting an advanced course in Scoliosis treatment and although I will not be looking forward to the weather will look forward to "drinking at the feet of the master". I have a pile of x-rays that I will be taking up with me to go through them with Dr Rigo.