Got Scoliosis?

Have you ever been told that your scoliosis is something you were going to have to live with?

After completing Integrative Approaches to Low Back Pain through Neurosomatic Educators Inc, I learned that it is standard practice to only take x-rays from the lumbar spine upward.  If you understand anything at all about the spine, you will know that spine begins below your pelvis.  If you have deviations in the sacroiliac join from pelvic distortions, the rest of your spine will try its best to compensate for the distortion.  Unfortunately for Dr's taking improper x-rays, they will never see the real problem to scoliosis.  Leg length discrepancy is the largest cause of scoliosis and it's completely overlooked. 

Scenario:  You have a patient with back pain who gets a partial x-ray.  This patient is told they have scoliosis and "needs surgery" to rectify the problem.  So, they go in and place rods in the spine or try to fuse disks.  If the patient never has their pelvis looked at for any distortions, you end up with someone who will have more pain and more dysfunction due to something called the Lovett Reactor.  This means that each segment of the spine correlates and moves with another segment of the spine in the same way.  To understand this, try thinking about a dog wagging their tail.  Their tail is not the only part of their spine that moves.  You'll notice that their skull and cervical spine also move in the same way as their tail.  If you were to grab their tail and keep it from moving, you'll notice a more exaggerated spinal movement because the frozen tail.  For those in the manual therapy world, C1 corresponds directly with L5, C2 with L4, C3 with L3 and so on towards the center of the spine. 

If you were ever told that you had to live with your pain, come in for a true measured Posture Assessment in order to find out the root cause of your pain.  Don't worry, there is hope when you see the right people who understand the etiology of dysfunction and not how to hold a scalpel.  Remember: When you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.