How Does Scoliosis Affect My Child's Day to Day Life?

In this episode, Dr. Mandy discusses:

• WHO is affected by scoliosis?
• WHEN you may have to make changes to sports activities.
• HOW a brace affects summer family vacations (and when it might be needed). 

Listen in to learn more and be sure to check out the links below for more information!

*****Resource Links You Need:

• Contact Dr. Mandy's office to learn how to work with her by calling (701) 223-8413 or email her at [email protected]. 
• Free Online Screening Tool: https://app.scoliscreen.com/
• Find out more about ScoliBalance® at https://scolicare.com/patients-scolibalance.
• Find out more about ScoliBrace® at https://scolibrace.com.

 *****Transcript*****

 Hi, I'm Dr. Mandy Dietz and you're listening to the Behind the Brace podcast. Each week I'll be sharing conversations and resources to help families and providers navigate the world of scoliosis. This is your place to find hope for a better solution so that you can live your best life.

Welcome back. This week we are talking about how a scoliosis diagnosis can affect your child's day-to-day life. The last few episodes we've been talking about scoliosis, how we detect scoliosis, who's at risk, and treatment options regarding bracing and different things like that. So today I wanna talk a little bit about what it means moving forward after a diagnosis.

A lot of patients that we see are extremely active when you're younger. Obviously it's playing, maybe it's recess or, recreational sports, things like that. We have some patients also that are really competitive athletes, so whether that's dance or wrestling, football, lifting, lots of different, uh, activities, softball, gymnastics.

The list goes on.

Swimming also is a really big one where, a lot of the swimmers that we see definitely, have some questions about that and how that might affect their sport or how they move forward with that. So we'll talk about that today as well.

First I just wanna kind of go back and talk about, you know, who's typically affected by this.

So kids between the ages of 10 and 14 are really at the highest risk of progression because that's when they're growing the fastest. Five percent of the adolescent population is affected by scoliosis, and so we wanna make sure that we are aware of that, and we're looking at our health and our kids and making sure that we have ways to check their spines because they're not typically doing it in schools anymore.

And so sports physicals are a big part of that. And if you've got an athlete, you know that every year you're doing a sports physical. So make sure that you are asking those questions when you're in the physical, if they're not bringing that up on their own.

So once you have a diagnosis, typically speaking, you don't have to change a whole lot as far as activity unless you have something else going on.

And so an example of that might be if you're an athlete and you're having pain, then that tells us that there's something going on in your body. And so there's two different sides of how we treat scoliosis. There's more of a functional piece of that, and then there's a structural piece of that. So, the structural piece is what's shown on x-ray, whether or not you need a brace, whether or not we might be doing rehab, things like that as far as how do we get your curve stable, first of all, and then can we gain correction in that curve.

The other piece of that is the functional piece, so that would be pain, stiffness, trouble sleeping, trouble doing certain activities, um, things of that nature. I would say a large portion of the people that I see at least come in and they may not have glaring symptoms. So it's not always that we'll have a 13 or 14-year-old come into the office and they're having, you know, massive headaches or extreme low back pain or, really big symptoms like that.

Most of the time they actually tell me that they don't notice anything. If I say, "do you have pain anywhere? Are you noticing anything? Has anything changed?" They usually say like, "Nope, nope, we haven't experienced that."

Now that doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, but I really want to, you know, show that just because you have a scoliosis doesn't mean that you're going to have extreme pain.

And the level of the pain that you have doesn't always necessarily tell us the severity of the scoliosis. So somebody with no symptoms could have a really significant curve and somebody that has really extreme symptoms could have a lower curve, but just isn't adapting to that well. So that's why for sure, regardless of symptoms and regardless of if you're noticing things like that from a functional side, you wanna make sure that you've got really good evaluations and you wanna make sure that you have x-rays.

So, just a tip that I'm throwing out there for you, because a lot of people think that pain and severity go hand in hand and they really don't. I have noticed that, you know, over the time that we've worked with patients is that you really can't link those things together. I've had some really severe scoliosis cases and they don't have symptoms at all.

So depending on the sport that they have, and depending on the level of the sport that they have, will guide your provider in how you may need to change or alter some of their activities. So for example, if you have, uh, a wrestler or a football player, and if he has a kyphosis and the spine is coming forward on itself, normal activities can be day-to-day things, um, even still playing the sport. But what might change is, at least in my experience, the lifting piece of that. So a lot of the wrestlers and a lot of the football players and really any athlete in high school these days are doing some sort of lifting and strengthening program, at least most of the high school athletes that we work with.

So some of that piece might change. Like you're not going to load the top of your spine with 150 pounds to do back squats if you have an issue in your spine. That doesn't mean that you can't strengthen those muscles. We just have really in depth conversations with their trainers or with the student or the athlete who's, who's doing the lifting, and we find different ways that they can strengthen without loading their spine.

And that's really one of the biggest things that I've seen lately is the lifting piece of the higher level sports. Um, even up into college because they want that strength so that we can prevent injuries and they can be faster and they can be stronger. But we need to be conscious of whether it's a scoliosis or a kyphosis, how they're using their bodies and, and making sure that they're not doing a ton of work in the office, whether that's with a brace or with rehab.

And then going into the gym and compromising their spine, and not getting anywhere because that's frustrating for everyone. As far as the rest of the activities, so summertime activities, going to the lake, going to the pool, being outside, playing volleyball, any of those sports, most of the time kids can continue to do those sports.

I would say most kids are not practicing something multiple days a week, multiple hours at a time. The only time I've come into that, um, where it's maybe become a topic of conversation is if somebody's, for example, doing dance and they're dancing every single day and they're extremely competitive and they're dancing for anywhere from three to five hours every single day.

If they have a significant curve and that's impacting or affecting their ability to complete their treatment, or if it's affecting how their body's responding to treatment, then sometimes that might become a conversation. But those are in more extreme and rare cases. So generally speaking, as long as your child isn't experiencing pain or extreme symptoms, we can find a way to manage the treatment that they need for their scoliosis and still be able to participate in all of the activities that they would normally participate in.

Regarding family time, it's the same scenario. I know especially when kids get braces, the first question is, you know, we have a lake house, or we like to go out on the river in the summertime and so it does become tricky because if you're in a bathing suit and they don't wanna wear their brace, if they would have a brace all day long, we have to figure out where the balance is for that. So obviously, if you're supposed to be wearing a brace full time we can't have a child out of their brace every single day in the summer for 12 to 14 hours a day.

But we can compromise. So if they're wearing their brace, compliantly and for the amount of time they're supposed to be, and you're going on a family trip for five days, then that's where we make some of those concessions where we'll say, "okay your average wear time is really good during these periods of time, and so over this trip we'll have you wear it at night and for as much of the day as possible, outside of doing your, you know, family activities, whatever that might be on their trip."

And they're able to do that because they're being really compliant on the front side and the backside of those types of events.

So there's ways to work around family activities, sports, recreational activities, you just really have to be intentional because time really does slip away, and especially when school is in session. If you're in school and your child's supposed to be wearing a brace, but they take it off for gym and then they have lunch, so they just decide not to put it on for lunch.

And then they have band, and then they decide not to put it on for the last hour of the day, but then they have track, and then they get home and they shower, and they don't get it back on until nine, 10 o'clock at night. You've now missed an entire portion of that day without even realizing it. So those times in between the activities are really crucial if you're in a brace to make sure that you're getting your wear time.

So that might look like you take the brace off for gym, you put it right back on, wear it through lunch. Maybe you then take it off for band or orchestra if you have to, and it goes right back on for the next hour and a half to two hours, and then it comes off for track practice and then goes straight back on.

So that intentionality is really key so that we don't miss out on the easier opportunities to get your brace wear in. And that's where I see a lot of struggle with the activities. It's not so much that they can't complete their activities, it's that trying to get those timeframes in, in between those activities, can be difficult.

Mostly because they're at school, they're at activities, their parents aren't there, and time just kind of gets away from them. So that's one of the key things that we have to look at if your child is in a brace. Now, obviously if your child's not in a brace and they're doing rehab or they're doing other sorts of uh, care because they're not to that bracing point, then that doesn't apply, and typically they can continue to do all of the things that they would like to do.

And again, coming back to some of those pain and symptoms, things like that, there's lots of different options for that, and that's where we talk about some of our providers that we can bring in as part of the care team. So if you think about it as far as the structural piece, figuring out, you know, do we need a brace?

Do we not need a brace? Are we doing rehabilitation programs and things at home to be able to work with this? But then also, what do we bring in on this other side if we're having pain or if they're unable to do key movements to be able to participate in activities? And that's where things like, uh, physical therapists or chiropractors, body work professionals, whether it's massage therapy or acupuncture, dry needling, all of the different things that we can pull in to help from a, a symptomatic standpoint so that we have better movement, better function, reduced pain, those are all really important things that we can coordinate along with the care, because if someone's in pain we're trying to complete treatment on this side of it, they're not going to be able to be very compliant if they're hurting every day, all day.

So we want to get them into a really healthy place so that they can do all of the things that they want to do so it's not affecting their ability to hang out with friends, to um, be with their family and to be able to do the things that they love.

Because in reality, if we take away the things that are really important to patients, and this is whether you're a teenager or a young child or an adult, it's for any of us. If we can't do the things that we love to do, then all of the work that we're putting in on that front end isn't going to be as beneficial as it could be just from an emotional standpoint.

And so we wanna look at the entire part of the patient, not just what's on the x-ray. So there's more to that conversation and that's really the things that we wanna talk about and to, to bring up and to bring awareness to, because the emotional part of this type of work is really important because we want people to be able to enjoy their families, their friends, their lives day to day, and also be able to do the best things that they can for their health.

So these are just some tips and some, uh, some things that I've seen throughout our patient care, that hopefully are really helpful for you. So if you've just have a new diagnosis, whether it's for yourself or for your child, you can kind of read through this and know that just because you have a diagnosis doesn't mean that everything in your life has to change.

We just have to find a new normal and a new balance. And having the right team to be able to do that is really important. That way we do the right things at the right time and we get the right care for you when you need it. So if you have questions or if you have a diagnosis and you're not sure where to go from there, feel free to click on the links below our podcast, uh, you can get information about our clinic. We can do discovery calls. So if you have an x-ray, what that looks like is just a 10 or 15 minute call where we chat a little bit. You can ask some questions, we give some, general information to you specifically, and then see if we can help you find the next step in your journey.

So feel free to reach out to us. We're happy to help. We'll be on next week as well, and we're gonna be talking about options for patients after scoliosis surgery. So we can't wait to share some of those, um, tips as well. And we hope you have a great week.

Thanks for spending time with me today. If you could leave a review before you go, that would help us reach more people that need this message. To learn more about the services and resources that we have available, visit us at behindthebrace.com. This show is produced by RAYMA Team Media. To learn more about how they can help you with your podcast, visit raymateam.com.