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Turtle Taekwondo -
Scoliosis |
Scoliosis
Another major influence in my life has been
Scoliosis;
it
is what actually prompted me to start Taekwondo in my bid to get fit as my
Scoliosis started to worsen.
Me,
Scoliosis and Taekwon-Do!
My name is Zoey and I am 40 years old, I first saw my curly spine in
1983 when I was 14 years old. My dad had been cutting my hair and complained
that I wouldn’t stand with my shoulders straight; well to me they were
straight!
My GP referred me to the local hospital and then I was referred to the
Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre. I remember my mum crying when they showed us my
x-ray and I couldn’t understand what she was so upset about!
I must have been a strange
teenager, because my spine never bothered me at all, I had no pain from it,
well maybe the odd back ache, but who doesn’t get back ache?
I was put into a Boston Brace and for the first 12-18months I wore it
religiously 23 hours a day.
I did my exercises every day, in the one hour I was allowed out of the
brace and saw a physiotherapist once a month. I had my brace changed every 6
months. I was
actually pleased to have my brace as I used it as an excuse not to do PE
at school. Years later I discovered that my classmates were quite freaked out
when I stood up
and removed my brace in the middle of a religious studies lesson! It was
really digging in that day.
We used to go to Oxford and spend the day having a new brace fitted,
then on the way home in the car it would dig in my legs and armpits as I sat
down in it for the
first time on a soft seat. On arriving home my dad would then get out
his tools and peel back the foam and cut away the offending pieces of plastic!
Luckily he had
always worked in a plastics factory and was a clever man, he always made
it fit better.
I was always a bit of a loner, but the few friends I did have never
mentioned my back or my brace to me, although I never noticed this at the
time.
A few months after having my first brace fitted I met my future husband
Ian, I used to let him punch me in the stomach as hard as he could, with my
brace on of course,
what fun! Over the years I slowly wore my brace for shorter periods as
it just seemed to get more unbearable each week. I had traction fitted to my
bed and I was
supposed to sleep with my hips strapped to the bottom of my bed and my
head in a halter fitted to a weight, which went over a pulley on the top end of
my bed.
I probably managed to stay in that thing all night once or twice, always
giving up after a few hours, just so I could sleep.
The years went by and at about 17 (during 1986 or 1987), I was deemed to
have stopped growing and all my treatments and monitoring were removed. I was
told that I
didn’t need surgery and that now I’d stopped growing, my curve (cobb angle)
wouldn’t get any worse.
At 19, I had my first child and it was a couple of years after this that
I really started to experience pain, carrying a baby and then a toddler around
really took its
toll on me. I asked to be referred back to
reached my 30s, 40s, or 50s. This wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear,
but at least I knew when things got bad I had a possible solution.
At 24 (in 1993) I had my second child, that pregnancy was much more
painful, with me sometimes feeling like I couldn’t breathe properly. The baby
sat high up under
my ribs and it felt like my lungs were being crushed! I saw my GP who
just thought I was making a fuss and sent me away. I did feel; and still do:
that my GP and
midwife should have been more aware of the impact of my scoliosis on the
pregnancy and made the effort to listen to me when I was struggling.
I think I am very lucky that I had my children when I was young, my body
coped remarkably well and now sometimes when I visit friends and relatives who
have just
started their families, I can’t hold their babies at all!
I had been advised to stay fit and historically I always cycled
everywhere, but aged 30 (in 2000) I decided to start a martial art. Myself, my
husband, daughter and
son all joined a local Taekwon-do school and we started training twice a
week for an hour a time.
I couldn’t do a single press up when I started, but my fitness and strength
improved quickly and I loved it!
We had moved house and counties and I became disheartened by my career
in the bank so I quit took a few months off and then sought a change of job. I
decided to
stay in an office environment (no weekend work!) and I started a
part-time filing job. I soon discovered that the huge piles of paper for filing
were far too heavy for
me to carry about, and the fact that I was filing at ground height, head
height and in-between meant that in a few years I became unable to do my job at
all.
I had never been told that certain things were bad for scoliotics and
can even worsen your condition. I wish I’d been told before I took that job and
then struggled on
through the pain month after month, because I don’t like to be beaten
and I don’t like to quit. I was actually making my back worse and although I
knew my pain was
becoming unbearable, I did not figure out it was the bending and lifting
affecting my scoliosis. I remembered my warning from the 90’s that my back
could get worse in
my 30’s and assumed that these changes were a result of my age, not what
I was doing to myself every day at work!
I was moved on to a desk job and my new GP referred me to
opinion that my double curve was ‘in-operable’, this left me very
distressed and without my back up plan and in constant pain. He said that my
lumbar spine would
continue to worsen and that I could potentially end up on a wheelchair.
He said surgery was not an option, but suggested injections into the spine to
relieve the pain.
I was referred to a pain consultant and had
By this point I had extreme neck and shoulder pain, which caused severe
migraines even making me sick, brought on by sitting. The
this, but I am certain it was
muscular pain and spasms brought on by my posture which is abnormal due to my
spinal formation. I tried several pain treatments, with
only the anti-inflammatory drugs
for arthritis that made any difference at all. I accepted this new consultant’s
opinion for a few years, but as things have got worse I
pushed my GP to refer me back to
of 1990, because after a wait I did see my original consultant. I had x-rays
showing that my scoliosis had changed very little, but the fact that I could no
longer cope
with the pain told me that something had changed, even if it wasn’t my
cobb angle!
As time has gone by I have found that certain exercises have become more
painful and I have had to stop doing some things all together. My training
became very
limited and I took the Instructors course so that I could continue in
Taekwon-do by helping others.
My office job has become impossible, as I can no longer sit at a desk,
my pain, numbness, aches, muscle spasms have become increasingly unbearable.
I had to stop work altogether when the unbearable pain only took 10
minutes of sitting at my desk before it set in.
In 2006 when I went back to
an operation, quite frankly it terrifies me, but I can clearly see that
I have no choice and am hoping to have the surgery while I am still young and fit
enough to recover
from it. I constantly pushed myself in my work and Taekwon-do often
working through great pain and then suffering for a few days, if I did too
much.
I have come to accept that I must be careful and keep moving, sitting at
a desk is excruciating, but walking around at Taekwon-do and talking to the
students actually
takes my mind off of my pain, which is constant now.
One of the worst things has been visiting Occupational Health, where I
was made to feel like I had given up and was not making enough effort to get
back to work.
I attended the recent SAUK Scoliosis in Adults meeting in
My Occupational Health doctor had told me that he ‘could not assess me
as an individual’ because he had to consider ‘back problems in the population
as a whole’, so this
meeting proved to me that there are very few people in the population as
a whole, who experience what I experience, so I endured my Occupational Health
meetings with
the knowledge that the doctor had no idea how my back was affecting me
and that he wasn’t there to assess how it affected me!
On my last visit there; the doctor was far more knowledgeable and
sympathetic, he had been to a seminar where a case study of a fireman with
scoliosis had been
studied. It was an amazing turn around and I finally felt he understood
at least some of the impact that scoliosis has on your life.
My contract at work has been terminated as they were not prepared to
wait for me to have the operation and then recover, before I could resume my
duties.
I am not upset by this, when you have real problems in your life it
really makes you appreciate the value of life and loved ones, and this clearly
outweighs beyond
measure any loss of income.
I am determined to keep as active as I can, but do ensure that I use my
brain as much as possible to learn and teach Taekwon-do.
I am going back to Oxford this year to tell my consultant that I am
having surgery.
I saw the Physiotherapist at
I had stopped training in Taekwon-do for quite a few months, but after
discussing the situation with the Physiotherapist she assured me that just
because I experience
pain when I train and afterwards; it did not mean that I was causing
more damage.
My pain has increased so much that I asked my physiotherapist for
exercises to help me build up the muscles in my back to help support me, she
suggested a couple of
standard exercises. I was also been given exercises to try and keep the
vertebrae as mobile as possible.
I suffer constant pain, but to maintain my mental health I still help
teach Taekwon-do and train when the pain is bearable (within my own personal
limits).
Taekwon-do is a good martial art with a mix of techniques and a certain
amount of flexibility in what the individual can achieve. It is also a
symmetrical activity, which
I have recently learned is vitally important for scoliotics.
I am still very glad that I started Taekwon-do, it frustrates me when I
can’t train, but at least I can still shout commands and maintain my website,
which has helped a
lot of students all around the world!
It is hard not to get depressed at my limitations, especially when I
expect so much of myself, but my friends and family are always around me and I
can now focus on
surgery and more importantly on my recovery and getting back to
Taekwon-do. Continues below………
SCOLIOSIS UPDATE 2008!!!!!
I am now 39 and I was on the waiting list for
surgery for 10 months. As time went by I became depressed and convinced that
this was not the right decision for me. I
am a fighter and I like to sort out my own
problems, how could I then just trust a stranger to cut open my back and fuse
my entire spine, inserting a metal rod either
side? A few nagging doubts kept popping up:-
If my cobb angle hadn’t actually worsened too much,
how would spinal fusion help my pain? If my pain was muscular, how would spinal
fusion help my pain?
Why hadn’t the physiotherapist at
If my spine hadn’t caused me pain before, then how
would surgery on the spine and only the spine help with my pain now?
These things nagged at me. The surgeon had said
that I needed an operation now and that he wouldn’t operate once I reached my
50’s or 60’s. BUT the surgeon at the
scoliosis in adults meeting in London in 2006 had
said that a good result of surgery would be if the rods lasted 25 years. Did
that mean at 65 I would suddenly need
more surgery? Well certainly not from my surgeon,
he doesn’t want to operate on me at that age!
Depression is no fun, but life has a way of
throwing you a line just when you feel like you’re sinking; and one week in
April 2008 I had a series of curious
conversations all telling me to do the same thing!
First my mum called to say she’d seen someone on
breakfast tv who has opened a clinic to help people with scoliosis, then my
Aunty called to say her friend had just been
to a clinic that had been set up to treat scoliosis
and that she’d had a great result from the course, then my friend in the NHS
called to say she’d been researching
scoliosis for me for a while and finally had a lead
on a clinic in Suffolk that treated scoliosis.
They were all talking about Scoliosis
I went to have an initial consultation in May and
they said that they felt they could help me, my next move was to speak to my
GP. She agreed that as the prospect of
surgery was affecting me so negatively, this was a
good decision for me. My GP phoned Oxford while I was still there and asked
them to take my name off of the
surgery waiting list. What a weight that lifted! 10
months on a 12 month waiting list, I call that a close shave.
I started an ongoing battle with the NHS to get my
treatment funded, but the NHS stance was to ask the surgeon if he thought this
treatment would help me and he
pointed out that there are no clinical trials to
prove the treatment is beneficial. I am still arguing the case. Curiously I
have found many sites that show trials into
scoliosis specific physiotherapy and there is a
list after this article for those also trying to find evidence to support this
type of treatment.
But in the mean time, I borrowed money from Mum,
Auntie and Uncle and Granddad and booked my 4 week intensive physiotherapy
treatment course for August this
year.
Thank you Mum, Auntie
Edna, Uncle Colin and Granddad Crossfield!!!
I can’t describe the emotions that came with 4
weeks away from my husband and children. It was over 200 miles from my home,
but I had every Saturday at home
before heading back on the Sunday. It wasn’t just
the isolation, it was hard physical work. It was, at times excruciatingly
painful, even as I could feel the pain changing
from what I had become accustomed to, new pains
were arriving. I even ended up becoming involved in a
programme, and so had embarrassment to add to my
list of evolving emotions!
I can truly say that in 20 days at the clinic, I
learned more about scoliosis and its effects, than I had in my previous 25
years since diagnosis.
On the NHS and privately mainly over the last 10
years, I had tried many things including Physiotherapy, acupuncture, tens
machine, TAMARS, massage, but nothing
helped my pain or stopped my muscles from
collapsing.
In one month in Suffolk, I have learned how to stretch
shortened muscles and strengthen them, learned what happens to the ribs as the
spine rotates and learned how to
breathe fully into both lungs, something I didn’t
even know I couldn’t do before! Yes I’m still in pain, but the excruciating rib
muscle spasms have been reduced
drastically, I’ve had my skin literally pulled off
of the bones, where it had become attached along with muscle. I’ve had core
muscles that have caused me intense pain
for years stretched and freed up in under 4 weeks.
I have been shown what is actually me standing straight and how to correct my
posture in the mirror.
I won’t go into detail about the 6 hours of
exercise every day Monday to Thursday, but I will post below my before and
after photos. They pretty much tell story!
As the pictures show, in August 1985 aged 16, you could not really see
that there was anything wrong with my back my shoulders are level which is all
you can see from
this photo, but in January 2004 when I felt like I was starting to
collapse, I got my husband to take the first photo. You can see the creases
appearing on the left in
the muscle, which is one of the places I get the most spasms! and on the
right. The central photo is my before photo taken on 11th August 08
on day one at the clinic. It
appears I was right and I was collapsing! The photo on the right is
after the 4 weeks of treatment. Looks like it helped to me. My pain is reduced
and more importantly
I can stand up straight. I still have arthritis in my spine, which seems
to have spread over the years, but I can cope with the pain from that as at the
moment my
medication helps. Avoiding sitting and asymmetrical activities is truly
helping my every day life.
In 4 weeks I seem to have undone more than 4 years of degeneration in my
posture.
The main benefit of the treatment for me was the positive mental
attitude I have regained. I can now look after myself better as a result of
speaking to people who
care and understand how scoliosis affects me and have showed me what I
can do about it! I now have wall bars in my living room and it’s fantastic!
This treatment is not a new idea, it has been available on the continent
since the 1920’s, I even researched and found before and after photos from the
1900’s.
The clinic in Suffolk is all thanks to one young girl who had this
treatment in Barcelona and became determined that it should be made available
in the UK, so she did
something about it.
Visit www.scoliosissos.com for more info on
non-surgical treatment for scoliosis.
I am determined to carry on
in Taekwondo and 10 minutes of long hanging on my wall bars soon stretches out
any muscles I aggravate during an hour of training!
Best wishes,
Zoey
Links to research:-
Reports and testimonials:
E-mail: zoey@turtletaekwondo.com
Website Copyright Zoey Fendt ©2008- no unauthorised
copying allowed.