Scoliosis: Life, Support & Friends

So, here we are again, back at the gym after a 2 week break (a much needed one!). I must admit I was a little "ugh I don't want to start beating up my body again" but as per usual I surprise myself at what this twisty body of mine can actually achieve! We talked about how I was doing Power Plate twice weekly now, however, I have noticed that I am a little knackered after doing these exercises every Tuesday and Thursday so this week I decided to go back to once a week and see how that makes me feel. I will use the time I would have spent at the gym on Thursdays to concentrate on my yoga, plus I will be utilising my exercise ball to keep up with my sit ups. I am also swimming daily which is helping a great deal - now all I have to do is stop eating so many carbs! ;=)     I always start my routine with squats and I am doing this so much better now, the strength in my legs is so much greater which of course has positive benefits to my lower spine. Below I have added so...

I promised I would keep you upto date with my progress on the Powerplate and I have now completed my 10 sessions :) During the last few weeks we started doing the PowerPlate twice weeekly vs once - I started off with once a week because I wasn't sure how my back would feel and going on previous experience in a gym I didn't want to rock the boat too much with something new, however, I have enjoyed the powerplate so much; I was always excited about going! Our trainer Daisy Mae Scott said that if I do it twice weekly I will notice the benefits more; so after 4 weeks of my training I went on to twice weekly. The training got a little harder and I did find that the first week of doing the powerplate twice a week was a little hard for me as the intensity had also increased and some of the poses felt like my rod was shaking itself to bits! I did 6 sessions in 3 weeks and now I am taking a week's break before I continue again next week. I must admit I feel stronger and more a...

WOW! I can't believe it I have been doing this gym thing now for 4 weeks and my trainer Daisy Hudson is really starting to crack the whip with me and boy oh boy can I feel it! Now, as I mentioned before with my previous gym efforts, it had all gone very sour by now, simply because I had over strained something and the trainer didn't understand the mechanics of a twisted spine, however, this time round is very, very different. Daisy has listened to my tales of woe regarding my back, tried her best to understand what I can and cannot do due to the Harrington Rod and generally been a great support for my work-outs - I am starting to love it! As per usual I started off with the Power Plate session which lasts just 20 minutes, Daisy works a lot on my legs during this time and I carry out a lot of squat movements 1of which is a deep squat for 45 seconds - she has me laying on both sides for cellulite which is also a bit of a time out and relaxation. We then do some of the yoga mov...

I have been away for a long time blogging and I am sorry about that, however, I am back and in full fighting force and boy have I been busy! After losing my beloved husband Chris Icough I have moved to England from Spain and back again, clearly I was a little delirious, upset, tired, heart broken, stressed and very very lost. Spain is where we started our life and I missed my friends when I left, therefore, coming back to Spain was a good move for me. I have started to settle a little where my daily life and routine was concerned. During this time I lost a lot of weight, my body has thrown at me everything it possible can from rashes to daily periods! It was time to sort myself out.............. One of my gorgeous girlfriends Daisy Hudson is a gym instructor and mentioned to me about a workout she would like to get me involved with, she has just recently passed her course to become a personal trainer and during her training they had explained a little about Scoliosis to her. Daisy...

Well, I have been up front and sharing since I joined the Scoliosis community over 5 years ago so I decided I would not stop now, I am sure I will not say something here that has not crossed the mind of many chronic pain sufferer with Scoliosis! But I have never been one to mix my words so I will not start now :) I think this week has to be in my "Top 10 Pain Weeks with Scoliosis" and finally I gave in, went to see the Dr and got myself some drugs! While we are at it, let's throw some facts in here - where does the word drug come from? Well it turns out that the word comes from the Dutch word droog, which means dry because most drugs (medicines) came from dried plants - so there you have it, cool fact for the day hahaha! I have always had a problem with the donor site as many of you well know (donor site = where they take bone form the hip to place around the spine) but these past few months it seems to have changed and would swell constantly rendering me unable to...

Hey, fellow ScoNuts. Sorry for my lack of posts, but minus the surgery, there's nothing very interesting about my day-to-day life. At least, nothing none of you aren't already painfully familiar with. I moved in with my boyfriend, and he's being wonderful to me. He does everything for me, despite my protests; consequently, I have become even more sedentary (I didn't realize that was possible), so my pain has skyrocketed. I know I'm gaining weight, too. I still don't have insurance, but I have the option to buy a policy from the company that used to insure me. Of course, who's going to insure me with a spine like mine? At best, it'll be labeled a preexisting condition and excluded completely. So I have to apply and be approved for disability before I can go back to St. Louis, and God only knows how many years that will take. Dr. Bones wanted me to wait ten more years, and now it looks like I might have to. :( I've got some tips about good disabi...

Scoliosis Journal posted the following information regarding: Specific exercises performed in the period of brace weaning can avoid loss of correction in Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis (AIS) patients: Winner of SOSORT's 2008 Award for Best Clinical Paper Published: 7 2009 Authors: Fabio Zaina, Stefano Negrini, Salvatore Atanasio, Claudia Fusco, Michele Romano and Alessandra Negrini email Background Exercises are frequently performed in order to improve the efficacy of bracing and avoid its collateral effects. Very frequently there is a loss of correction during brace weaning in AIS treatment. Aim: To verify the efficacy of exercises in reducing correction loss during brace weaning. Study Design: Retrospective controlled study. Population: Sixty-eight consecutive patients (eight males), age 15+/-1 and Cobb angle 22+/-2degrees at start of brace weaning. Methods The start of brace weaning was defined as the first visit in which the wearing of brace for less than 18/24 hours was pre...

I didn't go to Yoga/Pilates on Thursday, I woke with awful lower back pain, a bit like I have been experiencing over the past months, I struggled to walk and had shooting pains down my legs and shooting pains going across the lumbar, I had to prop myself up when getting from A to B. There was no way I could face the drive down to Marbella and back, the car always make my pains worse, it is not just the position that car seats force you to be in but the bumps and bangs on the road. My muscles on the lower part of my back felt like they were going to go into spasm and that scares me the most because the pain is just un-bearable!!! I wrote to Dr Ayllon to tell him that I wasn't going to make it, I didn't want him or the teacher thinking I couldn't be bothered, more like I couldn't get there on my own steam! So far I have only managed to get to class once a week as every time I go to class, 2 days later I am in pain, most unusual. I appreciate that I no longer have Scol...

The last 9 days have been a little hectic, bad news on our adoption from China which has really taken it's toll on Chris and I. We completed our home study last June and passed panel last October (2007), a few weeks ago (August) we were requested to send our money orders to the DCFS ready for our paperwork to be sent to China, this made us very excited indeed and we were loking forward to the day we would receive our LID (log in date). All these great plans and positive feelings we soon shot into space when our adoption agency (PACT) called us and asked us for CRB checks from Spain, we had never hidden Spain from them and in fact was a positive part of our passing panel, anyway, they had forgotten to ask us to get these done, putting us weeks behind sending our dossier. 2 weeks agao the CCAA (China Centre of Adoption Affairs) relased a statement to the French ministers indicating that many Chinese families are now eligible to domestically adopt these children, meaning the wait for ...

Once again felt good this morning but this afternoon I feel sore and in pain again, after my shower I wanted to wrap my hair in a towel so I put my head forward to do so and I couldn't do it because the pain was too much and almost knocked me to the floor. If I am sat down and I bend forward the pain comes rushing and it is in the center of my back, bending down is a chore, I have to bend to the left and then go down and then coming back up again I use my hands on my knees and come up that way. When I lay on my bed the pain starts but once I have been laid for a while it subsides, I have not done any exercise since this started as I simply cannot face it and I am scared of what the pain will be if I try. I can walk fairly OK but it is a great effort and I just feel drained (that could also be the heat). The pain is OK when I raise my legs nothing at all, but all I can feel is immense pressure all the time in the diosc area of my spine, of course it could be radiating pain but who k...