Chronic back pain a fact of life for many people, but it is almost TWICE as likely if you have scoliosis according to a 50-year follow-up study of adults with scoliosis. Patients often describe their scoliosis back pain as burning, intense achiness, stiffness, spasms, and even breathtaking in some cases. It becomes more than a nuisance; it becomes the focal point of their lives every. single. day.
Many patients gradually begin planning their lives around chronic scoliosis back pain and it slowly erodes their lifelong hopes and dreams of an active and adventure-filled retirement later in life. I even had one patient describe their experience with scoliosis back pain as being stuck.
“I’m stuck,” she said. “I am stuck between pain and surgery. I am stuck between pain and pain killers. I am stuck between scoliosis pain and my life.”
The Search for a Better Way to Treat Chronic Adult Scoliosis Pain
Pills, potions, lotions, surgeries, even psychologists for treating scoliosis back pain in adults has led us down a road to nowhere and we need a new and better way. Many patients (correctly, in my opinion) have turned to active rehabilitation approaches for treating their chronic scoliosis pain. Yoga, Pilates, Schroth, and inversion tables anecdotally have provided long-time scoliosis back pain sufferers with varying degrees of success, but all of these approaches only provide temporary pain reduction and fail to produce measurable long-term results for treating the actual scoliosis condition.
Spinal Rotation Is the “Engine” of Scoliosis Progression
Understandably (but inaccurately), most patients see a crooked or bent spine on their x-ray and mistakenly think the curvature itself is the entire “problem” scoliosis creates. In reality, scoliosis is much, much, much more complicated. In fact, it really isn’t “bending” so much as it is “twisting.”
Think of the curve in a scoliosis spine as a rubber band that is being twisted from the top and bottom until it makes a “coil” and buckles to the side. This is the true dynamic and biomechanical “driver” of scoliosis progression. One cannot simply “push” on the outside of the curvature (like a scoliosis brace) toward the midline and force the spine straighter. Actually, due to the unique rotation patterns seen only in scoliosis, many times “pushing” on the spine with a hard or soft back brace will INCREASE the spinal rotation and make the scoliosis spine “coil down” even more!
Any realistic treatment effort to treat the unique biomechanics of a spine afflicted with scoliosis is going to have to focus on DE-ROTATING the spinal curve and, furthermore, teaching the patients AUTOMATIC postural control centers in the brain how to do so permanently.
While this may sound a bit new and/or far-fetched, it can be done with an entirely new concept in the treatment of adult scoliosis and the painful symptoms often associated with the condition. We call it the Scoliosis Activity Suit.
6 Ways the Scoliosis Activity Suit Can (Will) Reduce Your Scoliosis Pain While Improving Your True Core Strength & Stability
Increased Core Strength & Stability
“Core stability” has been a hot topic buzzword around physical therapy offices and gyms for decades, but for the most part is being misused and misunderstood, especially when it comes to adult scoliosis.
Core strength/stability is more than just how many sit-ups or back extensions one can perform during a workout. The adult scoliosis patient has specific needs and core stability should be more focused on “specific muscle recruitment” than general muscle strength or endurance.
Without getting too “wonky” on spinal anatomy, it needs to be recognized that intrinsic spinal muscles (groups of muscles within the spine that are involuntarily controlled but make up the bulk of one’s true “core stability”) are not significantly influenced by voluntary motion exercises like yoga, Pilates, Schroth, or weightlifting (these activities only train the muscles used for lifting or resisting gravity, not coordinating your automatic spinal alignment to gravity). Thus, it requires a unique “reflexive re-training” approach so the brain learns to activate and use the “true core stabilization” spinal muscles patient do not have conscious control over.
The Scoliosis Activity Suit works with your body’s natural movements, creating new muscle memory while actively reducing and stabilizing adult scoliosis.
Unlike rigid scoliosis braces, the Scoliosis Activity Suit has been designed through advanced engineering and human biomechanical analysis to stimulate and engage deep-layer “intrinsic” spinal muscles while you perform the normal activities of daily living.
Reduced Spinal Rotation & “Torque” on the Scoliosis Spine
Scoliosis curve progression is driven by spinal rotation causing a torque type “corkscrew” effect seen on a 2-dimensional x-ray as just a bending spine. This “torque” is being caused by the coordinated misfiring of spinal muscles to hold the spine in a twisted position when upright to gravity. Anyone who just stands in a semi-twisted position for any length of time will tell you it is a lot harder and tiring than just standing normally, so it stands to reason holding your spine in a twisted position for long periods of time would be exhausting and uncomfortable.
The Scoliosis Activity Suit targets the spinal rotation and reduces the scoliosis curve by causing your brain to untwist it, thus reducing torque on the spinal column.
Re-Coordinating Spinal Muscles Firing Patterns
They say, “many hands make light work,” and that is also true when it comes to muscular support of the spinal column.
The human spine is covered with five layers of spinal muscles (numbering literally in the hundreds) and they are designed to work together in a coordinated fashion. Unfortunately, mis-coordinated muscle firing patterns are very common in patients with scoliosis (and especially in adult patients with chronic scoliosis pain).
The Scoliosis Activity Suit actively recruits muscle firing patterns and gets them all firing at the same time again, thereby reducing fatigue, spasms, and pain!
Improved Spinal Balance
While virtually all scoliosis curves are twisted from spinal rotation, some curve patterns also develop a body shift as part of the natural compensation for the condition. This unbalances your body’s natural center of gravity, making the spinal muscles work harder to hold you up to gravity and becoming painful if forced to do so day after day.
Fortunately, the Scoliosis Activity Suit can be recommended to improve both the spinal twist and body shift at the same time.
Scoliosis Curve Reduction
79% of adult scoliosis patients using the adult Scoliosis Activity Suit we able to reduce their spinal curves by 6 degrees or more after using the Scoliosis Activity Suit for 18 months.
Many still believe adult scoliosis cannot be improved non-surgically, but patient after patient using the Scoliosis Activity Suit is proving them wrong.
While curve size reduction does not always correlate with scoliosis pain reduction, an overwhelming number of the patients in the study also reported less pain and improved quality of life.
Using the Scoliosis Activity Suit Encourages More Physical Activity
Since the Scoliosis Activity Suit creates resistance and reaction from the walking motion, many adult scoliosis patients are increasing their overall activity levels as part of their daily routine. This can have many significant health benefits, including weight loss, improved circulation, and decreased stress — all of which can and do contribute to less pain and improve quality of life.
Conclusion
Chronic scoliosis pain in adults is a tough condition to treat. Most existing treatment methods are solely focused on surgery or pain medications to manage — not fix — the underlying causes of scoliosis pain. In reality, the primary cause of scoliosis pain is often related to the spinal twisting causing torque on the spinal column, lack of spinal balance and muscle firing patterns, and poor “true” core stability.
The pain syndrome often leads patients to less-active lifestyles (which only compounds the problems).
The Scoliosis Activity Suit has been specifically designed to address all of these complications. What was once deemed impossible has become consistently possible for many adult scoliosis pain sufferers who had otherwise lost hope.
Click here for more information on the Scoliosis Activity Suit for adults.
