After the appointment with the consultant I spent the next week attached to my laptop reading and researching everything I could find on Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis.  My husband and wider family were incredibly supportive and we all agreed that to do nothing was crazy and that some form of exercise therapy had to help.  On Day 1 of my research I found the website for the Scoliosis Association UK.  (www.sauk.org.uk)  This was a huge help and I quickly signed up to become a member which allowed me to access the website Forum.  I also called and spoke to one of their advisors who was really kind and helpful.  She gave me the contact details of parents like me with adolescent children who had Scoliosis so that I could speak to them and find out what they were doing.

I read the Forum posts daily and cried so many times as I read comments from parents whose children had significant curves and were facing imminent surgery.  Their fear and concerns for their child were heart breaking and I felt that I was incredibly lucky and that I had a real chance to make a difference for my son.  He’s young and he has a minor curve at present and that is our window of opportunity.

I also looked on Amazon and found a very interesting book: Your Plan for Natural Scoliosis Prevention and Treatment by Dr Kevin Lau.  This was quickly ordered and once it arrived I read it in two sittings!  Dr Lau also firmly recommended a specific course of exercises and also stressed the importance of nutrition – I’ll cover that in more detail in a later blog.

The more I learned about Scoliosis through Google the more one treatment kept coming up.  It was “The Schroth Method” – a three dimensional treatment for Scoliosis developed in the 1920’s by a German lady, Katharina Schroth, to improve her own Scoliosis.  See www.schrothmethod.com  By the 1960s, the Schroth Method had become the standard non-surgical treatment for scoliosis in Germany.  In fact, Schroth treatment is currently supported in Germany by the federal health insurance system, and German orthopaedic surgeons routinely refer patients for Schroth scoliosis exercise therapy.

I went back onto the SAUK forum and began to look for postings about Schroth and discovered a number of positive comments from a lady called Liz.  I contacted her first by email and then asked if I could call her and talk in more detail.  Liz has now become a great friend and ally in our battle with Scoliosis.  She has the condition herself and knows first-hand what a difference Schroth exercises can make.

My first phone call with Liz was a pivotal turning point for me and my husband.  We took the decision then that we would not sit around and “wait and see” as the consultant had suggested.  We would take positive steps to work against curve progression.  A relatively easy decision for us, but not so easy for our son as he’s the one who would have to do the exercises!