The word scoliosis is used a lot by health practitioners. Unfortunately, it can be used to scare a patient into “needing” lots of treatments.
What is scoliosis and why does it matter?
All the word Scoliosis means is a spine that is not perfectly straight, spoiler alert: this is very, very common!
Its technical definition is a sideways curve of the spine in either an S-shape or a C-shape.
Unless it’s severe, a diagnosis of scoliosis simply means your spine is not exactly symmetrical... and for most of us, neither are the size of our hands, or feet, nor the length of our legs and arms.
The reason scoliosis gets such a bad rep is because we used to believe that poor posture causes pain.
Science has come a long way since then and we now know that there is ZERO relationship between your posture and pain.
So long as your back functions well, then that is all that matters.
So, now that we know the word scoliosis is very rarely a big deal for your health, if your back is hurting then come in and see us to find out what the real issue is.
What’s Cobb have to do with it?
We said at the start that severity matters. Dr. Cobb discovered that scoliosis with a Cobb angle bigger than 30 degrees tends to keep getting worse. This is when it can affect the function of the spine and of the lungs. But luckily, this serious situation is surprisingly rare.
We know this is a much-debated topic, so please get in touch if you'd like to know more.