On May 1st, Anna had her regular 11 year old physical and when the doctor had her bend over to do her usual scoliosis screening, she said, "Oh my," to which Anna responded, "Well, that doesn't sound very good." We went right up for X-rays and got a phone call that night that she had scoliosis and needed to go see a specialist in Iowa City.
This morning we headed out at 6:00am for our appointment with Dr. Weinstein who is one of the most famous scoliosis doctors in the nation and after more X-rays he informed us that she has a 21 degree curve which means she needs to be put into a brace to help keep the curve from getting worse. The X-ray below shows her "s" curve. Anything over 50 degrees would send us straight to the operating room so the goal is to keep her curve from getting worse as she begins to go through a growth spurt. We will go back for X-rays every 6 months until high school to evaluate how the spine is behaving as she grows. She was fitted for her brace today and we will head back to Iowa City in a few weeks to pick up the brace. She will need to wear the brace 16 hours a day until she stops growing in high school. She has a VERY good attitude about the whole thing right now but I can imagine that once the brace gets on her body she may not be loving being limited in her mobility. She can continue with all sports which of course thrilled her!!! Time will tell what the future holds but our goal is to have no surgery... spine surgery is one of the most painful surgeries and we don't want her to have to go through any pain!!!
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