The journey to recovery
Tahlia was introduced to Claire today and this is their first physiotherapy session together. This is also Tahlia’s first physiotherapy session after receiving her back brace. Claire is a physiotherapist who also suffers from scoliosis. She wasn’t comfortable revealing the extent of her own condition but we can tell that her jaw was visually off centred. She also previously received the same orthodontic and KKT treatment that Tahlia received. Claire didn’t discover her scoliosis until she became an adult. She told us that her scoliosis caused her severe and debilitating headaches but that she has cured herself through exercise.
Claire treated Tahlia using the cranial sacral technique. She basically touched Tahlia gently on all her problem areas to release neural tension.
She also went over all the exercises that Tahlia previous learned at the KKT centre to make sure that Tahlia’s alignment was correct during exercise and also to make sure that she understood the significance of each exercise.
Claire spent a lot of time examining Tahlia today. She made sure that Tahlia’s legs were the same length to make sure that they were not causing unevenness in her hips. She concluded that the difference between Tahlia’s legs was less than 1 cm so we did not need to use any heel support.
She also warned us that the brace would restrict gastric movement and could potentially cause a lot of gas build up in Tahlia’s colons. Her colleague, Mr Tong, also noticed this when he examined her x-rays. He noticed a severe twist in the 1 and 2 sections of the lumbar spine and asked if Tahlia suffered from any stomach pain or indigestion. Tahlia told him that she didn’t sense any pain in that area. We did notice that Tahlia tends to hiccup a lot and the lumbar twist was noted as a possible reason.
The negative aspects of using the brace are that the body will become dependent on the brace for support and lose muscle tension, therefore, it is imperative to spend at least 10 mins exercising every day before bedtime. We reminded her before she went to bed but found her fast asleep before she managed to get any exercise done. I’ll have to physically watch her tomorrow.