Sharing knowledge

So term 1 is over!! Yep school is done for two weeks And it’s been nice to just sit and relax not needing to do anything for a while. Just sitting on the couch watching Netflix and the Commonwealth Games.

I wanted to do an update on everything but there isn’t really much more I can share that I haven’t already but then I realised pretty much all people following this blog don’t have scoliosis so I thought I’d just do a general post about what scoliosis involves. Not the medical side of things because anyone could find that online but the things that the doctors and the surgeons don’t mention. Basically just the emotional side of it.

I’m so glad that so far I haven’t been too self conscious about my curve at all although I will admit I do sometimes try to hide the fact that my ribs stick out or that I have a lump on my back. I’ve now realised though that no one really cares. I have had a few people at school ask me about my scoliosis and ask if they can see my spine. I don’t mind this and I’m more than happy to bend over and show them how my spine sticks out and curves.

I think I’m fine with this because I want people to learn about it. When I was first diagnosed I didn’t know what scoliosis was but I think more people should know about it because it’s actually quite common. It’s not very rare at all. After doing some research I have realised that sever scoliosis actually isn’t that common but if you think about the fact that about 10% of adolescents have at least some degree of curve that’s actually quite a lot of people.

I did want to just share some facts I found because I found them really interesting and I think it helps put it all into perspective. 2-3% of the population have scoliosis. It doesn’t sound like many but that’s 6 million people in the US. Severe scoliosis actually isn’t that common because for of all adolescents that have any curve at all only 1% of them will require surgery. However, each year 29,000 scoliosis effected surgeries are performed in the US. So when you find the figures it does actually sound like quite a lot.

That’s one of the reasons why I wanted to start this blog. To help share and spread awareness on this condition so maybe people can spot it earlier. All my friends have already learnt so much about scoliosis just from hearing my stories and I think so many more people can learn from hearing others experiences.