“Can my scoliosis condition be treated permanently?” This is often a major concern among people suffering from this spinal condition that causes an abnormal curve along the spine. Scoliosis tags along with excruciating back pain that gets worse if left untreated and can significantly reduce your quality of life. Part of the scoliosis treatment process involves seeking pain relief remedies. To answer this question, there is quite simply no treatment for scoliosis.
We need patients to understand that the abnormal curvature on the spine that defines scoliosis cannot be eradicated. However, experts work on slowing down the rates of progression on the curve and alleviating pain to improve your well-being and health. The following are viable treatments that offer pain relief from scoliosis to make the condition bearable.
Medication
Pain-killing medications offer pain relief on short-term courses. NSAIDs such as ibuprofen can help with alleviating pain when the condition is still in its mild stages. You can easily access these painkillers from over-the-counter. In some cases where these over-the-counter painkillers don’t nail down the pain, your doctor could prescribe stronger medication.
Corticosteroid injections
Does your scoliosis condition irritate and put immense pressure on your spine and nerves, triggering numbness, pain, and tingling sensation that stretches from your lower back down to your toes? Your doctor might recommend corticosteroid injections to offer relief. These injections provide more prolonged comfort compared to ordinary pain killers. However, these injections’ benefits last a few weeks or months, and you may need to go back for more injections after the effects fade off.
Chiropractic care
Routine chiropractic care offers scoliosis patients with non-invasive, safe, and natural alternatives to pain relief. Your chiropractor will deliver gentle spinal adjustments to correct misalignment that increase inflammation in the spine caused by scoliosis. In increasing mobility through adjustments, your body is likely to manage scoliosis symptoms better. Chiropractors also give nutritional and exercise guidelines to scoliosis patients to help keep weight at desirable points that don’t inflict unnecessary pressure on the spine and nerves.
Scoliosis-specific exercises and stretches
Certain isometric and balancing exercises and stretches can help slow down adult scoliosis progression regardless of its source. Your chiropractor or physiotherapist can help you identify these exercises and stretches. Apart from regaining structural balance to slow down the progression of the condition, exercises maintain an ideal weight that offsets unnecessary pressure on the spine and nerves.
Stretches increase mobility within joints and also relieve pain. Patients are highly discouraged from undertaking vigorous activities that can strain the spine and increase the degree of scoliosis. You might also want to avoid long periods of physical inactivity. Experts recommend finding the right exercises and doing them at the right frequency for the best results.
Surgical intervention
Although the lumbar decompression surgery is least recommended among most adults, in some cases, this may be the only solution to relieving pain. Surgical intervention may be the last resort if:
• Your spinal curvature is significantly getting worse with severe pain.
• Your spine and nerves are suffering from severe irritation or getting squashed.
• Other discussed treatments don’t seem to offer pain relief.
It takes up to one year or more for patients to recover from spinal surgery. You may need to combine surgery with other pain relief remedies such as exercises, yoga, stretches, pain medication, chiropractic care, or physiotherapy for desired results.
Nutritional supplements and lifestyle changes
You could curb the progression of adult scoliosis by maintaining healthy mineral and vitamin levels in your body. Minerals such as vitamin C, manganese, magnesium, boron, phosphorus, and B-vitamin are vital for rebuilding bone density that significantly slows down scoliosis progression. Dietary supplements also relieve scoliosis pain through maintaining a healthy weight that doesn’t strain your spine. Talk to a chiropractor or nutritionist to help you determine the right nutritional supplements and lifestyle changes for you.
Counseling
Your doctor may recommend seeing a counselor to help you manage chronic pain through therapy. How so? You’ve probably heard the common saying, “It’s all in the mind.” One common type of approach, known as cognitive behavioral therapy, has been utilized among patients suffering from chronic pain. While CBT won’t change the pain felt, it equips you with the right techniques to cope with it. Your therapist should help you develop techniques for dealing with adult scoliosis pain.
Have you been suffering from scoliosis pain for the longest time now without effective treatments? You came to the right place. Reach us at 205-637-1363 to talk to one of us. We will help you find the right treatment and deal with your pain for once and for all.
