Scoliosis

I was dx with scoliosis about 3 years ago in florida. however, i had symptoms way before this. the entire reason i learned i had this, was because i was tired of back pain and headaches. i had headaches (really migraines quite often) since i was about 14 and they just have gotten progressively worse. i would say once a week now since starting school i have a debilitating migraine where i come home from school and just go to bed. i put a hot rice pack on my back, take some ibuprofen and turn off the lights. Right now i have just been managing pain and kind of didnt realize i was doing it... it just seemed natural after so many years.. ok.. got a migraine.. lets try to get rid of it. So i had tried to find the source of all these damn migraines. funny thing is, is that for every place i went to, there was a possibility of the source. the eye dr said i strain my eyes..maybe that caused the headache. spent a lot of money on glasses. then the dentist said i grind my teeth and need a night guard ok. tried that. sometimes when a person clenches the jaw it causes headaches. then i went to physical therapy when i was pregnant with ethan and found my hip was out of placement and the therapist would pull on my leg to stretch the joint. she thought it contributed to the pregnancy.. i thought my legs were uneven lol!! didnt think it couldve been just the joint. makes sense now. when i used to work full time i would come home with unbelievable pains in my legs, and have my boyfriend at the time rub them until his arms fell off. i think because of the scoliosis, it caused problems with standing (and sitting!!) and all of this pain ive been having. OH they did give me tramadol. i didnt really like taking it though i wanted to find something else i coudl do aside from pop a pill. it made me really tired also. So i went to a dr for the headaches. i believe he was some kind of a neuro...something dr.. he did an MRI and this was the first time i had heard of me having scoliosis. i went thinking maybe theres something in my brain causing all these migraines. i tried everything else. so he showed me my spine and in the cervical area of the spine, it was crooked. the dr didnt really do too much for me aside from give me a dx and tell me to do weight bearing exercises. i found a physical therapy through my primary care dr and he was from nigeria, which i believe may have had something to do with why his practice was so great! its a small office he had, but you would leave feeling better. problem is, is that it only lasted about 2 days. on a good day. he used the tens unit and applied creams and heat and such. i went back to that neuro dr. to see if my insurance would cover a tens unit and it did! so i went and got one and that helped too. so i quit therapy since my schedule was hectic with school and now i could use this tens at home. before i left that physical therapist office, he told me more about my scoliosis and that my shoulders appeared uneven. i went home that day and looked in the mirror and he was right. i even measured them. totally uneven. so now its been about 2 years since i had anyone talk to me about this. none of my pcps have ever talked to me about this or my options. which is odd considering the pcp sent me to therapy in the first place. anyhow... im going to call my dr and set an appt to see what i can do because now that im sitting at a desk writing for about 7 hours in clinical, it really is bothering me a lot again and i have no time to devote hours to napping to get rid of this pain. im going to start back up with the weight bearing exercises and ive been applying creams to my back and marks been rubbing my shoulders now and then. when he does it though, he has to like rip the muscle. i cant explain it.. but i need really deep massages to the point it kind of hurts but that feel good feeling is more so than the pain. i refuse to have surgery on my back or anything invasive like that. so i guess we will see what can be done about this before i lose my mind :) on another note my legs no longer hurt. ive been wearing compression stockings when im at school and i shift my weight when standing to relieve pressure on my back. seems to work out ok for now. the other thing is, i wonder why no one had caught on to this earlier. when i went to school they used to do scoliosis tests and never said anything and during my yearly physical appts my whole life no one said anything even though they looked at my back and heard me complain about back pain since i was an early teenager. kind of irritating because maybe back then i could have had a brace or something. but ill just move forward and see what i can do now. so, here is something i found online and this is exactly what my back looks like. more so the upper part but i suspect maybe my hip has something to do with it also condering what i went through with the pregnancy? : Symptoms: Scoliosis is often painless. The curvature itself may often be too subtle to be noticed, even by observant parents. Some parents may notice abnormal posture in their growing child that includes: A tilted head that does not line up over the hips A protruding shoulder blade One hip or shoulder that is higher than the other, causing an uneven hem or shirt line An uneven neckline Leaning more to one side than the other In developing girls, breasts appearing to be of unequal size One side of the upper back is higher than the other when the child bends over, knees together, with the arms dangling down Signs of scoliosis Scoliosis may be suspected when one shoulder appears to be higher than the other, there is a curvature in the spine, or the pelvis appears to be tilted. The treatment of scoliosis can involve the use of a brace or surgery. Treatment is determined by the cause of the scoliosis, the size and location of the curve, and the stage of bone growth of the patient. With more advanced scoliosis, fatigue may occur after prolonged sitting or standing. Scoliosis caused by muscle spasms or growths on the spine can sometimes cause pain. Nearly always, however, mild scoliosis produces no symptoms, and the condition is usually detected by a pediatrician or during a school screening test.