Hi pls read, I've no idea what to do and I'm in a desperate situation, really alone in my condition and any help or advice or feedback whatsoever will be much appreciated!
I live in Singapore and started to have spasms of my neck a year back when I started a desk based job, went to the doc and got a hospital appointment which took ages (originally, it was scheduled for within 2 weeks but kept being postponed to3 months later) so to gain some relief I went to the Chiropractor. The Chiro experience was in general a bad one, but the good thing that came out of it is I found I have a hemivertebra (congential) that is, a half formed vertebra at T3. I have no idea how many degrees it is as I have never gone to the Chiro again because of bad experiences.
The spinal surgeon wasn't very helpful and even went so far to suggest that I may have epilepsy. I had gone to see him in March of 2010 and I have another appointment with him but that's on the 21st of Jan 2011!!
Anyway I also got an MRI done within this time and then had an appointment with the neurologist who said my spasms seemed to be torticollis/cervical dystonia (contraction/shortening of neck muscles). She prescribed muscle relaxants and/or botox. I decided not to go in for botox
MY QUESTIONS:
1) What should I know about scoliosis? E.g, what are the long term effects of it, what can I do to manage it? I read somewhere that it causes a reduce of dopamine which further aggravates the scoliosis, is this true?
2) I think my priority would be to address my spinal issue rather than my torticollis. Would this be right?
Any other questions/feedback appreciated. Thanks a tonne

I am sorry you are faced with this stressful issue and your Dr's dont' seem very aggressive in wanting to help you.
I don't think I can be of much help other than to say that I also recently found out that I have a scoliosis while I was having a spinal procedure done but none of my Dr's seem to think it's anything worth discussing. They just say that I've probably had it since I was a teenager. They didn't even measure it to see what degree it is. I can see it on my xrays.

I'm sure someone will come along and be of more help.
I just wanted to say that I am sorry you are dealing with this.
I am interested to see what feedback you get, as it will probably help me also. I am interested to know more about the dopamine issue you brought up.

Best wishes to you
Rae

What degree is your scoliosis?
The drs or the MRI should have that information.
Is it minor, moderate, severe, is there a rotation of the spine as well as the side to side curvature?

I don't know about the T3 problem, if it would cause problems or not, the MRI should show if anything there is affecting the nerves, which can affect the muscles too.

For the desk job & neck pain & spasms - You might want to read on our Thoracic outlet syndrome forum , there are lots of stretches, posture videos etc to help with those symptoms. lots of info in the sticky threads too.
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/forum24.html

Hi ~ I looked up scoliosis, and from what I was able to find, it tends to progress. Usually there is degeneration and imbalance and you'll find leg length discrepancy and/or hip pathology. A source of pain and degeneration will be found in the lumbar or thoracic spine. Also, after menopause, many patients suffer from osteoporosis.

Patients present themselves at their doctors with lumbar pain and after tests are done, a lot of the time the surgeon has to do minimally invasive surgery to repair discs due to the curvature of the spine. This curvature puts stress on the spine, and hence the discs tend to herniate. There is also a chance of spinal stenosis.


I hope this answers SOME of your questions. I'm sure there is more information "out there." Alot of this is dependent on what degree your curvature is -- is it 30% or less than? Is it more than 30%? That makes a big difference.

I wish you the very best of luck. If we can be of any more help, please let us know. God bless. Hugs, Lee