Hi,

I found this website through googling about a specific problem that I am having so I thought I would sign up and post a thread that is catered for my problem as people were having similar but quite dissimilar experiences as I.

I'm a 17 year old male and recently I was 'diagnosed' or at least told I had 'thoracic scoliosis' and I haven't really asked what degree it is at or anything. I'm pretty sure I developed it over time through walking around with a really heavy sports bag (25KG) each day for around 4-5KM per day.

I've been going to a physiotherapist and I've gone about 3-4 times; each time I go in there, I will lie down on a massage-like table, I will leave all my school uniform on (weird - he told me I had scoliosis but he hasn't actually seen my back in the flesh) and he will massage my back through my shirt to somewhat deal with the pain and he usually hits it. He'll go over my back for 4-5 minutes, finding all these painful spots that I know I had as well as not having and will also push my spine.

The greatest pain of all with the scoliosis is that I get this really painful feeling in my back and the closest I could find with a quick google image search was a sharp, tingly, extremely painful feeling around the left scapula. I'm not really sure if that is the bone but I'll give basic instructions to where about the pain is sourced. If I get my fingers and rub them from the top of neck down my spine, I will travel over 5-6 of those spheric ball things along the spine (have no idea what they're called) and move 2-3 cm to the left of my spine and it feels as though it is somewhat attached to the edge of the shoulder blade.

This really sharp, demanding pain that I experience really only occurs when I sit upright at a desk - when I am handwriting doing homework or doing an exam, especially the latter under time pressure, it is possibly the worst physical feeling I've experienced and I've gone through a lot in my short time. It absolutely throbs within pain after handwriting for 2-3 minutes or on a computer it just occasionally comes and sometimes it doesn't but it's bearable whilst on a computer. If the task is exceptionally important and I'm under time pressure such as a school exam, I'll continue writing through the pain in which I regret for 2-3 days afterwards unless I take one of my dads steroidal anti-inflammatories to get rid of the pain. Whilst writing in the pain though and trying to keep a fast pace, my handwriting is absolutely atrocious and even I can't decipher half the words after just writing about something 30 seconds beforehand.


This is where I need your guys help in this. As I live in Australia, we have this thing called VCE and we sit a series of exams (at the end of the year / 1 for each subject) and school assessed coursework (around 8 per subject a year / 6 subjects) which will ultimately determine the courses for University we can gain entry to and I am aiming for an exceptionally high mark to get myself into the comparative leading Ivy League school of Australia. However, all my subjects that I have interests in and have selected as year 12 subjects are really demanding in the handwriting field (History, English, Global Politics etc.) and I for one don't think I will be able to cope next year through this excruciating pain and even if I had to, my school marks would decline dramatically against my expectations.

Around 2 months ago my physiotherapist made an e-mail to the department of education for my state within Australia in which had to be applied through my school on the day of one of my major tests - he stated that I had extreme back issues and he highly regarded that I obtained access to a laptop or computer for all exams or school assessed tests so I can actually thrive like I feel as though I should as well as continue treatment without all the repercussions of discrepancies to my back treatment that enforcing such situations would bring, so it was an act to rectify the entire problem.

On that same day, a teacher called the provision department education people whom I just mentioned, and they declined the appeal for provision. I didn't hear any of this take place, but the teacher sat me down and told me something along the lines of this - 'I just spoke to the VCAA and unfortunately they have declined your appeal for provision as 'scoliosis' does not effect your ability to handwrite.' I was extremely confused and surprised and breath-taken that they could decline a request from a physiotherapist and I was just asking all these questions like 'how can this happen' and 'how am I going to deal with this pain' etc. etc. She animatedly depicted a person vividly similar to a character like Golum off of Lord of the Rings and said people have to deal with issues much worse than you have it - they take medication and they have been suffering with this kind of pain from birth.

Confused, I went back and asked my doctor about this who was fuming at the whole system and agreed with me in saying that someone could appear to have a much worse case of scoliosis than another person who only has a small degree to it, but the latter person could feel ALOT more internal pain than the person previously mentioned, in which he was creating a scenario around me in comparison to Golum.

My physiotherapist is going to reappeal it, detailing all of this. But what I am essentially asking I guess is how can I explain to them that I really do have this internal pain within my back, how a laptop would be beneficial to me in dealing with that pain and how to tell them it effects my handwriting? When I said that to my teacher like that, she scoffed at me and walked off.

Last but not last, aforementioned much earlier in the piece, I described the pain I felt within my back and the only occurrence of the pain is when I am handwriting to sitting upright in a chair at a desk. What could this be?