Has anyone ever had a scoliosis surgery that failed?!


Question: I have a 58 degree curve. I am considering surgery, but I am very afraid that the surgery will go wrong, or I might not be the same after surgery. What will happen if I just let it go? I don't know if I will continue to grow. I'm 14 years old a 5' 8".
My father was 6' 5" and my mother is 5' 1".Anyone that has had a surgery before, and would like to tell me about how it went, please tell me about it. I think it would really help my decision.


Answers: I have a 58 degree curve. I am considering surgery, but I am very afraid that the surgery will go wrong, or I might not be the same after surgery. What will happen if I just let it go? I don't know if I will continue to grow. I'm 14 years old a 5' 8".
My father was 6' 5" and my mother is 5' 1".Anyone that has had a surgery before, and would like to tell me about how it went, please tell me about it. I think it would really help my decision.

Hi,

I had the surgery several years ago. The process hasn't changed much, although the rods that are used are better. My experience was very positive. The surgery corrected what needed to be corrected.

Here's a little information about the experience.

After the operation, it takes two months to be doing basic things. You'll be cleared to do more things at six months. At one year, you'll be able to do about anything you could do before the surgery. Take it easy. This is major surgery. It takes a while for the spine to fuse.

Let me talk about the hospital stay.

You'll have meds to help with the pain. You'll start out with stronger meds and then wean yourself from them over time. So, yes, it does hurt, but you shouldn't be left hurting.

The size of your scar depends on how many vertebrae need fusing and the technique used to do the fusion. A four-level fusion will have a smaller scar than a 12-level fusion. Some surgeries (probably not yours) need both anterior and posterior (A/P, or front and back). Lastly, some people may be candidates for "minimally invasive" techniques. So, this is a hard question to answer without knowing more about your situation.

Your hospital stay will probably be between four and seven days. Teens typically heal quicker than adults and so their hospital stay is less.

As for what they do, each case is different. Here's one possible scenerio. Its incomplete as I'm describing things pretty quickly. The amount of time spent doing things will probably differ. Maybe even the order that things are done will differ. But it will give you kind of an idea of what happens. Just take it with a grain of salt.

You'll arrive at the hospital early to check in. You'll change into your gown and get an IV hooked up. You will talk to your nurse(s) and perhaps a couple of other staff members. You'll then get put to sleep (injected through the IV that you had put in earlier). The operation then happens. You'll wake up, probably in the ICU, but possibly in your hospital room. Probably on the first or second day after surgery, you'll be shown how to sit and then stand. You'll be able to take walks up and down the hallway but you'll tire quickly. Your IV will be removed in a couple of days as will the catheter you've had in you since the surgery. You'll be allowed to go home once your stomach starts rumbling, you're eating, and going to the bathroom. When you are in the hospital, your scar will be checked by a doctor each day.

Please email me if you have questions.

There's a couple of things, off-topic, that will make life easier for you if you have the operation.

o Make sure you has a robe in case you gets up in the middle of the night when the house is colder. The surgery may mess up your body's temperature control.

o Get a toilet seat extender so that you don't have to squat as far. These also have handles and certainly made my life a lot easier. Since your chest muscles are fine, you'll be able to use them to raise and lower yourself.

o It might be nice to get a "grabber" which will help you pick things up from the floor.

o You may or may not have a walker when you get home from the hospital (probably not, but...). I did and discovered that I had to meneuver through the bathroom door sideways because the walker was too wide. This works, but it may be a bit more difficult.

o You will be sleeping an awful lot. This is a combination of your body needing rest and the pain meds knocking you out. Expect it.

o When I was in my bed, my wife made kind of a "nest" with pillows so I wouldn't roll out. I don't normally roll but I think it made both of us feel better. You might want to do the same.

o It will be helpful to sit in a chair with arms when you're having his meals and is sitting at the dining room table. Since your chest muscles are fine, you'll be able to use them to raise and lower yourself.

With a 58 degree curve, you should have had it fixed prior to this. If you do not get it fixed, the curve will increase. As it does so, you fill find it harder to breathe, your major vessels will be displaced and you will be able to do less and less. If you are female, forget about having babies as the the stress of pregnancy will be more than your body can handle.

The surgery is done under general anesthesia. There are two approaches, depending upon the degree and angle of the curve. The most common approach is from the back using a variety of instrumentation such as the original Herrington rods. The instrumentation is to straighten out the curve as much as possible so that the bone can then fuse, holding you in a more correct position. The second approach is with the patient on the side, coming in through the rib cage so they can get at the anterior aspect of the spine.

With either, they often take bone from the iliac crest. That is what many patients complain about the most, not the back, the crest.

One of the best centers for scoliosis surgery is up in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Twin City Spine Center. They do about 1200 spine surgeries a year. One of the founders was Dr. John Moe, one of the surgeons who developed many of the techniques for treating scoliosis. They bring patients in from all over the world.

You need to push your parents on this. The longer you delay, the worse you are going to get.

First off you need to know if you have stopped growing. You should consult with you doctor because they give you a rough estimate as to if you are down growing by an x-ray looking at your growth plates. Normally you can see your growth plates in full back x-ray. I didn't stop growing til' I was 16, which was when I had my surgery. I had the harrington rods placed in that cover practically my entire spine except my lumbar region (lower back). My curve at my lower back was not as high as it was above so the day of my surgery my doctor decided not to go as low. Well, now I am 20 years old and considering surgery again. But then again I also have a connective tissue disease that unfortunately, will make my spine to continue to curve for the rest of my life. Apparently when I had my surgery everything fused together but the lower part of the rods. Now the lower part of my rods are no longer on my spine since my lower spine is curving more and more. I know this story sounds crazy but I would like to share to great sides to having surgery. At the time I was originally considering surgery at 16 years old my left shoulder was significantly lower than my right shoulder and I had a huge hump on my right side under my shoulder blade. This was because my spine was not only curving but rotating too which caused my ribs on my right side to kick out in back. So for me cosmetically and health wise this is what I wanted to do. My great grandmother had scoliosis and she's so old now that the pressure from her spine is causing ribs to break. I didn't want this to happen to me, so I went ahead with the surgery. Right after surgery it is painful, I won't lie and it will be uncomfortable to lie on your back. I was in the hospital for 5 days and the day after I got back I went to the movies (with a pillow of course), I was in great health and I thought I was a superwoman or something. I did everything for myself, and I still wanted to live my life. Honestly I did too much after my surgery, so do to that fact and my connective tissue disease that's why my spine didn't fuse all the way. There are so many people with success stories, and the surgery works out great. They usually say they can get your curve back to what they first caught it at, which they first caught mine at 25 degrees. Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing, I still would have done my surgery when I was 16, but I would have taken it easy. So when they say you can only lift 10 pounds or whatever it is for so many months, only do that. By the sounds, it seems to me that you have a few more years of growing so you might bump up a few degrees. Look at the bigger picture, think of your health of now and later on. Remember that you are 14 so that you can get back to your normal life a lot faster than someone older even myself. I had all the questions you had right now, I was scared, but they reassured me that I would be better afterwards. Hey, I even grew 3/4" taller!!! wooohooo. Honestly, if you don't have surgery there is a possibly down the road that you might have a lot of problems with your back with athritis, pain, etc.

So if you do have you surgery good luck, and remember to rest and don't overdo it (i can't stress that enough!). Overall it's your decision but just do what's in the best interest of you and your health. If you have any more questions, anything at all just give me an e-mail.





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