My Journey with Scoliosis: The Diagnosis

I was 15 when I realized that something was seriously off about my body shape. I was trying on my new bikini, this was back in February of 2023, and I noticed that I had a dip on one side of my waist. My immediate reaction was to celebrate because I had a “snatched” figure. After loosely comparing myself to a Victoria’s Secret Angel, I left my room and strutted down the hall to alert my mom of this new information.

The interaction went a bit like this:

“Mom. Mom. Mom. Look! I’m basically Bella Hadid, look at my hourglass waist.”

She did not share my excitement. Instead, she instructed me to lean over and touch my toes so she could test out the Adam’s Forward Bend Test. I was confused as to what on earth she was doing, until she said that it was to check if I had scoliosis.

Let’s skip ahead a bit. It is June of 2023 and I have just received my x-ray results from two weeks ago. I spent the two months leading up to this moment scouring the internet for everything related to scoliosis. From my findings, the two general treatment options seemed to be bracing and surgery. Surgery scared the life out of me, and it contributed to my spiralling thoughts about how badly misshapen my spine could be. The day of my appointment with the orthopaedic surgeon, I recall spacing out in the boring waiting room with my dad sitting on my right. The receptionist alerted me that it was time to head into the doctor’s room, and in that moment, I felt like I was about to hear the worst news of my life. Looking back on it now, I was not entirely wrong, though there are worse diagnoses than scoliosis.

I took one look at my spinal x-ray and curled my face in disgust. It was confirmed, I had moderate scoliosis. My initial curvature was 28 degrees on my top curve and 31 degrees on my bottom curve. The orthopaedic surgeon told my dad and I that she will continue to monitor my growing spine and that I should not worry too much. We left the appointment with more questions than answers.

Why was my spine shaped like that? Why does it look like the letter S? In my science classes we were shown straight spines..what on earth happened with mine?

Following the appointment, I went home and searched the internet once again. I looked up what the typical next steps were, how long until I would hear back from the surgeon, and if I should be worried or not. When people tell you to not look up your symptoms, listen to them. Believe it or not, getting medical advice from Google is not the smartest decision. The first thing that came up when I searched “what happens if I have scoliosis?” was that I was destined to be a hunchback. That feedback was not what I needed at the time. After two full days of being convinced that I was the next Quasimodo, my mom got a voicemail from the orthopaedic surgeon. The voicemail contained a referral to a specialist in orthotics and bracing.

It was absolutely not ideal for my fifteen year old self — having struggled with self image in the past — to be told that I needed a back brace. Apparently it was not bad enough to have had headgear and braces, now I get to wear a back brace too! Thank you so much for adding to the humiliation, universe.

If I could go back in time to speak to fifteen year old me, I would tell her that the diagnosis is the easiest part of the scoliosis journey. It all goes downhill from there.