Not all scoliosis patients will experience pain, but as a progressive condition, the severity and effects of scoliosis can change over time. The potential benefits of massage for scoliosis patients are limited to short-term pain relief, but when chiropractic adjustments are scoliosis-specific and combined with additional nonsurgical treatment modalities, long-term pain relief, through corrective results, may be within reach.
For patients experiencing scoliosis pain, a proactive treatment plan is needed for any type of long-term sustainable pain relief. While massage therapy can help by relieving muscle tension and improving muscle endurance, it doesn't have the corrective potential of scoliosis-specific chiropractic care.
Not all scoliosis patients will experience pain; let's start with why.
With current estimates at close to seven million people living with scoliosis in the United States alone, scoliosis is highly prevalent and warrants awareness.
Although scoliosis is a spinal condition that causes an unnatural spinal curve with rotation to develop, its effects can be felt throughout the body.
The main symptom of childhood scoliosis involves postural changes, but it's nerve pain that brings most adults in for assessment, diagnosis, and treatment.
As a progressive condition, the nature of scoliosis is to become more severe over time, and ongoing treatment is needed to counteract progression.
There are a number of factors that shape condition effects from severity, type, and curve location to patient age.
Scoliosis ranges widely in severity from mild scoliosis to moderate and severe cases, and scoliosis can have different causes.
Most cases of scoliosis are idiopathic (no known cause), and additional causes include neuromuscular conditions, degenerative instability, and congenital malformations.
When it comes to scoliosis pain, the more severe and/or atypical a case is, the more likely it is to cause pain.
In addition, location of the curve within the spine can also shape condition effects, and there are three main spinal sections (cervical, thoracic, and lumbar) that work together to support strength, flexibility, and function.
Patient age is a prime factor when it comes to scoliosis pain. Scoliosis pain can include muscle tension, back pain, and radiating pain, and the main cause is compression.
As scoliosis doesn't become compressive until growth has stopped, childhood scoliosis is generally not as painful as adult scoliosis.
Before getting to the specific effects of massage versus chiropractic care on scoliosis pain, let's address what scoliosis pain actually feels like.
As a progressive condition, the potential for increasing scoliosis effects is a reality, including pain.
In young patients who are still growing, the spine is constantly being lengthened, and this counteracts the compressive force of the unnatural spinal curve, but once growth stops, pain is a common effect due to the condition's uneven forces.
While progression makes the size and rotation of the scoliosis increase, along with the condition's effects, it makes conditions more complex to treat.
The more severe scoliosis is, or becomes over time, the more difficult it can be to address without invasive surgical treatment.
Although treatment results can never be guaranteed, nonsurgical treatment is proven to be effective, particularly with early detection and intervention.
Scoliosis doesn't just affect the spine, but also its surroundings, and the entire body, particularly with postural and movement changes.
Scoliosis pain can involve the muscles, back, and/or nerve pain.
Scoliosis is commonly associated with a muscular imbalance as the spine's unnatural bend and twist can pull its surrounding muscles in different directions: causing muscles on one side of the spine to become sore and strained from overuse while the opposite muscles can become weak from being underused.
Muscular imbalances can be painful; they can involve muscle tension, lack of muscle endurance, and muscle spasms.
Back pain is largely felt in the affected spinal section, but as one long structure, a single unhealthy spinal curve disrupts the alignment of the entire spine, so its effects can be felt throughout.
In addition, compensatory curves can form, where a spinal section develops an unnatural curve in an attempt to counteract a scoliosis in a different spinal section.
So back pain can be localized around a spinal section affected and/or it can involve other sections, and radiating pain involves compressed nerves.
The spinal cord consists of 31 pairs of spinal nerves, so if a nerve is exposed to uneven pressure due to the spine's unnatural bend and twist, nerve function can be disrupted and cause pain that radiates into the extremities (arms, hands, legs, and feet).
Many patients who have experienced a lot of scoliosis back pain refer to nerve-related back pain as the most severe and disruptive.
Considering one of the prime effects of scoliosis is muscle imbalance and tension, many patients inquire about the effectiveness of massage as a form of pain management.
Scoliosis massage can help with short-term pain by targeting the muscles most affected by scoliosis: the ones immediately surrounding an unhealthy spinal curve.
An experienced massage therapist, with knowledge of scoliosis, can help reduce muscle tension to stop/improve muscle spasms, and focusing on loosening tight muscles can reduce pain and improve muscle endurance.
Massage can also increase blood flow to an area, and better circulation aids in muscle recovery for pain management.
When it comes to chiropractic adjustments versus massage therapy for scoliosis, scoliosis-specific chiropractic care does offer corrective potential as part of a proactive conservative treatment plan.
As a 3-dimensional spinal condition, scoliosis is complex and necessitates the complete individualization of effective treatment plans, and when it comes to a nonsurgical chiropractic-centered approach, care is scoliosis-specific and customized.
Scoliosis-specific chiropractic care can include a variety of techniques and manual adjustments that work towards improving the spine's alignment, and as the spine's lack of balance and stability is the main cause of scoliosis pain, it can offer more long-term results in terms of pain management.
Chiropractic adjustments are precise and involve a hands-on approach to improving the position of the curve's most-tilted vertebrae.
Chiropractic adjustments can improve pain by improving the spine's position and alignment, and chiropractic care can also focus on relieving pressure on certain nerves and muscles for healthier movement patterns and improvements to joint pain.
Gentle spinal stretching and decompression therapy can also help with back and nerve pain by creating more space and flexibility within the spine.
While regular massage sessions can help with scoliosis pain relief by relaxing sore muscles and increasing circulation, when it comes to corrective potential as a form of treatment, its scope is limited.
Scoliosis-specific chiropractic care, however, has proven results that offer more potential with early detection and intervention.
As a progressive condition, the best way to address scoliosis pain is to improve the spine's position, range of motion, body posture, overall movement patterns, and to treat the scoliosis proactively.
The best option for long-term sustainable scoliosis pain relief is a proactive conservative treatment plan started as close to the time of diagnosis as possible.
There are never treatment guarantees, but with a progressive condition like scoliosis, the sooner treatment is started, the better, and particularly during periods of growth, how scoliosis is managed with treatment will shape condition effects, including pain.
In children who have not yet reached skeletal maturity, scoliosis isn't commonly described as painful, but once growth stops and scoliosis becomes compressive, back and nerve pain is a common effect.
While no type of therapy or treatment should be attempted without approval by a patient's treatment provider, there are a number of pain relief options from the short-term benefits of massage to the ongoing benefit of nonsurgical scoliosis treatment.
Nonsurgical scoliosis treatment focuses on the power of scoliosis-specific chiropractic care, exercise programs, corrective bracing, and rehabilitation to impact scoliosis on every level.
Here at the CLEAR Scoliosis Institute, scoliosis treatment plans are 100-percent customized around key patient/condition variables, and improvement to a patient's overall health and quality of life is the ultimate goal.
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