Hi Adam,
When we went to the scoliosis ortho speciaist we had brought my son's xray from 2010 when he first was diagnosed with scoliosis and his curve was at 20 degrees thoracic and 30 degrees lumbar. When we went to the chiropractor in Nov we brought that xray so he would have something to compair to. He took an xray prior to manipulation and said there really wasn't that much of a difference and the curve had not changed. It wasn't a true spinal xray though, but a chest xray that he made the comparison with. We had that xray to bring to the ortho doctor last week and he measured the So the xray taken by the Chiropractor was the end of November. The ortho took an xray when my son was there last week and he called us today with the measurements of the xray and the curve is now at 50 degrees. Also his recent MRI that was taken a few weeks ago shows that he has a syrinx from T3 to T10. We now have an appointment with a neurosurgeon. There was a 13 degree change over the last few months. When we go to the neuro we will also be bringing the xray of his chest that was taken in December when he went to ER with his symptoms.
I am finding that it is really risky for patients with scoliosis to get manual adjustments without having an MRI, because there could be an undetected syrinx in the spinal cord. Until we go to the neuro, we will not know if the syrinx was possibly something that was already there and aggrevated by the adjustment, or they can also be caused by trauma to the spine. His thoracic adjustment was very, very painful, so I don't know. I'm glad we have the xray prior to the adjustment, and one shortly after, and one that the ortho just took.
I have found out through lots of recent research that not very many doctors are familiar with syrinx's. The new xray definately shows how misaligned he is when standing straight..
All we really hope is that the neuro will be able to direct us to a solution to getting him back in alignment so he won't be in so much discomfort. I have read a little about the Activator and will check with the neuro on that.
Thank you for your input and suggestion.
It's not unreasonable to suggest that the manipulations your son received exacerbated the already misaligned area. Some adjustments are perfectly safe, but may have contraindications for use... Ultimately, I cannot say for sure since I didn't observe the treatment personally.
I would recommend searching for a more gentle and passive approach to spinal adjusting. Consider one of the Upper Cervical methods (Blair, Palmer Specific, NUCCA, Atlas Orthogonal, Grostic, etc) or an instrument based approach like Activator.