I wanted to share the results of my daughter's scoliosis treatment.  We first discovered she had scoliosis in Feb 2007.  She had a 50⁰ thoracic curve and a 26⁰ lumbar curve.  We were told anything above 35 degrees was a candidate for surgery.  Since her curve was a 50, were we told she should have the surgery.  The doctor said he had an opening within a week!

We did lots of research online.  I came across the Clear Institute's website and read all I could.  We started going to a local chiropractor to see if he could reduce her curves before we decided on surgery.  My daughter is very active and I did not want to see her lose any range of motion from back surgery.  Plus, the potential surgical complications did not sound very desirable! We went for about a year and her curves reduced to 42⁰ and 19⁰.  

In Jan 2008, I revisited different websites to re-read a lot of the literature on scoliosis treatments and options.  I read all I could on the Clear Institute's website and decided to take my daughter for a two week intensive treatment.  We went to Dr. Stitzel near Lancaster, PA in Feb 2008.

It was the BEST thing we could have done!!  It was not easy because the treatments are intense.  But after two weeks, her curves had gone down to a 22⁰ thoracic curve and about a 10⁰ lumbar curve!  She was no longer even a candidate for surgery. 

She has continued her treatment at home and we trust that on our follow up xrays, there will even be more improvement.  I would encourage EVERYONE to seriously consider going to a Clear Institute certified doctor for scoliosis treatment.  They understand how the spine works and they customize a treatment plan unique to your situation.  Dr. Stitzel and ALL his staff were fantastic.  During the time we were there, they made us feel like we were part of one big family.  Each of them were personally interested in how my daughter was progressing and we all celebrated when she made such great improvement.

If any of those reading this are faced with scoliosis treatment decisions, make sure you do your research.  The medical community is making great strides in non-surgical options and my family are certainly believers in the effectiveness of them!

Hello,

I glad to hear about your success story. I am a current scoliosis patient and I have been fortunate enough to find an advanced Clear practitioner. He recommended that I attend one of the intensive bootcamps which I plan on doing, however, I can not find any information on where to attend one of these sessions similar to your daughters. Will you provide some information where I can do this?

 

Thanks

It has been a year now since you took your daughter for intense treatment. How is she doing now? Have her curves improved, stayed the same, or worsened?

I have mixed results for you. I will be totally honest, so that you have the information you need to make the best decision for you.

First of all, the curve degrees that I quoted after we did the week of intensive treatment in PA were probably incorrect. We have some measurements done using the Cobb angle, the current standard for the medical community. Dr. Stitzel has a more accurate series of angle measurements, but you can't compare those to Cobb angles. I'm not sure what her Cobb angle was when we left Dr. Stitzel's. But she had definitely reduced the curves.

For the first six months after returning from PA, our local chiropractor did not have the necessary equipment to do all the procedures done in PA. My daughter did the scoliosis chair at home pretty regularly. After six months, she had pretty much maintained the curve where it was after PA.

She was discouraged because she was hoping she would reduce the curve even more. She lost her desire to do the exercises and I didn't force her to do them for a while.

After the first of this year, she started back up again going to the chiro, once every other week. She has had a hard time maintaining her improvements because she has ligament damage in her neck that will never fully heal and so it is hard to maintain her proper neck curve. She gradually got worse over time until we finally decided to do a one week intensive with our local chiropractor. He now has all the equipment and I believe is Clear certified.

She started last week with a 53o curve and went down to about 38o by the end of the week. We are thankful for the results. She is pretty tall (5'10") and it is common for someone that tall that goes untreated to go from 50o up to 80 or 90o pretty quickly. So we are glad that we have at the very least maintained her curve as well as get some reduction.

It has been a year of ups and downs, but I would still choose this any day over surgery. She still has full functionality and mobility in her back. She is going to persevere and we will continue to work with the chiropractor to get improvements.

Let's see...just looking at her bigger curve she had......


50(no therapy),42(reg. chiro.),22(CLEAR),53(no therapy),38(CLEAR).

Now the EXACT number isn't what is interesting...it is how that curve can MOVE...so much for surgery being the only thing that can move a curve!!!

WOW! I personally am amazed that the curve moves at all...there is no doubt CLEAR is on to something and I hope with time.. knowledge...technology and more heads working on this thing...More reduction and lasting results will continue.

Why did you go to PA for treatment? Was that the closest office for intensive tretament?

Thanks

At the time we went, it was the closest and we had heard great things about Dr. Stitzel. Now, there is Tony Nalda in St Cloud, FL who is a CLEAR certified chiropractor. My daughter has gone to him off and on since we found out about her scoliosis. He is a great man and really works with you to get the best results possible. You can google Nalda Family Chiropractic if you are interested.

May you have great results!!

I love hearing success stories like this. I am currently undergoing the CLEAR treatment and have only been there about 10 times. Already I can breathe better. It's a rough treatment but, considering the alternative, I'd take the traction chair any day!

I'd like to thank all the people commenting, it's of you guys that I found the Clear page! I was googling all my options (they told me I NEEDED SURGERY ASAP!) and all these wonderful alternative methods came up!