I’m 21 and when I was 3 my eldest brother dropped me off our roof and I landed on my back on a large rock (it was roughly a quarter of my size at the time). Back then we lived with our biological parents who neglected us, so I never told anyone and just pretended I was ok. I was adopted by my new mom when I was 8 (adopted within the family). By then it was a faint memory that didn’t even seem important. By the time I was 10 I started having back pain and mom took me to a doctor. They told her that I simply had mild scoliosis and that keeping my back straight would help it. But keeping my back wasn’t something I could do, it made the pain worse and she didn’t believe me. Years passed and the pain kept getting worse and mom just figured I was exaggerating. I never complained much anyways, but by the time I turned 21 my pain had gotten so bad that I insisted that we needed to get an appointment and she agreed.
My new doctor ordered an MRI on my Thoracic spine. The results came back and we were told I was starting to develop Kyphosis (inward curving of the spine), 5 herniated discs, and 5 bulging discs. The doctor said they were probably caused by an injury from when I was 3-5 years old. I immediately knew that the injury in question was that fall I took all those years ago. The fall that I never told anyone about. Naturally, I told mom about it after realizing that it was the cause of all of this.
That doctor told me surgery wasn’t an option and the only option he gave me was a compression posture shirt. I intend to get a second opinion cause I just refuse to believe that nothing else can be done for me.