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Scheuermann's disease
This is my first post to this forum, so first let me say hello to everyone here. Also, please forgive me for any language errors or mistakes. English is not my first language, though I use it extensively in my work and hopefully know it quite well.
To the point: I seem to have suffered from Scheuermann's disease, though I was never diagnosed and have only heard of that disease a few weeks ago, at almost 40. However, my story seems to coincide largely with some stories given here - developing an increased spine curve sometime around 10-12 years of age, teachers' complaints of my posture and threatening me with a hump if I don't straighten, and my largely vain efforts to do so. A doctor came to school once to check our backs and said I didn't have a spine fault (by which, I guess, she only meant scoliosis), but had "round shoulders" and had to do gymnastics and - you guessed - straighten myself. She or someone else showed me one or two simple exercises that I started practising, maybe they helped a bit, but it was far too little. All that crucial time, and much later, nobody so much as suggested to me that it could be a disease and not a result of my poor posture, and I basically felt guilty for it although I did much more than most people to be straight. The only relief was my parents didn't bully me over my bad posture, probably because (as I noticed later) my mum and even my grandma had the same problem as me and they also were never told it could be a disease.
Until recently it was a purely aesthetic problem for me - I was ashamed of my back, had terrible complexes and continued to try and "keep straight", although I suppose (and feel) when you're over 20 or 30 it is more harmful than useful, as your backbone, bones and all this complicated system of muscles and tendons is already shaped and by forcing yourself to change your posture you strain muscles, exercise pressure on lumbar spine (at least in my case lumbar spine ached when I tried to keep "straight") and generally force your body into a position unnatural for it. At least that's how I feel and I'd be interested to know what others who are not adolescents anymore feel about it.
I only learnt about the possibility of having Scheuermann recently when I started having muscle pains in the back and my family doctor - you guessed again - told me it was because of my bad posture and lack of exercise (after all, I only swam, rode a bike, skated, did fitness exercises, played badminton and jogged ;)) After that I had another attempt at "keeping straight" and when it increased my pain (which, as it seems now, is a result of too many microtraumas I've had over the years, largely due to exercises with dumbbells, sometimes without warm-up, lifting heavy backpack on holiday and so on) instead of making it disappear, I started looking for an explanation of my back shape and found info on Scheuermann. As I said at the beginning, I'm not sure of having it, only of my increased kyphosis, of when it developed and how I tried to combat it. So, one thing I'd like to ask the experts is whether I should try to find it out (which, from what I read, you can do by x-raying your thoracic spine); in other words, whether it matters now if I have Scheuermann or just an increased kyphosis (and maybe also lordosis, as my belly seems to be rather protruding and then the spine curves in the other direction) of unknown origin.
Another problem I have is finding a chair for myself, as I sit at the computer for most of the day.I recently tried a so-called ergonomic chair and I had to take it back because of terrible pain in the spine. It seems the part of the chair that is "profiled" actually coincides with the indented part of my spine, and it always seemed to me my indentation was rather more prominent than in other people, but somehow I feel great pain exactly in the section of the spine where the indentation is. I feel much better in an unprofiled, soft chair - however, I need higher elbow supports and I'd like a head support too, and most chairs that have them also have that profiled back.
I'll be grateful if someone writes back and tells me what they think of my chair problems, as well as of whether it matters not, at 40, whether I test for Scheuermann or just accept my back shape and that's it. Also, I'd like to know if someone has had this experience of trying to stand or walk straight actually harm rather than help. Thanks in advance!
To the point: I seem to have suffered from Scheuermann's disease, though I was never diagnosed and have only heard of that disease a few weeks ago, at almost 40. However, my story seems to coincide largely with some stories given here - developing an increased spine curve sometime around 10-12 years of age, teachers' complaints of my posture and threatening me with a hump if I don't straighten, and my largely vain efforts to do so. A doctor came to school once to check our backs and said I didn't have a spine fault (by which, I guess, she only meant scoliosis), but had "round shoulders" and had to do gymnastics and - you guessed - straighten myself. She or someone else showed me one or two simple exercises that I started practising, maybe they helped a bit, but it was far too little. All that crucial time, and much later, nobody so much as suggested to me that it could be a disease and not a result of my poor posture, and I basically felt guilty for it although I did much more than most people to be straight. The only relief was my parents didn't bully me over my bad posture, probably because (as I noticed later) my mum and even my grandma had the same problem as me and they also were never told it could be a disease.
Until recently it was a purely aesthetic problem for me - I was ashamed of my back, had terrible complexes and continued to try and "keep straight", although I suppose (and feel) when you're over 20 or 30 it is more harmful than useful, as your backbone, bones and all this complicated system of muscles and tendons is already shaped and by forcing yourself to change your posture you strain muscles, exercise pressure on lumbar spine (at least in my case lumbar spine ached when I tried to keep "straight") and generally force your body into a position unnatural for it. At least that's how I feel and I'd be interested to know what others who are not adolescents anymore feel about it.
I only learnt about the possibility of having Scheuermann recently when I started having muscle pains in the back and my family doctor - you guessed again - told me it was because of my bad posture and lack of exercise (after all, I only swam, rode a bike, skated, did fitness exercises, played badminton and jogged ;)) After that I had another attempt at "keeping straight" and when it increased my pain (which, as it seems now, is a result of too many microtraumas I've had over the years, largely due to exercises with dumbbells, sometimes without warm-up, lifting heavy backpack on holiday and so on) instead of making it disappear, I started looking for an explanation of my back shape and found info on Scheuermann. As I said at the beginning, I'm not sure of having it, only of my increased kyphosis, of when it developed and how I tried to combat it. So, one thing I'd like to ask the experts is whether I should try to find it out (which, from what I read, you can do by x-raying your thoracic spine); in other words, whether it matters now if I have Scheuermann or just an increased kyphosis (and maybe also lordosis, as my belly seems to be rather protruding and then the spine curves in the other direction) of unknown origin.
Another problem I have is finding a chair for myself, as I sit at the computer for most of the day.I recently tried a so-called ergonomic chair and I had to take it back because of terrible pain in the spine. It seems the part of the chair that is "profiled" actually coincides with the indented part of my spine, and it always seemed to me my indentation was rather more prominent than in other people, but somehow I feel great pain exactly in the section of the spine where the indentation is. I feel much better in an unprofiled, soft chair - however, I need higher elbow supports and I'd like a head support too, and most chairs that have them also have that profiled back.
I'll be grateful if someone writes back and tells me what they think of my chair problems, as well as of whether it matters not, at 40, whether I test for Scheuermann or just accept my back shape and that's it. Also, I'd like to know if someone has had this experience of trying to stand or walk straight actually harm rather than help. Thanks in advance!
Thx a lot for replying;) I still don't know if I have/had scheuermann's, only that my spine is kind of more curved than usual and that it started when I was 12-13 y.o. and although I tried, I couldn't make it straighter.
I don't know if you're still on this forum as this post is quite old, but I have Scheuermann's Disease too. It's rather difficult to find a doctor who knows anything about it, it's rare and even a lot of orthopedic doctors aren't familiar with it. The first time a doctor mentioned the word kyphosis to me I started to do my own research and realized I had scheuermanns. I had to see several orthopedic surgeons before I found one who was even familiar with it, and he's a specialist in spinal deformities. I had surgery in January 2010 and now my back is much straighter and I have a lot less pain. There's a forum on MDJunction.com that's specifically about scheuermanns, you could probably find a lot of information there.
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