Text/Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Xue Renzheng
Correspondent Zhang Xunkai Bai Tian
Recently, the Department of Spine Surgery of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University (hereinafter referred to as "Guangzhou Medical University Third Hospital") received a young patient with idiopathic scoliosis at the age of 17. A few days ago, Xiaomei (pseudonym), a girl who was studying in her sophomore year of high school, had a slight pain and swelling in her waist for several days. After the examination of the Third Hospital of Guangdong Medical College, it was found that the cause of her low back pain was "juvenile idiopathic scoliosis". After the operation, Xiaomei's scoliosis spine was corrected, and her height increased by 4cm.
Frequent low back pain, the spine is tilted to the left of the S type
It is understood that due to a long period of lying down to read the writing homework, Xiaomei has recently felt waist pain for several days, and there will be a slight feeling of soreness after sitting for a long time. At the beginning, Xiaomei's mother thought that she was only sitting for a long time after the waist muscle strain, did not pay attention to the heart, ready to buy her a few plasters to paste, but opened the clothes to see, Xiaomei's mother found that something was wrong, Xiaomei's back seems to be uneven, the left side is slightly raised than the right side. Feeling that things were not simple, her mother quickly took Xiaomei to the Spine Surgery Department of the Third Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University.
Wu Zenghui, chief physician of the spine surgery department of the hospital, conducted a careful physical examination of Xiaomei, and let her take a full-length X-ray of the spine, and found that Xiaomei's chest and waist section showed a local left side of the scoliosis, with an angle of 40 °, combined with physical examination, and finally found the cause of Xiaomei's frequent waist pain and soreness - adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.
Xiaomei's full-length X-ray of the spine taken before surgery
Wang Gui, deputy chief physician of the Department of Spine Surgery of the Third Hospital of Guangdong Medical College, introduced that idiopathic scoliosis in adolescents is a sequence abnormality that occurs in the coronal, sagittal and axial positions of the spine during adolescence. The spine of a normal person should look straight from behind, and the sides of the torso are symmetrical and shoulder-high. Scoliosis can manifest as the spine deviating from the midline of the body, and the scoliosis may be raised in a lateral arc or present with an S-shaped deformity of the spine. Severe scoliosis may affect the growth and development of adolescents, and even affect cardiopulmonary function, do not be careless, need to seek medical attention in time.
Adolescent scoliosis should not be corrected on its own
"She always said that she was hunched over, told her to sit up straight and did not listen, I did not expect that it was caused by scoliosis!" In the past, Xiaomei's mother always criticized Xiaomei for not sitting down, and only after knowing the cause of the disease did she suddenly realize. In response to Xiaomei's situation, Wu Zenghui recommended orthopedic surgery. When it comes to surgery, Xiaomei's mother is a little hesitant. The child is only 17 years old and is worried that the operation will cause spinal cord damage and affect the normal life of the child later on.
So, is it possible to correct yourself by wearing an orthosis or by making the child pay more attention to posture?
Wang Yun mentioned that many parents think that the lateral bend only needs to remind the child to pay attention to the posture to correct, but in fact, it needs to be analyzed specifically. In patients like Xiaomei, whose scoliosis is more severe and whose growth and development tends to be stable, timely surgical intervention can prevent more serious low back pain and neurological dysfunction caused by long-term rapid lumbar degeneration.
In addition, there are many so-called "back artifacts" and "sitting trainers" on the market now, but everyone's spine situation is different, and how to use and adjust the braces is different from person to person, requiring the guidance of spinal surgery experts and cannot be generalized.
The operation should not only correct The severely curved spine for Xiaomei, but also minimize the impact on the child's subsequent lumbar spine activities and preserve the normal function of the lumbar spine. After repeated discussions and full communication with the family, Wu Zenghui's team formulated a personalized surgical plan for Xiaomei.
In order to ensure the quality and safety of the operation, the doctor's team used a neuroelectrophysiological monitor in the operation, and carefully monitored by experienced technicians to escort the operation process. During the operation, the doctor implanted a total of 8 screws on the patient's chest 12-lumbar 3 vertebral body, and at the same time used de-rotation techniques on the left side to correct the rotation of the vertebral body.
Full-length X-rays of the spine taken by Xiaomei after surgery
After the operation, Xiaomei recovered well, the back was no longer raised, and the appearance was also well improved, and the scoliosis of the chest and waist dropped from 40 ° before the operation to 8 ° after the operation. The height has also changed from 168cm to 172cm, and the length has increased to 4cm.
Wu Zenghui said that because scoliosis will affect growth and development to a certain extent, the most suitable age for children to operate is about 15-16 years old, at this time the growth and development tends to be stable, and the orthopedic effect is better. Therefore, if parents find that the child has an unequal height of the shoulders, the two shoulder blades are raised backwards, the bilateral hips are not equally high, and the walking is tilted to one side, etc., it is necessary to pay great attention to the situation, and the child may suffer from juvenile idiopathic scoliosis, and it is recommended to seek medical treatment in time.
Prevention and treatment of scoliosis in adolescents begins with early detection
Deputy Director Wang Wei introduced that adolescent scoliosis can be simply divided into structural scoliosis and non-structural scoliosis, the former is mostly seen in idiopathic scoliosis, which is a disease of unknown etiology that causes scoliosis deformity in patients; the latter is scoliosis caused by some special factors such as poor posture, no matter which scoliosis, the key is to achieve early detection and early intervention. Because scoliosis is at risk of progression, parents should pay attention to changes in the appearance of the spine during the child's growth. At the same time, adolescents should usually develop a good posture to prevent the occurrence of scoliosis with poor posture.
(1) Maintain a correct sitting posture: When the child learns, pay attention to the head to be correct, do not deviate from the two sides, the eyes are about 30 cm away from the textbook, sit straight, the chest is about a fist away from the table, do not bend over.
(2) Correction of wrong posture: "Ge You lying down", "Erlang legs", stooping and hunching back and other postures can easily cause scoliosis, which should be corrected in time.
(3) Pay attention to the weight of the backpack: It is usually recommended to use a backpack for children and carry less shoulder bag. The school bag should be less than 1/10 of the child's weight and should not be too heavy.
(4) Appropriate exercise: breaststroke, running, sit-ups and other symmetrical exercises have a good effect on preventing scoliosis. When exercising, care should be taken to take into account both limbs and not to flex the position for a long time.
(5) Regular physical examination: regular spinal examination for children. In particular, when it is found that the child has the unequal height of the shoulders, hunched over, and walking to one side, he should seek medical treatment as soon as possible. (For more news, please pay attention to Yangcheng Pie pai.ycwb.com)
Source | Yangcheng Evening News Yangcheng Pie
Image | Courtesy of respondents
Editor-in-charge | Sun Wei