Saturday, October 24, 2009

Is it possible to care for children after scoliosis / kyphosis surgery?

I got a chance to see Nancy with her son yesterday in clinic, now 3 months from her T5-L4 instrumentation and fusion I performed for her scoliosis.
Her posture now looks great, with elimination of the 2 “humps” she had preop, and her asymmetric “hour glass”, which is now much more symmetric.  Her X-Rays show excellent correction of deformity with hardware intact.  
She has been able to get back to life, including being able to carry and hold her 35 lb boy shown being held on her hip in this picture.
 
Depending on certain circumstances, most of our guests who have scoliosis or kyphosis surgery are able to return to caring for their smaller children relatively quickly.
We do teach how to do lifting in a proper way to minimize the load on the healing spine, and sometimes have to have more strict lifting and bending restrictions if there is poor bone quality (osteoporosis).
Fortunately, most of our younger guests who tend to have the younger children that need carrying have excellent quality bone, and typically require shorter fusions.

Good to see you Nancy, and give my best to your family!!

Dr. Lloyd Hey
Hey Clinic for Scoliosis and Spine Surgery
http://www.heyclinic.com

-- Nancy gave her permission yesterday for me to share this photo with all of you on the blog.

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