Is scoliosis my fault? Did I worsen or cause it?

I was looking for an old message board and google drove me here.

But I do have experience in that. So first of all - I reckon you still will have this intrusive thought of being at fault for scoliosis or if not then it would move to new topic. Yeah, I have similar type of fun with bipolar associated psychosis mixing with neurosis and delusions.

You probably are googling everything else and since internet is very unreliable - you did get a good answer here. It is genetic but still vastly unknown territory. I recall the sentiment of incorrect sitting, walking or exercising causing it but the truth is ... it works same as without spine defects. Your eating associated disorders, sports and school related stress just probably pushed it to be visible more but it might be less visible later on. Just do not force it as hospitals put me under any physical / stretching therapy alongside with braces there are and ... it did precisely nothing.

Spines are flexible (ahem, again, leave it alone as it is fine as it is), same as our bodies. There is not much research on that in adults but mine still changes at times and can be less or more visible or go this or that way while my organs obey and follow. Essentially, I have 90 degree kyphoscoliosis where the risk was meant to be lungs, heart and others not having space but they accommodated (however it is worth doing routine checks).

Your post mentions bone issues and well loads of food related ones which seem to be more psychological but few questions:

1) How were you with food as a baby? Did you tolerate diary well? Did it change when a toddler?

2) Did you have brittle bones as a kid? Anyone with osteoporosis as a relative? How were muscles? When did you start walking?

3) Do you have any eye problems? Astigmatism?

4) Ever had loads of infections as a kid and ear infections?

I ask as we possibly had same problems as food stood out to me since never liked it even as a baby and despite having ostheoporosis, I never did handle diary. I also get hungry in rare cases but established timed routine of eating deadlines (my brain is addictive so not eating made me feel powerful in the past and you probably know that and your thought pattern goes similar way), however my family had to stage elaborate plays to get me eat even a little and that got spat out (okay, I was 1 - 4 and that was amusing).

In summary, the 'you caused' it research is old and forgotten. At the moment they are working on genetic triggers but even with medicine advancing that not much is known. Best you can do is contact your GP for referral to gene department anywhere locally to you. Might not find anything but worth a shot.

Your other issues are also pressing but yeah ... not causing your spine to rebel or rebel even more. You are at an age when bones still did not stop growing but soon will - essentially your spine still will change but it will follow encoded pattern you cannot affect. I had remotely straight back as a kid which was getting worse as a teen and worn braces buuuut yes - done nothing nor did diets.

However, the only thing to observe is pressure to internal organs but ... that is still old concept as thus far people done well.

You should turn off internet for few days as surely you will obsess about topic and then move on to diets and therapies and then to something completely else. Noticed my OCD increased with having a mobile with wifi on hand so can follow any thought I have and beat it to death. Essentially - somehow give your brain a bit of a holiday which is hard as hell plus malnutrition with mental issues is a battle from two sides as any system you work on might lead to addictive food control same as controlling lack of it. But eh, brains generally suck.

(And your school most likely caused you to worry about spine, food, world and whatever else)

Your spine will be fine. If you do not start suffocating or your heart does not pop then you will be ok.

Yes, so you say that not much is known yet about the causes of scoliosis and that they're searching for genetic causes. I still want to hear margaret's answer too. So should I stop feeling guilty and obsessing over this? I will probably only stop when someone tells me exactly why I did not cause or worsen my scoliosis. So is it REALLY not my fault? Did I really not worsen or cause my scoliosis? :S

This is really important to me to know it... because I told someone I had scoliosis once in school and he asked if I was always sitting incorrectly. And I answered I was sitting incorrectly in the past. That plus the underweight and poor nutrition - did it cause or worsen my scoliosis?

Sorry my last post didn't work! But yes, I agree completely with Sig, that you need to let yourself off the hook for this one! We can't help developing scoliosis any more than we can help developing blue or brown eyes. My dad had it, I and all my sisters do also. My brother does not, which to me is pretty strong evidence that it was passed down on my dad's x chromosome, since my brother is the only one who got a y chromosome from our dad.

You probably sit funny because of the scoliosis. As your body develops a curve, you naturally find ways to compensate. I have one leg that is much shorter than the other, because the scoliosis pulled one hip up. So, when I'm standing I usually bend the longer leg, and when I'm walking I swing it out a little bit, which makes it look like I'm limping. But I don't for one second think that these things caused my scoliosis, instead, they are a result of how I adapted to my body's differences.

One thing I've posted a lot about on these pages is how Bikram yoga changed my life. When I was a child I had surgery on my upper spine, but the years spent living with a short leg caused my tailbone to curve. I was crippled with pain, could barely walk, and to top it off I was suffering from clinical anxiety and depression. The yoga not only took away the physical pain, but it helped me to calm down and just be nicer to myself. I highly recommend it!

You're either born with it or it happens when you're an adolescent possibly due to a growth spurt, but no one really knows for sure. That's why they call it "idiopathic" scoliosis that means the cause is unknown. Don't blame yourself you didn't take good care of yourself but that didn't cause the scoiosis. It's not your fault. Please don't feel guilty. At 12 I had an s-curve one was 54 degrees one was around 40ish they tried braces to slow it down while i was still growing it doesn't correct it but can help stop from getting worse. I had to have surgery at 15 because when my lungs inflated it hit my spine and we saw the surgeon the next day and he scheduled surgery right away. They attached rods with screws and straightened it as best they could without breaking my spine. Before surgery I was so deformed I couldn't stand to even look in the mirror. I was hideous and embarrassed lost all confidence and self esteem. It caused depression and anxiety so bad I'd fake being sick so I didn't have to go to school and be gawked at even by kids I thought were my friends. The first 5 yrs after my surgery I had no pain and could do everything anyone else could do then suddenly was in pain all the time but if I hadn't done it it would've killed me it was very progressive. Hope this helped. If you have wanna ask me anything I'd be glad to answer

the best i can. They do say it can be genetic but it skips a generation. Like my grandma had it with kyphosis or hunchbackn my mom and dad don't have it but I do but my 15 yr old son doesn't have it but theres a chance his child (when he's grown and married) could develope it. Btw if it gets really bad you may qualify for disability. I'm on disability for about 9 yrs. Don't let it get you down and don't beat urself up about it. Please take care of yourself. Best of luck to you my friend. Keep your chin up it could be worse.

So in summary: You're all saying that it isn't my fault and that I did nothing wrong and I should stop feeling guilty about it? I really did not worsen or cause my scoliosis by having had underweight and poor nutrition or by sitting unevenly and having had bad posture all during puberty? I did really nothing to cause or worsen my scoliosis and it is probably genetic and developed all by itself. There is nothing I could have done better to stop it and regardless I would have gotten a 20° S curve scoliosis anyways. Can you say this to me if you really mean it? Is all of this true?

Please answer and I will be happy.

I'm sorry for bothering you so much but my ocd can be annoying and I really want this support and information. I hope it's okay...

If I ever need more answers or help, I'll come back here! ^^

Thank you guys for everything, for your support and so on!

I am just not really sure about it. The reason I want to know this is so I can stop feeling guilty and depressed about it especially in conjunction with my muscle workout. I want to become reasonably strong and muscular and I may do it, but it would be much easier if I knew exactly 100% that my fail in the past didn't lead to this health problem called scoliosis. I had a very hard time back then in school.

I had huge anxiety and because of that my mouth was always dry and I couldn't eat anything. Somehow this transferred to be this way even after school when I got home. They also bullied me a little in school but not much. I especially had great fear of sports lessons and would sometimes quit to go to school back then. However I do think that when I got home, I should have relaxed a bit and just ate something! That's the part I blame myself for... then I finished this school with very average grades and got sent to a mental hospital. They said I had psychosis, asperger and indifferent schizophrenia. Weird that I did not get diagnosed with an anxiety disorder. This was obvious to me that I had one and I do have intrusive things and compulsions. Not so much obsessions at least. I just didn't tell them because it was awkward.

So I had 55 kg from 16 to 19 years as a male with a height of 1.82 meters. Isn't that weight very little? What BMI would that be?

Couldn't it be that I had underweight + probably poor nutrition and lack of minerals (calcium) which made my bones soft and then I was always sitting unevenly and weirdly. In school and at home when I played videogames for hours... so either this made my bones and my spine soft and I deformed it by adopting bad sitting positions? Or I simply had a lack of and weak back muscles so that they couldn't bear the weight of the spine due to my underweight. That all together developed my 20° S curve scoliosis.

Could this be true? Is it my fault? Did I worsen or cause this scoliosis? Even if it does sound like I want it to be my fault... I really do not want it to be. It's just my exacting personality and partly ocd. Please be not my fault.. I already asked all professional doctors and orthopaedics and they all said the same thing. We don't know if it's your fault and if you worsened or caused it or not. But you know how doctors are... What is your opinion?

I'd rather want to know if I caused/worsened my scoliosis and if I did something wrong for it to develop.