Jax487

To expand on this, I have a 40 degree S curve. It appeared in high school and I wore a brace for 2 years. I wore my brace religiously because I was terrified of surgery. I was on the list for surgery after my next visit but I was so consistent with my brace (and also very lucky) that my curve was actually a few degrees better when I went in again. I never had to get surgery. I'm 26 now and it's barely noticeable. The only pain I ever have is minimal and more just aches that are easily fixed with a bit of stretching. Idk how unique my case is but pain is not at all inevitable. It saddens me to read all these comments from ppl worse off than me. Every person is different so definitely talk to multiple doctors before thinking seriously about surgery because that is extremely serious and permanent.

I was stubborn in just about everything else in my life. Somehow I understood the severity of the situation and took it very seriously. There was one segment where I left it off for a couple extra hours a day and the x-ray after that had my doctor putting me on the list for surgery.

I HATED the brace also, cuz who doesn't. It's unnatural. But I grew to accept it as my life and was able to tighten it to capacity by myself so I didn't need outside help. I got made fun of -- because high school -- but I tried to focus more on the hilarity of it than anything. My friends really enjoyed punching my stomach and convincing unknowing others to punch me as hard as they could because I had "abs of steal". Made multiple guy's knuckles bleed. I wore pretty well fitting clothes and it was almost unnoticeable to other ppl until i tried to bend over.

Also, from my experience, absolutely nothing in the world compares to the feeling of releasing those straps at the end of a long, sweaty day. I still have dreams about those moments.

Oh and one guy who always used to make fun of me came to me one day and said he had to get surgery because he found out he had a triple curve. Poetic justice?