Some disorders can leave people with physical deformities that can prove to be life altering or even fatal. But while surgery is traditionally seen as a way to treat this, there are also people who choose to fight it out.25-year-old Instagram star Hayley Wakefield was diagnosed with scoliosis at the age of nine since her hips were uneven. But she is refusing to undergo surgery to fix an 80-degree curve in her spine which may kill her according to doctors.While doctors are concerned that it may curve into her heart and cause her death, her parents did their own research and found no one ever died of the condition. Hayley decided to go for chiropractic care and exercises to strengthen muscles supporting her spine and the curve reduced from 92 degrees to 80.While the condition doesn’t affect her day-to-day activities, Hayley does feel concerned about her appearance. But with time she has started seeing it as a part of who she is.Understanding your spine and how it works can help you better understand some of the problems that occur from aging or injury.Many demands are placed on your spine. It holds up your head, shoulders, and upper body. It gives you support to stand up straight, and gives you flexibility to bend and twist. It also protects your spinal cord.Your spine is made up of three segments. When viewed from the side, these segments form three natural curves. The “c-shaped” curves of the neck (cervical spine) and lower back (lumbar spine) are called lordosis. The “reverse c-shaped” curve of the chest (thoracic spine) is called kyphosis.The regions of the spineThese curves are important to balance and they help us to stand upright. If any one of the curves becomes too large or small, it becomes difficult to stand up straight and our posture appears abnormal.Abnormal curvatures of the spine are also referred to as spinal deformity. These types of conditions include kyphosis of the thoracic spine (“hunchback”) and lordosis of the lumbar spine (“swayback”).Scoliosis is another type of spinal deformity. When viewing the spine from the front or back, scoliosis is a sideways curvature that makes the spine look more like an “S” or a “C” than a straight “I.”The spinal cord extends from the skull to your lower back and travels through the middle part of each stacked vertebra, called the central canal. Nerves branch out from the spinal cord through openings in the vertebrae and carry messages between the brain and muscles.The spinal cord ends around the first and second lumbar vertebrae in the lower back and continues as nerve roots. This bundle of nerve roots is called the cauda equina. They exit the spinal canal through openings in the vertebrae (foramen), just like other nerve roots. In the pelvis, some of the nerves group into the sciatic nerve, which extends down the leg.
