Contact details

As well as being a freelance writer I am also a qualified counsellor and I work for a low cost counselling service in Exeter and for the NHS Gender Clinic also in Exeter.

Simultaneously, I work as a Disability Member of the First Tier Tribunal, Social Entitlement Chamber sitting on disability benefit tribunals on an ad hoc basis.

As a writer I specialise in writing about disability and health.

My articles have been published in the Guardian, Times, OUCH! [BBC disability website], Disability Now, Broadcast, Lifestyle [Motability magazine], The Practising Midwife, 'Junior, Pregnancy & Baby', Writers' News, Able, Getting There [Transport for London magazine], Junior, Community Care, DPPi [Disability, Pregnancy & Parenthood International]. I have also had articles commissioned by Daily Mail.

For more information about me and for examples of my writing please see below.

If you would like me to write an article for your publication, about any aspect of disability, please do get in touch:

emma@emmabowler.co.uk

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Lordosis - curvature of the spine and all that

A few weeks ago we took Archie to see my/his consultant, I was concerned that the lower part of his back is already quite curved. After waiting around, seeing the consultant's stand in, getting x-rays, seeing the consultant's stand in again we were told he would call after having spoken to absent consultant.

Weeks passed without a call so I followed it up myself. The feedback was that there is nothing they can do [certainly at this moment in time anyway] as lordosis/curvature of the spine is all part and parcel of bone dysplasia.

The only advice was to try and ensure that Archie’s spine and hips are kept as flexible as possible and keep him as stretched and as strong as possible. Though ideas as to how to do this were not forthcoming.

As a child I too went for these annual checkups with a consultant, both my parents would take the whole day off work because it was almost a whole day of waiting before you were called in. He would, with an entourage of medical students looking on, give me a quick once over and say 'no need to do anything at the moment, maybe next year, see you then.' Within minutes we'd be back out in the waiting room.

I live in the hope that maybe there's more that can be done for Archie to minimise his 'difference', but maybe it really is just pie in the sky wishful thinking on my part and more about me anyway - wishing that my back had never been allowed to have got so curved. Don't get me wrong I'm not all out to make him 'normal' but if there are ways of preventing certain things happening I'd go for that, I certainly won't be pushing for him to go in for leg lengthening that's for sure!

3 comments:

altiebassi said...

Hello Emma, first of all pardon me for my very bad English.
Our son has the cifosis, when he was born, her feet were cakes. We have made massages the feet, and for the cifosis, Mattia, he used of the orthopaedic shoes that protect a corrected position of the back. If you want, I can to send the photos of these shoes.

EmmaB said...

Thank you for writing, would be interesting to see what the shoes look like.

Thanks.

Emma

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