ScoliSmart Bootcamp

I’ve been doing a lot of sitting, waiting, observing, processing and listening this week and last week. I've also been doing a lot of praying. I’ve been spending time at the Natural Wellness and Pain Relief Centers in Grand Blanc, MI with John Michael. This is where JM is doing the ScoliSmart Bootcamp. Dr. Mark Morningstar and his assistants have been wonderful! 

The bootcamp is Monday through Thursday for two weeks. We drove up on Monday morning to save on the cost of staying another night at the hotel. It’s a 3+ hour drive so that means a very early morning to get up here by 9:15. Last week it was just me and JM coming up but this week I brought Ben and Bekah with us. I didn’t want to leave them on their own again or have to deal with making sure they had someone to spend time with so they aren’t alone while their dad is at work.

Staying in a hotel can be adventurous, especially if you’re not sure what the rooms look like. Last week we were given a double room with the smallest bathroom I’ve ever seen. JM couldn’t even get his wheelchair in, much less close the door. When your son has to brush his teeth in the bathtub because he can’t get to the sink, you know it’s a tiny bathroom. (We don’t always ask for an accessible room because he can usually get into the bathroom and close the door.) I went to the front desk to ask for a wheelchair accessible room so JM could actually have some privacy and not have to brush his teeth in the bathtub. The ladies at the front desk were great to work with. Long story short, we have two rooms for the price of one this week! They gave us the only wheelchair accessible room that has an adjoining room. We now have two bathrooms with three beds. J It’s great!

The schedule during the week is: Monday and Wednesday are long days with JM having three sessions and Tuesday and Thursday he has two sessions. Mondays are extra long days with the three hour drive to start the day.

Wearing the activity suit while
on the whole body vibration
board. The suit is hard to see because
it blends in with the black on his chair.

 The sessions are about two hours long. JM has been assigned specific exercises for his type of curve. His scoliosis is also trauma induced and because of his paralysis some of his exercises look a little different than the other kids. He does various Schroth Method exercises, wearing the activity suit while on the whole body vibration board, wearing the torso trainer while sitting on a bosu ball. He also gets the bonus of massages on his back. Most of these are with a timer set at 20 minutes each with some at one minute/four times.

Funny how the teenagers can use
their phones in any position. :)  

A few discoveries while we’ve been here…

• JM’s scoliosis progressed a lot in the past few months.
• The majority of scoliosis patients are teenage girls. JM is the only male most of the time. 
• The fact that we didn’t notice his curve early is normal. It was “all of a sudden” there ... without warning. I heard other parents say that too. This helped me to not feel like a bad parent… or clueless parent.
• There are other methods of treating scoliosis other than surgery.
• The body is a complex thing. It can only be created by a God who is creative, intelligent and knows exactly what he’s doing.

Wearing the torso trainer. 

This is part of an explanation of why this method works... 

ScoliSMART™ exercises focus on your spines reflexes and subconscious brain control. Like the beating of our heart, the alignment of our spinal column is controlled by your brain. Like your heart beat, your spinal alignment cannot be directly controlled by you. You can, however, indirectly influence this control mechanism by causing a reaction.

Our doctors use innovative exercise equipment, this equipment effectively engages the muscles influencing your spine’s alignment. This equipment influences how the brain contracts your spine’s deep muscle layers, the layers controlling alignment of your spine. You do not “think” about which muscle to contract, rather your spines natural righting reflexes automatically do it for you. This is known as Auto Response Training.

If you were to run up a flight of stairs your heart would automatically increase its rate in order to produce more blood flow. It is an autonomic reflex that increased the heart rate; we use this same principal to cause your spinal reflexes to react causing more symmetrical muscle firing resulting in a straighter spine.

I don’t understand all this but I’m grateful for those that do and can work with my son. Our God is one that is amazing and good to us. He created our bodies to heal itself by doing specific exercises. God has also created certain people who have a passion in knowing how the body trains and responds to the brain. It’s amazing how everything in the body is meant to work with another part to bring unity. 

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