Update on treatment
22 August 2018
Hi Everyone,
We've been back from California and settling into a new family routine, trying to figure out the best way to incorporate Caitlin's therapy around our daily commitments. At first therapy was taking two hours each morning and again in the evening, but we've streamlined it into an hour each morning and 1.5 hours each evening.
Our trip to California was 22 days, 15 of those days Caitlin spent in absolute agony. The therapy includes core exercises to increase her core strength to hold a straight spine in place, stretching of the spinal cord nerves, a traction chair that works into the ligaments that hold the curve in place to lengthen them out and de-rotate her rotated ribs to allow the spine to straighten and then weights that are held in place while balancing to strengthen the muscles around the spine. In addition, a brace that incorporates these elements is worn for 23 hours a day.
Her MRI when we arrived in California showed her top thoracic curve at almost 60 and her lower lumbar curve at 48 degrees. By the end of the three weeks,
her curve was down to 22 and 13 in the brace. Holding the curve at such low degrees indicates this treatment will be successful at correcting her curve. However, we'll have more indications on that when we return to the clinic at the end of October.
We are fundraising now for our next trip, where her curve will be assessed again and adjustments made to her routine and equipment as needed to ensure it continues to reduce.
In addition to all your amazing and generous donations, we've received direct donations and offers for fundraising too. Caitlin's school have just completed a community fundraising event and we have another coming up at Columbus Coffee Cafe in Mitre 10 in Pukekohe on Friday 21st September as well.
Please keep us in mind if you know of any people or businesses who may wish to contribute prizes or products for us to raffle or auction off. We continue to auction off donated items and packages on trademe to assist with fundraising as well.
Once again, we'd just like to thank you all for your support and we wanted to update you on how things are going. We look forward to updating you after our next clinic trip with more positive results!
Love and Blessings,
The McMurtry Family xxx