Name: There's nothing straight about me // My scoliosis [CC]
Uploaded: 2020-03-27T19:06:00.000Z
Duration: 14 min 19 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

Am I making this video just to make gay jokes? Maybe.

Adverbs of manner

Hi, I’m Jessica, and there’s nothing straight about me- particularly the two 45 degree curves

Which is what we’re going to be talking about today, along with showing you some of

Occuring in about 3% of people, scoliosis is a medical condition in which a person's

spine has a sideways curve. The curve is usually an ‘S’ or ‘C’ shape and can involve

twists in various dimensions. Girls are typically more severely affected than boys and it most

commonly occurs between the ages of 10 and 20.

In some people, the degree of curve is stable, while in others, it increases over time depending

on the cause of the scoliosis. The degree of scoliosis can be very minor and typically

not cause many problems whilst severe cases can interfere with breathing. I find that

because I have hypermobile joints I can actually accidentally make mine worse by just lying

on one side for two long or being curved too much and that can effectively stop my breathing.

Which is something I now realise I shouldn’t smile whilst saying but…

What can I say, I’m full of relentless optimism, painkillers and diet coke!

During research for this video I read the line “Typically, no pain is present” and

To show you why, here is an x-ray of a normal back. Here is an x-ray of my back. Yep. That’s

my spine. Now please, on a chart of 1 to 10 please imagine how much that hurts.

Holding that number in your head? Good. Now times it by four!

But sure, apparently most people aren’t in pain. Which is nice for them.

But ignoring those people… symptoms associated with scoliosis can include:

Pain in the back, shoulders, neck and buttocks Heart and lung problems

Constipation and pain due to stretching of stomach, intestines, etc.

Functional limited mobility Painful menstruation

Uneven musculature on one side of the spine Slow nerve action

Uneven hips, arms, or leg lengths And Rib prominence or a prominent shoulder

Much like my glorious lesbianism, my scoliosis isn’t necessarily visible unless you’re

I have an s- shaped spine and I’m very fortunate in that my two curves are about the same degree

which means that my head is pretty much exactly in alignment with my pelvis, even though my

spine does some weird things in between. So I look straight.

Which was a problem when I was dating. [beat]

Oh I’m going to keep that going all video.

So I look relatively normal- and yes, I’m going to say ‘normal’ a lot in this video

so… yes, that’s just happening. I can’t use ‘typical’ since I have to use it to

describe the most common types of scoliosis and let’s be honest- it can only be used

against us in a bad way if we let it be. I’m not ‘normal’ and that’s not a bad thing.

Keep watching and I’ll show you some close up shots in a minute...

The cause of most cases of scoliosis is unknown but is believed to involve a combination of

genetic and environmental factors. If you have someone in the family with scoliosis

you are more likely to get it. It can also occur due to another condition such as muscle

spasms, cerebral palsy, Marfan syndrome, and tumors- your spine can literally just grow

around a tumor, like a river around a rock. Mine is due to my underlying neuromuscular

There are two classifications of scoliosis: structural, in which the spine is in a fixed

shape or functional in which the spine itself is normal but it has been pulled into a curve.

An estimated 10% of cases are due to a neuromuscular disease, 15% are congenital and 65% of scoliosis

cases are idiopathic- meaning with an unknown cause or apparent spontaneous origin.

I love it when the medical industry admits they don’t know everything… but also hate

it because it would be really useful if they did.

Also: top marks to whomever just worked out that only added up to 90%. The other 10% are

things like the tumours we mentioned earlier.

Congenital scoliosis- ‘congenital’ by the way means that it’s a condition present

at birth- can be for a number of reasons to do with the spine’s formation during weeks

three to six but most other types develop during adolescence. Mine started when I was

about 12, I think, as I was getting really, really bad headaches and growing a lot at

At whatever age it’s first noticed, diagnosis is confirmed with an X-ray because…

Scoliosis associated with known syndromes is subclassified as “syndromic scoliosis”

and boy are there a lot of them! To pick three out of a hat: Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease,

Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and spina bifida. And I only picked those three because I can actually

pronounce them. If you’ve got one of the myriad other syndromes that have created a

scoliosis please leave me a comment… with tips on how to pronounce it because… I…

Another form of secondary scoliosis is degenerative scoliosis- this is the type we see most in

older people. You’ll probably have seen your grandparents or people of their generation

shrinking and getting humps on their back as they age.

Unless you have those freakishly fit grandparents who like to hike up mountains at the age of

105 and can still robustly debate the ethics of the modern living wage as they do so.

Personally I intend to use my old-person privilege for such fun things as no longer being glared

at when I sit in the disabled seat on a bus.

I have a literal pass that means I’m allowed to sit here, Janet! Stop trying to set my

Anyway, that’s a de, which means ‘new’, referring to the occurrence of the condition

during later life. It’s generally because your bones become weaker and the ligaments

and discs located in the spine become worn in an asymmetrical manner.

Look after your back now and it will slow the process. You have been warned. It’s

too late for me but you can still save yourself.

Is what I’d like to fool you into believing.

My mother has had a bad back since I was a little girl because yes this connective tissue

condition is inherited and also yes my brother and I were offensively large babies to carry

around for nine months. I was nine and a half pounds when I was born and he was ten and

That’s the same as a large bag of potatoes, a small microwave oven, a six-foot aluminum

step ladder a medium size bowling ball or two bottles of two-litres of Diet Coke.

Thank god I’m a lesbian and there’s another womb in this marriage.

I decided from a young age that I was going to do my utmost to protect my back and- deeply

ironically- keep it straight. And we all know how well that turned out (!)

I’d sit up ram-rod straight at all times, I wouldn’t slouch, I put my shoulders back…

I started to get terrible pains in my back especially my right shoulder-blade- the curve

at the top is to my right- to the extent that it felt as if someone had taken a boiling