Scoliosis & uneven hips and what we can do

[, Music, ], hello, everyone and welcome to back chat, welcome to yoga berry your yoga for scoliosis community. My name is christine deregibery and i do this every wednesday, 4 p.m. Uk time, if you ever want to join me, live um much more fun, because then we can have a little conversation. Well, you can type in the chat and i can respond um.

Sometimes i’ve got interview guests here to have a little chat with me and to share all their wisdom, so we’ve got usually different different topics today, it’s just me talking and it’s giving you a great opportunity to ask your questions. So if you are joining live, feel free to type in the chat box, and let me know if there is anything um that you would like to ask, and the topic for today um is a one that always comes up, especially with those that have lumbar scoliosis And so scoliosis in your in your lower spine and that is about uneven hips, so feel free to come and say hello if you’re here live um. Let me know if this is something that maybe you have noticed before. If you’ve got any questions about this topic – and i have asked on instagram on my instagram account already um, which is yogaberry.scoliosis if you want to connect over there, i usually ask before the show goes: live um what people’s questions are, and there have been quite a Few so i’m going to try and go through these same thing in my facebook group um, so i like to give people the chance to especially those that can’t make it live to ask their questions in there.

But obviously i can see that a few of you are live here now so feel free to come and say hello. Let me know where abouts you are in the world um. Let me know if you’ve got scoliosis and what your questions might be about this topic. So um, let me bring up. I have a little uh slide here, just to kind of illustrate a little bit more about what we’re talking about, and i’m going to go straight into um laura’s question so laura on instagram.

She asked how do i know that i’ve got uneven hips right, so i just want to to say that we’re not trying to look for problems right if you haven’t noticed it before and it is not a big deal um then don’t try and look for problems Now this is really. This is really if you have noticed this, if this is something that has been bothering you, then you might want to watch so i can see karen is here hi karen um and i actually uh. Well, let’s go through this picture. First of all, so laura asked: how do i know that i’ve got uneven hips? The best thing to do really is to look in the mirror right, if you, if you see that your pelvis is shifted over to one side or the other, you notice that you know that you’ve got uneven hips.

You might notice that the waist looks different from one side to the other, so you can see it here with this graphic and i’m not quite sure if you can actually see the mouse when i’m pointing at it. But you can see on the left side that there is a little bit more of a dip there on on the right side. You’Ve got a much straighter line um so again that is kind of an um, an uneven tilted pelvis it. It might look that one hip is kind of higher or it might even look that one leg is longer. So let me know if this all kind of sounds familiar.

If this is you if this is something that you have come across um, so this is a good way to to to notice, and there are a few things that you can um kind of do to pay a little bit more attention to this, and this is Something that i would always kind of recommend to people is just notice how things might feel different on one side to the other, especially in your yoga practice in in your yoga practice. You’Re very much encouraged, at least, if you’re practicing with me to notice these subtle differences between the right side and the left side. So i’m thinking of a few poses here, for example, anything where you kind of engage the the hip flexors, the psoas muscle um, which is um running kind of over the the front of the hips. If, for example, you’re lying on your back and you’re trying to oops you’re trying to lift up one leg, um that might feel different on one side to the other, so this would be kind of another sign that there might be a little bit of an imbalance. There going on in the in the hips, but there are plenty of other ways as well to find out.

So let me know if you’re here, let me, let me know if you have noticed it before. If maybe does it come up in certain yoga poses, for example, i’m gon na try and find my banner again here it is, did promise my um, my daughter, to put up her picture, so she drew me a little picture for my back chat, so that was Her request for today’s show um, so i have to make sure that this is in here as well. So she’s drawn me here with a little youtube sign in front, which i thought was really really nice um, yes, so laura! I. I hope that this is helpful.

Um, i hope that this makes sense and i’m pretty sure, uh that you know already if there is something imbalanced right and what is really interesting about this is, if i find my other picture again of the of these scoliosis, that the hips, if you look at Yourself from the back, they will shift away from your primary curvature so from the biggest curve that you have – and this is especially for those of you – who’ve got s-curves or we’ve got more than more than one curve. You might notice that your hips are shifted over to the opposite side of your main curvature, so, for example, for this person here um in this graphic, they have a right, thoracic curvature. So you can see the biggest curve it’s kind of more at the um. The top of the picture and it’s going towards the right – the hips – are shifted over to the left so that slightly shifted over and sometimes a little bit difficult to kind of make this um clear in a in a graphic, but that’s usually how it works. So if you have one large curvature, for example, a thoracolumbar curve – and it’s going to the left, then most likely your hips are shifted over to the right.

So it will always be the opposite. So that’s quite um, that’s just something to maybe notice. Bonnie is saying she notices this good, lovely, um and uh. You will also when you, when you have a look on instagram. I do have some before and after pictures there um from a client of mine, and you will see that the the hips are shifted.

It’S it was two days ago or something like that, so it’s one of the last pose last posts and you will see that the hips are shifted over to the right and then, after we’ve kind of we worked on this body awareness, we worked on a changing Kind of the proprioception and changing um activating different different muscles. You will see that the hips are much more centered, which is really really interesting, and this kind of brings me um to who was it veronica’s question? So veronica is basically asking: what can we do about it right? Is there something we can do about it? Is there something we can do to fix this um and bonnie?

Maybe let us know what your kind of what your curvature is. Um. Do you have kind of a main lumbar curvature um? Do you feel, like your your hips are kind of shifted over to the other side? Give us a little bit more.

Give us a little bit more information um. The other thing to kind of think about here is leg length, difference, um and again. Let me know if this is something that resonates with you um, but for me when i was a teenager and i had quite a lot of back problems and i kept going back to the orthopedic orthopedic surgeon um to see you know well. What is that that that can be done about this? What they did was they?

The first thing that they did is they kind of put me on this little a little board to lift up one leg to see if that would even out the hips and it did so. Is there a leg length different? Isn’T there a leg, length difference? This is always something that comes up. We do have to keep in mind that, because of the rotation that is going on in the spine, it could sometimes seem like one leg is longer than the other, but it might not necessarily be true.

Um so again have a look at this, this image on on instagram, and you know who you are obviously um, but before it looks like there is actually one leg longer than the other. Now we haven’t actually magically lengthened the leg with the yoga sessions. What we’ve done is we worked higher up, bringing the torso over the hips and that kind of corrected um the the tilt in the in the hips as well. So this is just something to bear in mind. Now, i’m not saying that there is never a leg length difference, so it can absolutely be true, and sometimes what happens is that because one leg is shorter than the other and you grow and you grow and you grow, then the scoliosis develops.

So he knows, you know, we don’t really know what happened. First was the leg kind of uh? Was there a leg length difference and then the scoliosis developed or was the scoliosis there? And then it looks like the the legs are um slightly different lengths, and the only way really to find out is if you’ve got an x-ray, and you really need to kind of have a full x-ray of the legs, which even i have never bothered to do. Um so yeah, it’s just something to to keep in mind good lovely, so bonnie is saying my curve is opposite of yours, so i have a left lumbar curve with a compensating right curvature, and so i would imagine bonnie has got a right, lumbar curvature.

So her hips – if that is her primary curve, her hips will most likely be shifted over to the left, and i do this. I teach this all the time in my um four weeks practice transformation. My online course we really go into details and i i very much encourage people to visualize what is going on in their bodies and to maybe even draw your curvature or draw the the shape. Have some pictures taken of you from the back from the front from the sides to really notice? What’S going on and now just one thing about symmetry?

So sometimes we get a little bit caught up about this idea of um symmetry and this idea of having kind of the perfect uh the perfect body. In a way, you know perfect weight and all of that, but also perfectly looking on the right side on and on the left side. Now we are not designed to be completely symmetrical, so this is just something keep this at the back of your mind, um we have one heart right and it’s slightly over to the left. Um, you know all the the abdominal organs they create an in in imbalance. At the end of the day, we are not completely balanced on the left side and on the right side.

So, of course, there will be other things going on and i’m sure, even if you have a very mild scoliosis, even if you have no scoliosis notice, if you’re standing do you turn one foot more out than the other, and i don’t think i’ve ever seen. Anyone who is completely uh symmetrical in this in this department, so again this would be another kind of another sign and maybe something to investigate a little bit more of if there is one leg tending to turn out a little bit more. What does that mean for every anything that is going up, uh going on higher up in the body the knees, for example, the hips, the um, the solos muscles hip, flexors um, the lower abdominals? There will be a slightly different translation of that on the left side and on the right side. On top of that, you’ve got scoliosis, or maybe it’s the other way around.

As we know, we don’t know what came first with that rotation going on. There might be very much well, it’s very likely that the muscles work quite differently on the left side to the right good. Let me just have a little look here at the chat and i know there’s always a little bit of a delay. So please do bear with me, and i know that i missed a couple of comments last time um, but i do have a look at them. I promise um so feel free to ask your questions good.

So let me bring up this one. Joyce is saying i have never had back pain, um it started last may there were subtle signs. It started with one leg being shorter than the other. Yes, so this is very, very common. I hear this all the time that we’ve got kind of this period of time.

When we we don’t have any problems, we don’t have pain and then you know we we get a little bit older or there’s other things going on in our lives. Maybe a pandemic and all of the sudden we’re sitting in front of our computers all the time and then we start to get problems and we start to notice these thing things, and maybe yes and i joyce – i don’t know. Obviously, if you, if your leg is actually shorter than the other or does it just kind of seem like this, so it’s just something to investigate and i can tell you when whenever i go to see a chiropractor or osteopath um, they are always really confused. So they always start off saying: oh you’ve got a leg length difference and then they do a little bit of clicking and popping and correcting and then they’re like. Oh actually now the other leg is shorter um.

So this very often has something to do with that. Little bit of rotation twist in the pelvis and we are going to talk about twisting next week as well, good lovely tatiana is saying she’s listening and working lovely um. Please know what please let us know what exercises um works for uneven hips. That’S why you’re? All here right, i’m just i was just waiting for this question.

Good hi, laura laura, is here as well she’s saying hi laura. I did address your your question in the beginning, so i don’t know if you heard it, if you missed it about how do we notice that we have got um uneven hips, so you might want to go back to the to the beginning, um good. So joyce is saying: had an x-ray, so my scoliosis um chronic midline bilateral sciatica. The pain is excruciating yes, and this is something else right um. This is why i did.

I did want to talk about this and hopefully you all know me uh, i’m thinking those of you are here, but if you don’t know me, i’m not a doctor, i’m not a medical professional. I am a yoga teacher, so i come from this from this point of view of somebody who works with people and and my own body, obviously as well, but also other people um that practice yoga and i look at a lot of people how they move and Help them um, you know how to kind of to to make changes. Um that they can do on their own right and exercise is, is, is a big part of this, and movement is a big part of this, but anything i find and that’s why i always say people with lumber scoliosis. Typically, in my experience have the most amount of problems, because there is this direct connection to the pelvis um back of the pelvis. You know: we’ve got the the s i joined, which is an area which can be, if that’s out of alignment that can be painful.

Sciatic nerve goes kind of go through that area as well. That can be painful, so there’s a lot of kind of room for things to be hurting and things to be kind of um affecting the the lower back and the the pelvis the hips directly. So it’s a big kind of problematic junction, it doesn’t have to be, but it can be really problematic, good, lovely. So, let’s get back to tatiana. Is she wants to know what we can do about this right?

She wants to know come on christine, stop the waffling. Just tell us what we need to do is downward dog a good pose for scoliosis. As with always it depends um for hip imbalance, um, [, Music, ], it’s a tricky one right, because you yes and no um, but for downward dog. You have obviously most of the weight on your on your hands. Hopefully, you’ve got a lot of weight in your in your feet as well, but what you can do in your downward dog is you can maneuver your hips slightly?

You can move them over to the right and you can move them over to the left. Now, if you know what you’re doing this can be super useful, and if you have someone there even better, they can look out for for that symmetry in the in the hips. If you’re practicing on your own and you’re, not quite sure what you’re doing, there’s. Also a lot of room for error and for things kind of to be um to be really embedded in the in the in the brain of like oh. This feels right.

This feels wrong and for scoliosis we know that there can sometimes be a problem in the in the perception of of how you feel and what is actually alignment um. So that is always something that comes up now. What i really like in terms of yoga, poses i’m going to bring up your other comment again. Tatyana is um. First of all, very simple, standing tadasana mountain pose put a block to your inner thighs right.

I can’t do it here because i don’t have enough room here to to show you, but hopefully you can imagine it. You stand up, bring a block to your inner thighs and you squeeze your legs together and stand in front of the mirror and see what difference this makes to your hips, and i guarantee you it will make a difference if you know if there is scoliosis, if There is a lack of stability that will be really really helpful, so what i usually do with people that have problems in this department is we really look at the core support and we look at what we can do to get a little bit more core support And um kind of balance this this whole area out a little bit more. So those of you who have been maybe wearing a brace when you were younger um. You know that they they give you the brace kind of to stabilize and most of the braces. Now they are kind of more in the lower body.

Yes, if you have a thoracic curvature, they will also go into the kind of underneath the armpit but they’re, mainly in the lower body, but they’re really designed to keep you stable. Now you want your body to do this when, when you’re older right, you do not want to wear a brace, it’s not very comfortable, it’s not nice. So you want to kind of train your body and make sure that it acts like a brace like a corset to be able to support your curvature and to support your lower spine. So long-winded answer tatiana for anything core um strengthening and i’m not talking kind of big sit-ups. I’M talking more things like this, where you, for example, doing bridge pose squeezing the inner thighs um into a block.

That can be really really super helpful for this strengthening gently strengthening this whole area and then the other thing is is also just to kind of notice. Your patterns right and – and i usually say this when people i’m thinking of bridge, pose now again when people first lie down in bridge, pose look up and look towards your legs. Are your hips shifted over to the right or to the left? Now, with we know now from the beginning, the hips always shift away from the direction from the convexity of your primary curvature. So whatever your primary curve is, the hips will probably be shifting over to the other side right, so you kind of need to bring them back.

So i know my main curvature is a left lumbar curve. My hips will shift over to the right, even when i lie down. Sometimes this doesn’t happen right. So don’t do not look for problems when there aren’t any there, but i know i need to bring them back to center before i start anything else, good, so does that help tatiana? Let me know um if that is at all helpful good.

Neil is saying amazing. Work, thank you so much uh, lovely, um, [, Music, ] joyce, is saying lots of you’ve got lots of medical problems, so it’s left me so depressed. I know i you know i can really empathize with this um it’s. It can sometimes be hard and just know that there are a lot of people that start the practice and start being curious about their scoliosis and and what to do they start quite late on in their lives, and you can still make a change. It doesn’t matter how old you are: okay, uh, okay, caicos saying i can shift my hips to align my body when i’m standing up, but it’s hard to keep this and walk working out and move around any tips.

Yes, that’s the hardest, but i would say um work, first with a static posture right, so you work on it with, for example, you squeeze the inner thighs into block really kind of working on that core support. Let your body feel and experience what this is like. What it feels like and then you might take it into a very simple movement, for example, you just take a step forward with the left foot and the right foot is back so slightly asymmetric. Don’T make it too complicated notice, what’s happening with your hips? Can you still keep them in line?

So if you know right you’re becoming your detective, if you know that your hips want to shift over to the right, can you keep them aligned? Can you bring them back and i would strongly recommend if you cannot uh obviously have a yoga teacher there and i you know, i do offer sessions via zoom, but i know that this is not accessible for everyone practice in front of a mirror right practice and Look at yourself and notice what is happening now. You cannot look at your own back. Do you realize that? But you can look at yourself from the front, so this is definitely something that you can just kind of know, but um or notice, but start small and simple right.

Do not think about i’m going to take this into running straight away, because that is super hard and that is super frustrating. So you’ve done your standing. You can sort out the standing you’re telling me how about you taking one step forwards, what happens and then take the other step forwards, what happens and building it up little by little good tatiana saying what side tree pose. I should do with left thoracolumbar scoliosis. My right hip is higher.

Thank you. Okay, great question, um [, Music ]. I do not recommend doing a pose like tree pose. Just on one side. I would recommend doing it on both sides.

You are doing some major strengthening there in your glutes. In your leg. Do you really want to do this one-sided? I don’t know, i don’t think so, but you might do it differently on on one side to the other right. So, for example, if you’re balancing on your left foot on your left leg um what happens to your hips and again, i would recommend that you practice this in front of the mirror.

What happens to your right side, um tatiana, so with a left oracle, lumber curve. She has the convexity over to the left. The right side is a little bit kind of compressed and sunken in. Can you still keep that right side, nice and long, and if your right hip has come up even further um? Can you kind of keep it keep it level keep it down now.

You’Re saying your right, hip is, is is higher, which makes sense because the hips move away from the um primary curvature. So you need to kind of work on this even more. You need to really drop that right, hip practice in front of the mirror. On the other side, this will feel different right. This will feel a little bit easier and and already you’re engaging kind of the left side and you’re lifting that leg.

So that is really good as well right, that’s a really good thing to practice. The muscles will engage differently and i would really recommend that you do it on both sides and if there is one side that is harder you just do it twice. So i always say start with your difficult side, go to your easy side and then go back to your difficult side again, um. So that way, you’re kind of getting a really kind of rounded practice, but you’re, giving your weaker side a little bit more attention and weaker really depends on which part of the body we’re kind of thinking about. So it’s not like in scoliosis the whole of your left side is, is weak or strong, and then the whole of the right side is the opposite.

It doesn’t work like that. There are lots and lots of different imbalances, so i hope that helps. Oh, we’ve got lots of questions coming in now, so i’m gon na try and go through this. So laura’s saying last december i found out that one of my ribs was more pronounced in the left side than in the right side. Could it be more related to rotation of my spine?

Absolutely yes! So sticking out ribs, i would imagine you’re thinking about the front ribs sticking out um. That is absolutely due to the rotation so in the the convexity always rotates backwards. So imagine that kind of the whole ribcage is is rotated, so, yes, there might be the lower tip of the ribcage. Um might be kind of sticking out, and i find this is often for s curves, where the curve changes direction good.

So i try to uh. I try to do things to make my scoliosis better, but i’m scared that i will make it worse. So you are in the right place and i will always say that to you. The worst thing that you can do is do nothing. So, even if you do um [ Music ] a bad movement, you know whatever that means um.

You know i’m not talking about bungee jumping or something like that. I’M talking about sensible exercise, but even if you do it completely two-sided, doing the same thing on the right and the left, it’s still better than not doing anything, so you are going to make it worse. If you sit on your sofa um, do nothing watch netflix um, if you’re in an awkward position in your in your bed, with your head kind of hiked up for long periods of times for long periods of time. That’S when, when you’re gon na make it worse, you’re, probably not gon na make it worse with exercise good. I have right side, lumber scoliosis with hump outwards on the right side of the waist, which side should i sleep on okay, so there is another um, typical scoliosis, lumbar scoliosis problem.

So she saying her convexity is on the right side. It feels the right side feels a little bit more bulky, probably when she looks at herself from the back. The hips will be shifted over to the left so depending on if she has a thoracic curvature as well. Obviously, but if that is her primary curve, most likely, the hips will be shifted over to the left. Now, usually, it is recommended um that you sleep on the side on the of the concavity, so that would be kind of the the most sensible way of sleeping now um.

I have made a youtube video about this, so feel free to to check this out. It’S all about sleeping positions, and it’s it’s one of my watched, most watched videos ever um, and i in that one in that video. I give you some options for, if you are sleeping on your back, if you’re sleeping on the the other side, so just that you have got an option of of sleeping on each side, but generally sleeping on the concave side is a better idea than sleeping on The convex site, good, i’m rotated to the right. Does anyone have the look of a cave chest from scoliosis sunken in chest? Yes, absolutely very um common!

I’M sure a lot of people can relate to that. This again is due to the rotation as well. So laura’s saying is: yes, it works, i’m in front of the mirror, and i did one step back with my right foot and my hips are leveled. My main curve is left lumber, yay good. So, yes, do you notice these things so investigate a little bit more um scoliosis is so complicated right because of all the twists and the and the turns and things going on.

But there is so much that you can really um that you cannotice yourself as well and just kind of noticing what you can see in the mirror and again you know it’s helpful to have a yoga teacher there. He looks at you, but you can see. The hips is something that you can see very easily in the mirror right. The other thing i would um that you might want to kind of notice is when you’re in standing, that if you look down and you look down towards the the hip bones, so the asis, the the bones that are sticking out at the front – is there one That is slightly forward off the other, so we do not only have a tilt one hip, higher and and the other hip lower, but we also have a little rotation this way. In that way, i’m going to really confuse you now um, but i’m taking my chances here again.

I just want you to kind of notice these these things, and this will come up very much when you’re lying down on your back and uh, for example, just resting on your back with the knees bent. Obviously one hip slightly further back. This will have an effect on that. Obviously hi joe joe’s saying great advice. Um for everyone.

Good hips are towards the right um. That was your the right side, lumbar scoliosis. Okay, i was saying your hips are probably over to the left, but there you go. You know uh one of these things. Scoliosis is it’s different for for everyone, generally, the hips shift away from the primary curvature, so whatever big curve you’ve got but uh.

You know who am i to to say this? Obviously, there’s so many indefinite um, you know so many different variables here, good, so sophie is saying my hips get uneven when i get a big muscle spasm and i don’t really know how to work out. As i hear from spasm, is there any pose that you can do while healing from spasms and help my hips yeah? I i would have to really know a lot more um about this sophie and um. You know i would have to really know where this is kind of where exactly in your body, this is when do you feel it um how you generally kind of move and what the the general patterns there there might be.

So, to be able to give you kind of a more specific advice, i would have to um get a little bit more information. So maybe let let us know at least where exactly you. You feel that i’m spasming and we’ll see what we can say about that good. I got diagnosed with scoliosis right now at 32 post covet postcovid. I thought we’re still in the middle of it um i have right lumbar scoliosis.

Will i ever be able to cure it, watch last week’s video and conversation with adeline chung um, and in that one we are talking about curing scoliosis um, but yeah there is it’s. It’S a long conversation have a look at it good. So okay saying my right hip was more forward, but it fixed now magically. Oh, is that just by listening to me there you go. I can change scoliosis just by uh, just by talking i’m kidding, obviously um.

But yes, you know. Sometimes it’s a very, very easy kind of thing to do, and and again i would. I would urge you to have a look in the mirror. First, step: look in the mirror, confront it notice if your hips are shifted over to the right and to or to the left. How does it maybe change if you bring a block to the inner thighs and you engage your legs and you engage your core actively?

Does that make a change already and if it does then maybe think about uh? What could you do to kind of strengthen a little bit more strengthen that that core support and what could you do to support your body um a little bit better now? This is well it’s a relatively easy thing if there is pain. Obviously, this is all a little bit more complicated and in that case we might really have to kind of investigate where exactly it’s it’s coming from, and for that again you know i’m available for for zoom sessions, um one to one currently running my four weeks yoga For scoliosis practice transformation so that one is closed for registration right now. But this is really a great it’s a great opportunity to kind of dive a little bit deeper into and really establish your practice and get some personal um personalized advice from me as well um.

But that will probably be happening again in may or june something like that, but i would see i would see how it goes. How we go with this um pandemic as well. Good, lovely bonnie’s, saying, must sign off. Yes, i’m going to wrap up as well. So if there is no other questions um, then i’m going to leave you with this next week.

We’Re going to be talking about twisting poses. Should we do them? Should we do twists um? How should we maybe do them all of this? So let me know, fear free.

Let me bring this up for a moment. I’M gon na bring up my um instagram. This is all very complicated. This thing there you go so get in touch with me. Uh connect with me on instagram.

If you’ve got any questions, that’s the best place to go. You can go onto my website as well, which is www.yogaberry.net and find out more information about all my courses and my online sessions, and all of that so thank you. Everyone, and thank you so much for watching.

Thank you so much for everyone and who’s asked their their questions and really making this a really fun conversation for everyone as well and and just know that when you ask a question, it will probably help somebody else as well. So let’s keep the conversation going and i talk to you next week: