I thought it would be beneficial for people to understand why I started treating patients with scoliosis, so, here is my story.  As a small boy I noticed that my mother had a large scar on the side of her left leg and a large scar down the center of her back.  I asked my mother what those scars were and she said they were from her scoliosis surgery.  I had never heard that word, “Scoliosis”, before, so my mother explained to me that when she was a teenager her spine was bent and that it was so bad they had to fix it.  At that age I took that at face value and moved on.  

Frequent Pain

As the years progressed, I would often hear my mom say her back hurt, but she would soldier on and keep moving.  My dad began to have numbness in his leg from working and he went to a local Chiropractor, Dr. Bridge, who helped his lower back and leg.  My dad convinced my mom to try seeing Dr. Bridge for her spine pain.  She went and was pleasantly surprised that her chronic pain, where her scoliosis is, was much improved.  My parents were so happy that they took me to see Dr. Bridge as well.  I remember asking Dr. Bridge if he thought I could be a Chiropractor, and he said absolutely!  So, at the age of 13, I decided I was going to be a Doctor of Chiropractic.   

Graduating Chiropractic School

Upon graduating Chiropractic School in 1993 my wife, who is also a Chiropractor, and I decided to set up  in Gilbert AZ, and we opened our first practice together in 1996.  Over the early years I would have adult patients with scoliosis come in and I’d help them with their pain but when the kids with scoliosis came, they didn’t have pain.  They had young, growing spines and they would get worse over time, even though I was practicing an advanced form of Chiropractic termed Chiropractic Biophysics.  However, despite my advanced training, I would be perplexed as to why the scoliosis in these kids would continue to progress.  I remembered what my mother went through with her surgery, so I was desperate to find some way to help these kids and my own kids, who I suspected may develop scoliosis.  

Early Experience with a Dynamic, Strap Brace.

Around 2007, my wife and I were certified in a dynamic, strap brace that was the state of the art in Scoliosis bracing at the time.  We treated our own daughter Madison, who was developing a lumbar scoliosis, with this brace.  This brace worked well initially but due to the action of the brace, our daughter developed another curve in the thoracic spine..  We saw this same result in other patients as well, so we decided to move on from that brace.  

Meeting Dr. Jeb McAviney and Beginning with ScoliBrace

As luck would have it, during my experience with the Dynamic brace, I was fortunate to meet Dr. Jeb McAviney, the developer of a new brace termed the ScoliBrace.  The ScoliBrace was a totally different style of brace as it was rigid and asymmetrical and over-corrective.  As Dr. Jeb explained to me, Scoliosis is a 3D problem and needs a 3D correction and enough pressure over time to cause the patient to grow straighter.  It all made sense to my wife and I so we got involved and switched our daughter and our patients into ScoliBraces.  The difference this brace made in our cases was amazing.  For our daughter the ScoliBrace reduced her 2 curve scoliosis a total of 16 degrees over the next 4 years, leaving her with 2 curves around 20 degrees and now she is in her early 20’s and her spine is stable and strong.  I was so impressed by these results that I put my mom in a ScoliBrace and it has helped her spine to stay upright, stopped the progression of her curve and reduced her pain. 

Joining the ScoliCare family

Over the last 10 years we have treated hundreds of patients with ScoliBrace.  In 2024 we were fortunate to be asked to join the ScoliCare family and open a ScoliCare office here in Gilbert. Now we are taking Scoliosis treatment to a new level here in Arizona.  Our motto at ScoliCare is” Providing the right treatment at the right time.” 

If you have questions about scoliosis and you live anywhere in Arizona, then please call us at 480-892-0022 and see how we can help.