Last week I was demonstrating an exercise to a delightfully curious woman with scoliosis. I highlighted the fact that this particular exercise was targeting her lower back muscles.
“But wait, don’t I have a C Curve?”
“Techinically, yes, but you also have a low back curve.”
The confusion might have been around the word Thoracolumbar.
Her x-ray report said the following:
Thoracolumbar levoscoliosis with apex at about L2-L3
*Side note. I was thrilled that her x-ray report described where the apex of the curve was. They don’t always note that in the report, but feel free to ask afterwards.
I once had a biomechanics teacher who suggested a logical way to understand anatomy: rather than try to memorize every single muscle, tendon, and ligament, learn the meaning of the words (the root origin), then all you have to do is interpret. Let’s try that in this scenario.
Thoracic: mid to upper back region
Lumbar: low back region
Levo: on the left side
Ok, so we know she has a curve going off to the left, but then they get a little more specific:
With apex about L2-3
This means that the curve is centered more in the low back. Here’s a straightforward graph of the vertebral column:
nursinghero.com
Now, if her report showed that the apex of the curve was a little bit higher I might think of it more as a C curve. But because her curve is centered in the low back region- which affects not only the muscles of the low back, but also the hip and leg- I am thinking of it as primarily a low back curve.
And because I am in the business of retraining your muscles to counter how they are already conditioned- call it re-conditioning, I am really focused on where your curve is centered.
The good thing about this particular example is that everyone is right. Isn’t that nice?
Do you have the word Thoracolumbar in your x-ray report? Are you confused about what that means? We want to hear from you.
This concludes my 3-part series on the nitty gritty of x-rays. If you have something you are curious about, send me a note and I’ll do my best to clear things up for you.
Gabriella Barnstone is a certified yoga therapist with the International Association of Yoga Therapists, and has been teaching since 2008. She worked at Manhattan Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation from 2015 to 2020 where she specialized in treating patients with back pain using yoga as therapy. Gabriella has taught courses with Dr. Loren Fishman on Yoga for Back Pain, Yoga for Osteoporosis, and Yoga for Arthritis at Kripalu, Yogaville, and Omega Institute. She was on the faculty of Prema Yoga Institute from 2017 to 2020 where she developed her own course on functional anatomy, and mentored emerging yoga therapists. She was the resident Yoga Therapist at Healthquarters (now Mount Sinai), which brought top medical providers together with clinically-backed wellness services to provide connected, seamless, and comprehensive health services. She introduced her curve specific programs at Samamkaya Back Care Studio in 2023. She currently offers virtual sessions and in person sessions at SoulBeingWellness in New York City.
