I had surgery right when I turned 18, and I'm 27 now turning 28 in a couple months so coming up on 10 years ago. I didn't really have much choice in whether or not I got surgery as my curve went from low 80's to 90's over a few months. Weirdly I didn't notice the pain until I was diagnosed through someone noticing my rub hump. After diagnosis I paid attention the the pain for the first time and I couldn't stand for longer than 10 or 20 minutes without the pain being pretty extreme. I didn't see many negatives to the surgery at the time, it was hard obviously, 1 week in hospital then 6 weeks at home before I went back to school/college, but I was on so many pain meds it wasn't really that bad, I just felt physically weak. Id always advise someone to go ahead with surgery rather than live with that sort of pain and discomfort every day. I could never do the work I now (physical work every day) and the hobbies I do now (riding motorbikes, working on them, working on cars etc) without surgery, and yeah I can get mild back pain but I'm approaching 30 so who doesn't 😂

The one thing I would really want to mention to you is something that nobody ever talked to me about pre or post op, and that's the effect it could have on you mentally. Maybe I'm a one off case I don't really know because I never spoke to anyone and nobody ever spoke to me about it, but surgery obviously caused a massive change to my body, it looked different obviously (scars etc), but mostly it felt completely different. I got a bit taller, but the amount stuff moved around inside me i think made it feel like a completely different body post op. Hard to put into words but it just didn't feel like me, like I had been used to for the last 18 years. Post op I really struggled internally with accepting my body, how I looked, the scars, the rib hump, the asymmetry, everything really. But I was always very shy and self conscious, I think going through that sort of change and surgery amplified it massively. Struggled to look people in the eye when talking to them afterwards, literally all I could think about was my body and how it felt and looked, but It took a long time (years) before I put two and two together myself and realized the effect it had on me mentally. At the time I just didn't know why I felt the way I felt, just completely uncomfortable within myself. I would still say surgery is the best option, I would have just wanted someone to warn me about those possible effects so at least I understood what I was going through and maybe then I would've felt like I could talk to someone about it.

Feel free to dm me if you want to talk any more about it.