Low Back Pain and Spinal Stenosis

Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the spinal canal, such that the nerve roots running down the spinal canal get compressed by a variety of different structures, such as bulging discs, thickened, ligaments, and or arthritic enlarged facet joints. Joints. The area of the lumbar spine that becomes narrowed often dictates the kind of symptoms patients will experience. Patients will often experience back pain, hip pain, buttock pain, like pain, numbness and tingling in the legs or feet, or a combination of all of these symptoms. It commonly occurs in patients above the age of 40, though it can seen in younger folks as well.

Other conditions, such as cardiovascular narrowing of the blood vessels of the legs should be considered as another potential cause for the patients symptoms.

Spinal stenosis is often a condition that can become a chronic source of disability for people. It can severely affect their quality of life making activities as simple as walking, exercising, and performing hobbies very difficult.

Spinal stenosis can be treated in a variety of ways, typically with a combination of exercise and physical therapy. When therapy no longer results in improvement in a patient’s symptoms, then spinal injections may become an option. If all else fails, a simple decompression, to open up the space for the spinal canal, by removing the bony arthritis, thick and ligament, and or bulging disc is performed through minimally invasive techniques to relieve the spinal stenosis.

– Dr Shukairy, minimally invasive spinal surgeon

Learn more, or contact us at www.orthopedicdoctors.com