What To Do With Lumbar Spinal Stenosis?

Great question! Spine surgeons are not certain what is best for spinal stenosis, after all conservative care is gathering more consideration in the medical research! OrthoIllinois Chiropractic offers non-surgical care that is quite soothing to McHenry spinal stenosis sufferers. Chiropractic patients in McHenry suffering fromspinal stenosis know come to OrthoIllinois Chiropractic will find our care gentle and comfortable and appreciate the research and protocols that make up its administration.

 

What is spinal stenosis first of all? Spinal stenosis is the result of narrowing in the spinal canal area. In particular lumbar spinal stenosis comes with age for many of us when degeneration of the spine emerges. One reason this happens may be due to how the spinal elements initially formed. (Sometimes people are born with narrow spinal canals.) Spinal stenosis could also be caused by a disc herniation that is implanting itself into the spinal canal, taking up the space that is meant for the spinal nerves. Regardless of the cause, spinal stenosis’ narrowing creates pain.

 

Often when a surgeon discovers that a patient has spinal stenosis they will provide surgical options to broaden that narrowed space. There are many paths from which one may take. Decompressive surgery is one such kind. It is an inexpensive option for lumbar spinal stenosis, but surgical and conservative treatment approaches result in comparable quality of life at one year follow up. (1) Spinal fusion is another such option. A Cochrane Database Review, a big deal in the world of research, reports that there is no significant difference at 6 months and 12 months post spine surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis. Cochrane pulled from 12,966 citations to conclude further that they have very little confidence to determine whether surgical or conservative care is better for lumbar spinal stenosis. They, therefore, offer no new clinical practice recommendations for doctors to follow. They do emphasize though that side-effects from surgery range from 10% to 24% and side effects from conservative care, 0%. There were no side effects from conservative care for lumbar spine stenosis in their review. Further, they report that there were no clear benefits seen with surgery versus no surgery. They warn clinicians to carefully inform patients about possible treatment options “especially given that conservative treatment options have results in no reported side effects.” (2)

 

Chiropractors like yours at OrthoIllinois Chiropractic see spinal stenosis and give chiropractic care and spinal manipulation to conservatively relieve the pain of spinal stenosis. OrthoIllinois Chiropractic is the site for McHenry conservative care of back pain. OrthoIllinois Chiropractic uses the Cox Technic system of spinal manipulation to open the spinal canal area by 28%, allowing the nerves to breathe, and drop intradiscal pressures to as low as -192mmHg. (3,4)

 

When lumbar spinal stenosis is causing you pain, contact OrthoIllinois Chiropractic, the McHenry chiropractic practice for gentle relief of back pain. OrthoIllinois Chiropractic chiropractic care at McHenry is the answer to the question of “how can I manage my pain from spinal stenosis?” for you!