What To Do With Lumbar Spinal Stenosis?

What a good question! Spine surgeons aren’t positive what is best for spinal stenosis, still conservative care is acquiring more consideration in the medical research! Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries performs non-surgical care that eases discomfort for Manchester spinal stenosis sufferers. Manchester patients who have spinal stenosis know come to Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries will find our care gentle and comfortable and praise the research and protocols behind its administration.

 

So what exactly is spinal stenosis? Spinal stenosis is what happens when the spinal canal area is narrowed. In particular lumbar spinal stenosis happens as we age for many of us when degeneration of the spine emerges. One reason this happens may be due to how the spinal elements were constructed from the beginning. (Some people are born with narrow spinal canals.) Likewise spinal stenosis can be the repercussion of a disc herniation that is injecting itself into the spinal canal, taking up the space that is meant for the spinal nerves. Whatever the cause, spinal stenosis’ narrowing causes pain.

 

When surgeons see spinal stenosis in a patient they often provide surgical choices to open that narrowed space. There are many paths from which one may pick. One avenue is decompressive surgery. It is cost-effective 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 choice. 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 Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries see spinal stenosis and offer chiropractic care and spinal manipulation to conservatively relieve the pain of spinal stenosis. Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries is the locale for Manchester conservative care of back pain. Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries 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)

 

If you suffer from pain due to lumbar spinal stenosis, schedule an appointment with Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries, the Manchester chiropractic practice for gentle relief of back pain. Manchester Chiropractic & Sports Injuries chiropractic care at Manchester is the answer to the question of “how to alleviate my pain from spinal stenosis?” for you!