Some Facts about Spinal Stenosis

There are many people who are diagnosed with spinal stenosis, but they don't know what is it? This blog provides detail information about spinal stenosis and by reading this all your doubts regarding spinal stenosis will be cleared.

Spinal stenosis is a medical condition in which the spinal canal becomes narrow and put additional pressure on the spinal cord and compresses it. Basically, it is divided into two types, lumbar spinal stenosis and cervical spinal stenosis.

• Lumbar spinal stenosis- Here, the narrowing occurs in the lower portion of the spinal canal.

• Cervical spinal stenosis-Narrowing occurs in the upper portion of the spinal canal.

There are some people who are born with this condition, but usually it is seen in people having age more than fifty years. Some of its symptoms involve back pain that radiates to the legs, pain in the buttocks that worsen while walking or doing exercises, loss of balance and pain in the leg or neck.

If you are at the initial stage of spinal stenosis, you may be advised by the doctors to opt for exercises or natural treatments like acupressure or acupuncture, but if the pain is acute, then surgery may be needed to widen the spinal canal or to correct the conditions that contributes to the compression of the nerves. There are some surgical processes that are used for the treatment of spinal stenosis 

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• Laminectomy: This surgery is used to treat lumbar spinal stenosis and involves the removal of the vertebra to create more spaces for the nerves.

• Laminotomy: It involves the partial removal of the lamina which is usually done to widen the spinal canal and relieve compression on the roots of the nerves.

• Spinal Fusion: It involves joining the bones together with screws to provide spinal stability. Here, the bone is removed from any part of the body or is obtained from a bone bank and is used to create a bridge between vertebrae and stimulates the growth of the new bone.

Types of Surgery for Spinal Stenosis

Many of you might have heard the term spinal stenosis. But do you know exactly what is this? Let us discuss about spinal stenosis and its surgery.

Spinal stenosis is a condition in which there is a narrowing of one or more regions of the spine. It can cause severe pain in the back, neck, legs and even shoulders. Sometimes it becomes more severe, and causes unsteadiness or urinary and stool incontinence, which is known as cauda equina syndrome.

Thus, there are two types of surgery for curing spinal stenosis.

Spinal Fusion

It is a form of surgery where two of the vertebrae are fused together with the tissues of the bones that are obtained from the hip of the patient or the pelvic bone. These fragments of bones are positioned between the vertebrae to reduce the pressure on the nerves. Here, the surgeon makes the use of screws, rods or metal plates to hold the bone in place which helps in preventing the bone graft from moving out of position before the new bone growth fuses the graft to existing bone in the spine.

Laminectomy

It is considered to be the most common surgery that is performed to correct the spinal stenosis that occurs in the lumbar spine. The main aim of this type of surgery is to create more rooms for the roots of the nerves that have been encroached upon by the facet joints of the vertebrae.

Here, in this surgery, a small incision is made in the lower back of the patient. The surgeon then removes the lamina and makes an incision in the ligamentum flavum so that the compressed nerve can be seen. Then the compressing materials are removed and once they are removed, the remaining ligaments and muscles are sutured to promote a fast cure after the surgery.

Now you might have got some idea about the surgery of spinal stenosis, but still if you have any doubt, you can make a thorough research on the internet.