What To Do With Lumbar Spinal Stenosis?

That is  an excellent question! Spine surgeons are not positive what is best for spinal stenosis, still conservative care is gathering more and more attention in the medical research! Layden Chiropractic provides non-surgical care that eases discomfort for Plainville spinal stenosis sufferers. Plainville patients suffering from spinal stenosis know come to Layden Chiropractic will find our care gentle and comfortable and appreciate the research and protocols that are the pillars of its administration.

 

First of all, what is spinal stenosis? Spinal stenosis is the result of narrowing in the spinal canal area. For many of us lumbar spinal stenosis happens with age when erosion of the spine begins to appear. One reason this happens may be due to how the spinal elements originally developed. (From time to time some people are born with narrow spinal canals.) Likewise spinal stenosis can be the result of a disc herniation that is injecting itself into the spinal canal, taking up the space that is supposed to be for the spinal nerves. No matter the cause, spinal stenosis’ narrowing causes pain.

 

Often when a surgeon observes that a patient has spinal stenosis they will give surgical choices to enlarge that narrowed space. There are many paths from which a patient may pick. Decompressive surgery is one such case. 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)

 

When your chiropractor at Layden Chiropractic observes spinal stenosis they will give chiropractic care and spinal manipulation to conservatively relieve the pain of spinal stenosis. Layden Chiropractic is the spot for Plainville conservative care of back pain. Layden 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)

 

If you suffer from pain due to lumbar spinal stenosis, contact Layden Chiropractic, the Plainville chiropractic practice for gentle relief of back pain. Layden Chiropractic chiropractic care at Plainville may well be the answer to the question of “what can I do about my spinal stenosis?” for you!