How We Dealt With Mom's Spinal Stenosis Treatment

spinal stenosis

There was a sinking feeling in my stomach as I watched my mother make her way slowly and painfully down the stairs; right then and there, I made an appointment with her doctor for another approach on her spinal stenosis treatment. There are various courses of action you can take with spinal stenosis treatment - medications with anti-inflammatory drugs, conservative treatments, and surgical procedures. We discussed another method with her doctor and we decided to stick to the anti-inflammatory drugs but use another type of medicine thought to be more effective. We zeroed in on a thoraco-lumbar spinal brace to help support her lower back and, with a lot of opposition from her, convinced her to use a cane when walking for more than a few minutes. Surgery was still not a good option, the doctor thought, since we hadn't completely explored all out options yet.

So you understand a little more of what's happening in my mother's body, spinal stenosis is the constricting of the hollow tube that holds the spinal cord and the nerves. While this could be a birth defect, this stenosis has many causes. Bulging discs can take up space in the spine, and so can bone spurs and calcification. Aging complications like arthritis don't help either. My mother always thought of her back pain as normal and would just take painkillers for it, more like what you would do for bulging disc treatments. We knew it was really bad when she asked us to bring her to the doctor. He put her through a thorough physical check-up and requested she take some MRI scans to pinpoint the problem. That's the first time she got spinal stenosis treatment and it really helped her.

Conservative spinal stenosis treatment mainly involves physical therapy that makes use of light exercise to help keep the patient moving while allowing him to deal with the pain better. The activities can be combined with steroidal epidural injections, although this is not allowed more than three times a year. It's not a therapeutic treatment, though, but more of a pain management procedure. This has a success rate of about 50% though, and it's recommended because the patient remains in control of his body for much longer.

Spinal stenosis treatment also focuses on the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS) and analgesics. These provide temporary relief from the pain but can damage the liver and kidneys in the long run. Coupled with supplements like glucosamine and a complete multivitamin with B-complex and 1200 mg of folic acid, it's being touted as the latest cure for stenosis, although the jury is still out on its effectivity.

The last resort in spinal stenosis treatment is one most sufferers wish to avoid - surgery. While there are many kinds of surgery that can be performed on stenosis, their main goal is to release the compression on the nerves and alleviate the pain. There are a lot of fancy medical terms that would just go over the layman's head but all they actually do is describe what part of the spine or which vertebrae are going to be treated.

Surgeons would actually not prefer to perform this delicate treatment unless absolutely necessary as surgery can provide up to 85% of relief to spinal stenosis, spinal stenosis treatment will only resort to this if all other none-invasive treatments have failed.