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Stenosis is defined as the narrowing of the spinal column. While some believe that spinal stenosis is a congenital condition and cannot be pre-diagnosed or prevented. Researches show that osteoarthritis (an arthritic condition), herniation of the discs, ligament changes, spine tumors and sometimes serious type of accidents may cause severe spinal stenosis.
Thus, there is extra pressure exerted on the spinal cord due to which there may be pain, numbness or cramping feeling. Sometimes, the pain may also spread to the arms and shoulders.
Regarding the causes of this pain, people usually have two types of beliefs. Firstly, the more popular one is that the pain occurs due to the old age of a person; wherein the bones and nerves undergo a degradation process. The second belief is that this is a congenital disease, meaning one had acquired it at the time of his birth. Some other causes of spinal stenosis include, osteoarthritis (an arthritic condition), herniation of the discs, ligament changes, tumors in the spine and serious accidents.
For the most extreme cases of severe spinal stenosis, surgery is the only option. The most common form of surgery for stenosis is called microdiscectomy or micro-decompression spinal surgery. In carrying out this surgery, a small portion of the cartilage or the bone is removed from under the nerve root. This relieves the neural impingement and greater space for the nerve is created. The nerve not only gets free from the pinch but also gets space for healing faster. It becomes imperative to calculate the time of recovery it would take after surgery and the post-operative physical therapy which is necessary to recover. Before recommending surgery, your response to non-surgical medications is taken into account. Surgery, is always the last option to be recommended. Physicians usually seek to alleviate the pain with the help of analgesics and other medications combined with exercise and physical therapy like yoga to cure the problem.
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