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The neck is the most important part of human anatomy and its significance cannot be denied. Since the neck in the body connects your head to the body and also joints your brains to your body, any difficulty in your neck would be serious in the nature. Besides, it is the internal structure of the neck of which the function is most vital for your life. When the seven vertebrae of your neck narrow down due to the aging process or otherwise, spinal cord and spinal nerves are compressed creating a sensation of pain. This condition is called cervical stenosis. Medication and the physiotherapy may cure the condition but on the advanced stages, cervical stenosis surgery is required.
When we talk about cervical stenosis, we basically refer to degrading bones or narrowing of the bones such as arthritis. Sometimes the cervical spinal wounds may also cause cervical stenosis and the seriousness is generally increases. At times a ruptured disc or cervical fracture that damages the spinal cord or the spinal nerve may be fatal.
If the cervical stenosis has compressed the spinal nerves, you may feel pain in the shoulder and the arm. A definite numbness or heaviness can contribute to the arm weakness and thus one would encounter difficulty in grasping things. And if the spinal cord is affected, muscle spasms and leg pain can be felt and this generally results in the uneasy and unsteady walk.
If the stenosis has reached beyond its primary stages and the disease is causing serious implications on your lifestyle, surgery might be the only alternative for you. Minimally invasive methods and the open surgical techniques are put into practice to treat the cervical stenosis. The surgery can be done through an anterior or the posterior approach. Let's take a look at the different surgical ways to treat the cervical
Stenosis.
Discectomy: In this technique, the vertebrae are taken out along with any bone spines to provide relief to the nerve pressure. This disc is interchange with a bone graft or an artificial vertebrae disc. Back Pain Surgery is generally done in the anterior approach.
Corpectomy: Vertebra and the intervetebral disc's body is withdrawn widening the spinal canal. Then a bone graft or an artificial hardware is fixed with vertebrae. It is also done in the anterior approach.
Laminectomy, laminotomy, laminoplasty: The lamina bone is located at the back of the vertebra. Laminectomy is a surgical process through which it is removed. The partial removal for the widening of the nerve canal comes under laminotomy and the repairment is called laminoplasty. These surgeries can be done in the posterior approach and sometimes endoscopy can be used.
Facetectomy: The part that comes between the two vertebrae is called facet joint and the removal of that part is done through facetectomy.
A surgery may provide relief to the symptoms of cervical stenosis but complete treatment is impossible. Since the symptoms are generally not noticeable in the beginning and when they are noticed, it is too late and some nerves acquire permanent damage.
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