The most serious symptoms of lumbar stenosis

Generally speaking, lumbar stenosis, a common orthopedic disease, often occurs in middle-aged people over 40 years old. Patients often have no symptoms when sitting still or resting, but will experience lower limb pain or numbness, leg weakness and other symptoms after walking for a while. They can only continue walking after squatting or sitting down to rest. As the disease becomes more serious, the distance patients can walk becomes shorter and shorter, while the time they need to rest becomes longer and longer.

The most serious symptoms of lumbar stenosis

Typical symptoms of patients may include: long-term lumbar pain, leg pain, progressive weakness and numbness of both lower limbs, intermittent claudication, and difficulty walking. The numbness may gradually develop from the feet to the calves, thighs and lumbar region, and a feeling of tightness may appear in the abdomen. In severe cases, abnormal urination and defecation, paraplegia, etc. may occur.

2. What is lumbar spinal stenosis

Lumbar spinal stenosis refers to a type of disease in which various reasons cause the shortening of the spinal canal diameters, compressing the dura mater sac, spinal cord or nerve roots, thereby leading to corresponding nerve dysfunction. It is one of the causes of common lumbar diseases such as low back pain and low back and leg pain, also known as lumbar spinal stenosis syndrome.

3. Causes

Lumbar spinal stenosis is a common disease in orthopedics. The causes of the disease are very complex. There are congenital lumbar spinal stenosis, degenerative diseases of the spine, spinal fractures or dislocations caused by trauma, or spinal stenosis after lumbar surgery. The most common of these is degenerative lumbar spinal stenosis.

4. Diagnosis

The onset of this disease is often insidious and the course of the disease is slow. Hyperextension of the waist can cause increased numbness and pain in the lower limbs. This is a positive hyperextension test and is an important sign for diagnosing spinal stenosis.

5. Treatment

Mild and early cases of lumbar spinal stenosis are mainly treated with non-surgical treatment. If they are ineffective, surgical spinal canal decompression/+ fixation fusion is required.

1. Non-surgical treatment

(1) Traditional non-surgical treatments mainly include ① abdominal muscle training; ② waist protection; ③ symptomatic treatment: physical therapy, massage, topical medication, etc.

(2) Drug treatment mainly uses traditional Chinese medicine.

(3) Epidural closure is effective for some patients and can significantly alleviate the symptoms of intermittent claudication.

2. Surgery

Surgical treatment is mainly suitable for: patients who have not responded to non-surgical treatment; patients with obvious radicular symptoms; patients with secondary lumbar spinal stenosis, progressive lumbar spondylolisthesis, and patients with lumbar scoliosis or kyphosis, who have corresponding clinical symptoms and signs.

(1) Cases requiring decompression can be treated with conventional treatments including fenestration, hemilaminectomy, total laminectomy, etc., or with minimally invasive techniques.

(2) For cases requiring "decompression + fixation", traditional conventional treatment methods or minimally invasive treatment techniques can be used. Fusion techniques include posterolateral intertransverse process fusion, posterior interlaminar fusion, and intervertebral fusion.