What to do with lumbar instability, conservative treatment is the most common

Lumbar instability means that the lumbar spine cannot maintain normal load. The most common method to treat lumbar instability is conservative treatment, and daily prevention is also very important. You should exercise the lumbar and back muscles more. If surgery is needed, you need to choose a regular hospital.

1. Conservative treatment

First of all, prevention should be the priority. In daily life, we should insist on exercising the paraspinal muscles. In addition to strengthening the waist and back muscles, those who are overweight should lose weight as appropriate to reduce the load on the waist muscles. People who are too thin should restore their weight to normal and exercise actively. People with osteoporosis should treat osteoporosis in a timely manner.

2. Surgical treatment

Treatment methods are also mentioned in the previous diagnostic classification. The surgical indications should be carefully selected. When stabilization surgery is required, the patient's age, nerve damage, and degree of intervertebral disc stenosis should be considered. The patient must be able to tolerate the surgery.

3. Choice of surgical method

1. For patients with single vertebral segment instability, anterior vertebral interbody fusion can be chosen. Posterior approach, bone graft fusion and pedicle fixation are also options. We prefer to use posterior CD instrument fixation plus posterolateral intertransverse process fusion. The fusion rate without instrumented internal fixation is very low, but the fusion rate can be doubled with instrumented internal fixation.

2. Patients with root compression symptoms require decompression and pedicle fixation, followed by intertransverse process bone grafting and fusion.

3. For patients with symptoms of radicular irritation, anterior approach surgery can be chosen. After the operation, the vertebral segment will be stabilized, and radicular irritation or mild compression caused by local edema of the nerve root and other reactions can be cured at the same time. Of course, in situ posterolateral fusion without instrumental fixation is also an optional surgical method. But the fusion rate is low. During the operation, bone grafting must be performed properly to provide conditions for early fusion. After the operation, patients should get out of bed and exercise early, and waist protection can be used appropriately.