Lumbar Stenosis

Discussions from our radio show:
CALLER: I am neurologist, I have a lot of patients that have lumbar stenosis with a lot of pain, weakness, and loss of balance. For various reasons, medical problems, they are not good surgical candidates or they do not want surgery.

Doctor Darrow: A lot of people by the time they get lumbar stenosis are older, and they are not that great a surgical candidate.

Lumbar Stenosis is an area in the low back right above the buttocks muscle where the vertebrae starts compressing down on the spinal cord because as we age, very often there is mobility in that lower back area and the bones can actually try to hypertrophy (to grow more bone.) In the facet joints, where we get stenosis, in the facet joints, between the vertebrae, what happens is when we age, and with over use or just arthritis, the area where the spinal cord is encased becomes very small or the areas where the spinal nerves where they come off the spinal cord and goes down the legs or arms, and become stenosed or small, and cause a type of sciatica.

What we do with these people is try to stabilize the spine, now if there is a smaller canal for the nerves to go through and the spinal cord to go through if there is motion and mobility in the vertebrae, any minor mobility is going to cause a problem of irritating the nerves and causing these funny feeling in the feet or loss of balance. In a future article we will analyze the Prolotherapy treatment process in great detail.

We align the spine with chiropractic, with strengthen the spine with MedX, the paraspinal muscles, and Prolotherapy which strengthen the ligaments that support the vertebrae. Sometimes we found what works very well for spinal stenosis or cervical stenosis in the neck is very simple traction. By putting a belt around the abdomen and the legs, we can kind of stretch the vertebrae apart and let these nerves heal up a little bit.