Stenosis

Symptoms of spinal stenosis may differ according to the location, the lower back (lumbar) or the neck (cervical) region, but the most common patient complaints include:

1. The pain in the legs that increases during walking.

It is common to find many individuals complain about cramping and pains or heaviness in their legs after short walks. This pain is usually relieved by sitting or leaning forward, a habit referred to as neurogenic claudication.

2. Numbness or tingling in a localised area.

Lumbar stenosis can cause tingling paresthesia in the buttocks, the thighs, the calves, or the feet; in the arms and hands when the neck is affected. These are feelings that can be intermittent, which in most cases aggravate after movement.

3. The Lower Weakness

Nerve compression may be a symptom of the gradual development of muscle weakness, which is difficulty lifting the foot during walking (foot drop) or gripping trouble with holding things.

4. Balance Issues and Coordination Problems

The spinal cord may be involved in cervical stenosis, causing wobbly gait and unsteadiness in using hands, being clumsy or falling a lot.

5. Pain That Disappears on Forward Bending

This is because patients usually feel better leaning on the shopping cart or bending forward a little since the posture creates more room in the spinal canal.

6. Standard or Radiating Pain

The pain in some instances is radiated along the arms or legs in the direction of the affected nerve, which in some cases can be confused with sciatica or a pinched nerve.

At Spine Mantra, we would treat spine stenosis using a non-surgical, customised method with the aim of restoring mobility, minimising pain, and enhancing the quality of life. One of the things that we do with the patients in our team is to be able to develop a treatment plan addressing the issue, rather than the symptoms.

1. Comprehensive Assessment

We are beginning by knowing about your medical history, symptoms and your activity rate. Our thorough physical examination assists us in determining the location and the level of compression of the nerves.

2. Tailor-made Physiotherapy Programs

Our physiotherapists work out specific exercise programs that help to build up the supporting muscles, improve posture and increase flexibility. This will alleviate pressure on the spinal nerves and will stop a flare-up in the future.

3. Posture & Movement Training

We educate you on how to bend, lift and move safely in everyday living so that your back is kept safe and free of any pain.

5. Techniques of Pain Management

By using heat therapy, ultrasound, and painless movements of the nerves, we assist in reducing inflammation and pain without utilizing a lot of heavy medication.

6. Home Exercise Advice

We provide and train you on simple home exercises to ensure that you can post those results between visits and sustain results over a period of time.

Our aim at Spine Mantra is not only to help you heal spinal stenosis but also to experience the life of getting away with your pains and start walking, working, and living a full life.

Our diagnosis at Spine Mantra is formulated on finding out the precise nerve compression pattern and functional effects that are peculiar to the individual patient. There is no universal set of checks that we use; we monitor the way your body responds to position and movements that you undergo, and continue to associate them with more detailed imaging.

Symptom Pattern Mapping

To start with, a detailed pattern of your pain and discomfort will be charted. An illustration of this is that most of our lumbar stenosis patients will report that their legs feel heavy after 5-10 minutes of walking; however, it resolves when leaning forward on a shopping cart. We have heard of the case of cervical stenosis in which there is clumsiness of the hands or inability to button shirts. On observing these activity-related triggers, we can distinguish stenosis and other conditions related to the nerves.

Targeted Neurological Testing

As opposed to the simple reflex check, we isolate certain nerve roots to test. As an illustration, say you were having a problem raising your foot (this could be nerve compression of L5), or feeling numb in the thumb and index finger (this could be C6), we would go right to those tests.

Functional Correlation Advanced Imaging

We continue to match MRI or CT myelogram with your symptoms in the real world.  Imaging studies indicate that stenosis is evident in the examinations of over 80 per cent of the population aged 60 and above, yet only 8 to 1 per cent of them have treatable symptoms.  This is why we will never treat just the imaging result alone; we make sure that what we see on the scan will be what you experience in your life.

Dynamic Movement Assessment

We measure how your spine adapts to the positions, altering the canal space, being in the upright position, bending over and lying down. When the symptoms are better in some of the positions, it provides us with a clear guide on how to treat you.

McKenzie-Based Diagnostic Movements

Being the first clinic in Eastern India, where diagnosis and treatment are done using the  McKenzie approach by our only certified McKenzie therapist in the whole Eastern India, incorporates McKenzie movements in the process of diagnosis. As an example, repeated extension or flexion exercises can help us understand whether your pain can be centralised, i.e., moved out of the legs or arms towards the spine, which is a strong indicator of good prognosis or peripheralised, pain radiating down your hand or leg, which is an indicator of bad prognosis. But in case of stenosis, Repeated Movement Testing is used to confirm whether the pain is due to spinal stenosis or it’s a mechanical pain.

The McKenzie method is the most effective since it diagnoses the precise movement strategy that blocks the nerve irritation and explains how you can manage flare-ups on your own.

Personalised Diagnostic Summary

When your tests are done, we bring forward a clear one-to-one matching set of results, what you feel, what we see and what scans confirm, so you know why you are getting your symptoms and how we will be treating them.

Using the evidence-based approach, Spine Mantra will guarantee that your management is on the right track even on the first visit.