That is  a superb question! Spine surgeons are not sure what is best for spinal stenosis, but conservative care is earning more and more attention in the medical research! Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office provides non-surgical care that is quite relieving to Groton spinal stenosis sufferers. Groton patients suffering from spinal stenosis know come to Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office will find our care gentle and comfortable and appreciate the research and practices behind its administration.

 

You may be thinking, “what is spinal stenosis?”. Spinal stenosis is the narrowing of the spinal canal area. For a good number of us lumbar spinal stenosis happens with age when erosion of the spine occurs. This may have to do with how the spinal elements were constructed from the beginning at birth. (Sometimes people are born with narrow spinal canals.) Likewise spinal stenosis can be the effect of a disc herniation that is implanting itself into the spinal canal, taking up the space that is designed for the spinal nerves. Regardless of the cause, spinal stenosis’ narrowing is painful.

 

Often when a surgeon sees that a patient has spinal stenosis they will provide surgical choices to open that narrowed space. There are many approaches from which a patient may take. One approach is decompressive surgery. It is cost-effective for lumbar spinal stenosis, but surgical and conservative treatment approaches result in comparable quality of life at one year follow up. (1) Spinal fusion is another such choice. A Cochrane Database Review, a big deal in the world of research, reports that there is no significant difference at 6 months and 12 months post spine surgery for lumbar spinal stenosis. Cochrane pulled from 12,966 citations to conclude further that they have very little confidence to determine whether surgical or conservative care is better for lumbar spinal stenosis. They, therefore, offer no new clinical practice recommendations for doctors to follow. They do emphasize though that side-effects from surgery range from 10% to 24% and side effects from conservative care, 0%. There were no side effects from conservative care for lumbar spine stenosis in their review. Further, they report that there were no clear benefits seen with surgery versus no surgery. They warn clinicians to carefully inform patients about possible treatment options “especially given that conservative treatment options have results in no reported side effects.” (2)

 

When your chiropractor at Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office recognizes spinal stenosis they will provide chiropractic care and spinal manipulation to conservatively relieve the pain of spinal stenosis. Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office is the spot for Groton conservative care of back pain. Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office uses the Cox Technic system of spinal manipulation to open the spinal canal area by 28%, allowing the nerves to breathe, and drop intradiscal pressures to as low as -192mmHg. (3,4)

 

If you suffer from pain due to lumbar spinal stenosis, contact Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office, the Groton chiropractic practice for gentle relief of back pain. Shoreline Medical Services/ Hutter Chiropractic Office chiropractic care at Groton may definitely be the answer to the question of “what to do with spinal stenosis?” for you!