Spinal stenosis. Symptoms. Tests. Predictors of treatment outcomes. Procedures. The world of spinal stenosis can be daunting. For the St Peters back pain or neck pain sufferer who hears that he or she has spinal stenosis, that world just needs to be simplified. What is spinal stenosis? What is happening to my spine? What can be done about the pain? Old Mill Chiropractic appreciates these questions, has answers, and a method to reduce the pain.

First, what is spinal stenosis? The narrowing of spaces in the spine which causes pressure on the spinal cord and nerves usually resulting in pain. The narrowing can be due to disc degeneration or a disc herniation or any number of other spinal conditions that can disrupt the painfree support of the spine. That’s where your St Peters chiropractor comes into play with a thorough clinical examination and diagnosis.

Now, the diagnosis of spinal stenosis may just be made simpler with the release of this interesting paper. It suggests that spinal stenosis can be diagnosed in less than 7 questions, even just 6 questions may allow the diagnosis with an 80% accuracy rate! These questions come with international consensus which is tough to come by. What are those questions? Do you experience...

• "leg or buttock pain while walking"
• "flex forward to relieve symptoms"
• "feel relief when using a shopping cart or bicycle"
• "motor or sensory disturbance while walking"
• "normal and symmetric foot pulses"
• "lower extremity weakness"
• "low back pain"

Who knew that leaning on the shopping cart while going to the St Peters grocery store could tell so much!? Well, the authors explain that these items may lead to cost-effective treatment, heightened healthcare utilization and greater patient outcomes. (1) Those kind of outcomes are just what Old Mill Chiropractic wants for our St Peters patients.

Meanwhile other sets of researchers are studying other factors that may predict how well a lumbar spinal stenosis patient will respond to non-surgical care. Such patient-input factors as visual analog scale (VAS)responses that patients can rate their pain (“on a scale of 1 to 10, one being no pain to 10 being the worst pain I’ve ever felt…”) and more formal assessment tools like the Swiss Spinal Stenosis Questionnaire are showing promise. (2) Other more objective factors like the presence of only radicular symptoms, absence of other issues like degenerative spondylolisthesis/scoliosis, and an illness lasting less than one year are also proving helpful. (3) Old Mill Chiropractic always uses a variety of tools, a combination of patient-input as well as objective factors, in diagnosing spinal stenosis and establishing a treatment plan. St Peters spinal stenosis patients are assured an individualized plan for their back pain relief.

So check out a bit more about spinal stenosis keeping in mind that it may affect the cervical, thoracic or lumbar spine  and how it disturbs the spine’s design to cause pain. Then, contact Old Mill Chiropractic to set up a St Peters chiropractic appointment during which a thorough examination reveals the diagnosis upon which a treatment plan is made and shared with you for relief of your spinal stenosis pain.