[Misc] Help please - Spinal Stenosis

[marlowe]

Sorry to hear about your problems. I was born with an inherited degenerative neurological condition but fortunately remain not too adversely affected at the moment. The same cannot be said for my daughter who inherited the condition off me and led her to develop severe scoliosis by the of age 14 which required corrective spinal surgery which was very successful.

Her surgeon's name was Jonathan Lucas who's a specialist spinal surgeon and I would certainly recommend him....although I have just read that the best surgeon to operate on spinal stenosis is a neuro-surgeon.

As you probably already know there are various treatment options for spinal stenosis including minimally invasive surgery, stem cell therapy and also an implant called vertiflex superior which relieves pressure on the nerves.

As for pain management have you considered acupuncture?

There is also the drug gabapentin which they use specifically for nerve pain which my daughter was on for a while.

 

[Surf's Up]

Yes, I've had spinal stenosis. I had a 4 hour operation to relieve the pressure of my vertebrae compressing my spinal column in 2011 at Guys Hospital. This consisted of the surgeon going behind the offending vertebrae and carefully shaving off the spinal column side of the vertebrae to reduce its size and thus the pressure on my spinal column. Suffice it to say it was a fairly precarious procedure, one slip and I could've ended up in a wheelchair, but the surgeon was great and to date I've managed to live a reasonably normal and active life following the surgery. This particular procedure is called a Partial Laminectomy and surgery is normally only undertaken as a last resort when all other approaches (pain killers, physiotherapy, etc) have failed. Also the procedure can be performed by surgeons from two specialist fields - Neurology or Orthopaedics. My surgeon was a Neurosurgeon specialising in backs so he had performed this operation many times

 

[Surf's Up]

 

[Zeberdi]

Thank you for your replies - @Surf's Up and @marlowe and @BLOCK F for your advice and shared experience- there’s some really helpful information in your posts. @Change at Barnham thank you again for earlier

I‘m waiting for second opinion from a neurologist /neurosurgeon - at the moment the protocol seems to be try steroid injections first - but that is not curative and pain is there for a reason to safeguard against further damage to the nerves - with my liver problems and kidney disease, steroids that might not be an option anyway especially as I am already on a ridiculous amount of medication including immunosuppressants and SSIs - my blood pressure gets dangerously high on steroids too.

Gabapentin I had years ago for the complex regional pain syndrome - it gave me the most severe migraine but will discuss all options.

Anyway - apologies for the wobble earlier.

 

[marlowe]

You might find this forum useful where people share their experiences of spinal stenosis..

spinal stenosis

Get answers and support from others like you

www.patientslikeme.com