Lumbar Stenosis

About Lumbar Stenosis

Stenosis is the narrowing of your spinal canal, a condition that puts pressure on your spinal cord. If it occurs in your lower back, you feel lower back pain and stiffness. It affects your quality of life because you’re constantly in pain. Visit an experienced and highly-trained spine specialist like Dr. Amr Hosny and the team at the Spine & Rehab Group in NYC and northern NJ. They can determine what’s going on and give you options to get out of pain. Call today for an appointment.

What Does Lumbar Stenosis Mean?

Lumbar stenosis is a condition that puts pressure on your spinal cord, causing lower back pain and leg pain. Since this condition progresses slowly, you may not even realize you have the disease. It’s more prevalent in older Americans because the aging process gradually causes wear and tear within the lumbar spinal tissues and bones, where you carry most of your weight. As a result, this slow decline can lead to several degenerative conditions, such as:

• Lumbar degenerative disc disease
• A bulging disc in your lower back
• Lumbar disc herniation
• A pinched nerve in your lumbar spine
• Lumbar stenosis

Because the condition is degenerative, getting your spine checked by a spine specialist at the first twinge of pain can catch the condition early. In New York City and the surrounding New Jersey counties, Dr. Amr Hosny and the team of specialists at the Spine & Rehab Group have years of experience with spinal problems. During your consultation, your spine doctor determines the cause of your pain and decides if you need lumbar stenosis treatment or lumbar stenosis surgery.

What Causes Lumbar Stenosis?

By the time you reach the age of 50, you have a nearly 95 percent chance of showing some signs of spinal degeneration. Men over 60 are slightly more at risk than women of getting lumbar stenosis. A few people are even born with back problems that eventually turn into lumbar stenosis. You may notice the first symptoms of the disease as young as 30 to 50.

Since stenosis narrows your spinal canal, putting more pressure on your spinal cord, it can cause additional back problems like sciatica. There are many reasons for having lumbar stenosis, which is why you need a spine specialist like Dr. Hosny to make an accurate diagnosis. The main causes for lumbar stenosis include:

• Osteoarthritis, a form of arthritis that wears away the cartilage that protects the joints
• Spondylosis, another type of arthritis that causes the formation of bone spurs
• Degenerative disc disease, causing a herniated disc that allows the fluid to press into your spinal canal, where it constricts your spinal cord
• Thickening of the tough ligaments around your spine, which over time bulge into your spinal canal
• A spinal tumor or abnormal mass of tissues that form in or around your spinal cord
• Osteoporosis, which make your spinal bones brittle and prone to cracks
• Bone cancer, which weakens your spine’s structure
• A previous spinal surgery

Our Board certified doctors Amr Hosny, MD, MBA, FASA Book Now David Chu, MD, FAAPMR Book Now Vivek Mehta, MD, FAAPMR Book Now Deepali Gupta, MD, DABA, DABPM Book Now

How Do I Get Lumbar Spinal Stenosis Treatment?

Your treatment depends on how mild your back pain is. For mild to medium symptoms, your pain management doctor may direct you to take an over-the-counter anti-inflammatory pain medication to reduce the swelling. Your spine specialist may recommend a few other pain management techniques, such as:

• Hot or cold compresses
• Massages
• Acupuncture treatments
• Physical therapy exercises to help strengthen your back, stomach and leg muscles

Maintaining a healthy weight and learning the correct posture for walking, standing and sitting help prevent painful back conditions. The non-invasive treatments that your doctor recommends depends on your specific diagnosis. If you have severe back pain or a more serious case of stenosis, your spine specialist recognizes that different treatments are needed.

What if the Non-Invasive Treatments Don’t Work?

There’s no such thing as the best treatment for lumbar stenosis, since one treatment doesn’t work for everyone. If non-invasive treatments don’t deliver the level of pain reduction you’re hoping for, your spine specialist may suggest minimally invasive lumbar stenosis treatments, such as:

• Lumbar epidural steroid injections
• Trigger point injections
• Facet joint injections
• Caudal epidural steroid injections
• Radiofrequency neurotomy

All of these treatments are performed as outpatient procedures. They’re done in your doctor’s office, and you’re sent home to recover after a short observation period. These treatments aren’t permanent, but the pain-relieving effects can last weeks or months.

Do I Need Lumbar Spinal Stenosis Surgery?

Unfortunately, lumbar stenosis has no permanent cure. Your spine specialist offers you the best treatment for lumbar stenosis available. Sometimes, the best treatment involves a surgery to relieve your increasing symptoms. The reasons Dr. Hosny may suggest surgery include:

• Your back and leg pain are so severe that it limits normal activity and impacts your quality of life.
• You lose control over your bowel or bladder functions.
• The numbness or tingling in your buttocks and legs escalates.
• The weakness you feel in one or both of your legs increases.
• Bone spurs need to be removed to widen the space between your vertebrae.
• You find it difficult to stand or walk.
• Your lower back has to be stabilized by fusing spinal bones together.
• You’ve tried all the non-surgical treatments available, but nothing has worked effectively.

With easy-to-find locations in Morris County, Union County and Bergen County, NJ, a Spine & Rehab Group office is near you. If you’re in NYC, you can contact the practice in Greenwich Village, Midtown Manhattan or the Financial District. Book an appointment to get rid of your lower back pain.

Dr. Amr Hosny is a Harvard-trained Interventional Spine Specialist that helps patients achieve pain relief, heal from injury, and return to their normal lifestyle as soon as possible without surgery.

Dr. Hosny completed an Interventional Spine fellowship at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, in Boston, MA, and then finished his residency at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital Center, Columbia University in NYC. He currently serves as an Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at New York Medical College and is a written examination editor for the American Board of Anesthesiology. Experienced physician, educator, and healthcare entrepreneur, Dr. Hosny, is committed to enhancing health equity and accessibility using information technology in an era of rapid healthcare transformation while upholding the highest medical care standards.

More About Dr. Hosny

The Spine & Rehab Group
140 NJ-17,
Paramus, NJ 07652
(212) 242-8160