What does spinal stenosis mean? What is spinal stenosis? Are there any symptoms?

Spinal stenosis is a broad concept, which mainly refers to the clinical symptoms of the decrease in the volume of the spinal canal due to various reasons, which is called spinal stenosis.

Spinal stenosis is a condition that can cause a series of neurological disorders such as pain, numbness, weakness of limbs, claudication, and difficulty urinating. Spinal stenosis can be divided into cervical spinal stenosis, thoracic spinal stenosis, and lumbar spinal stenosis, and ** is mainly divided into congenital spinal stenosis and acquired spinal stenosis. So, what are the symptoms of spinal stenosis?

Cervical spinal stenosis: patients have pain and discomfort in the neck, occipital, back, shoulder, and scapular head areas, which can lead to limited range of motion of the cervical spine, and stretching activities are the most obvious; Patients may present with radiating pain in one or both upper limbs, severe numbness or hypoesthesia, and muscle weakness or atrophy of the upper limbs and hands; Patients often complain of numbness in the arms, trunk, and lower limbs, inability to complete fine hand movements, unsteady walking, a feeling of stepping on cotton, and even dysfunction in severe cases.

Thoracic spinal stenosis: the patient has unilateral or bilateral lower limb sinking, stiffness, movement, accompanied by widespread numbness and pain, and unsteady walking; a sense of banding in the chest and abdomen; intermittent claudication of spinal cord origin; In severe cases, intestinal dysfunction or sexual dysfunction may occur.

Lumbar spinal stenosis: low back pain: is a symptom of most patients, most patients first have ** low back pain, and then leg pain.

Sciatica: In most patients with spinal stenosis, the pain is gradual and radiating, from the buttocks to the instep. Cauda equina syndrome:

Cauda equina refers to the tail of the horse under the conus medullaris. Spinal stenosis can compress the cauda equina nerve, causing constipation and paresthesias. Should be used as an indication for emergency surgery in the setting of an acute exacerbation.

After walking for a period of time, the patient will experience numbness, pain, soreness, and no sensation in one or both lower limbs. Patients are often forced to sit down and continue walking after resting, and cycling is not affected.

To sum up, there are three distinct symptoms of spinal stenosis, which are cervical spinal stenosis, thoracic spinal stenosis, and lumbar spinal stenosis. Most patients with cervical spinal stenosis will have weakness of hand muscles, unsteady walking, and even dysfunction. Thoracic spinal stenosis can cause a feeling of thoracoabdominal banding, and even intestinal dysfunction or sexual dysfunction.

Lumbar spinal stenosis can cause symptoms such as low back pain, sciatica, and cauda equina syndrome.

The most typical symptom of lumbar spinal stenosis is low back pain, most patients will have symptoms of low back pain, and the back pain lasts for a long time, generally first appears back pain, and then reappears on one side, bilateral lower limbs radiating pain, walking pain.

The typical symptom of spinal stenosis is intermittent claudication, after the patient walks for a certain distance, generally ranging from 300-500m, the lower limbs appear sore, numb, swollen, and painful, and need to rest and squat or sit for a while to rest and then continue walking. There can also be sciatica, which is typical of sciatica symptoms when spinal stenosis compresses nerve roots.

The most common cause of spinal stenosis is degeneration, so many people with spinal stenosis develop it around the age of 60. In addition, congenital developmental abnormalities, spinal injuries, or scoliosis can also cause or induce spinal stenosis.

Spinal stenosis, as the name suggests, is caused by various reasons that cause some symptoms of narrowing in our spinal canal. According to **, it can be divided into congenital factors and acquired factors. Depending on where the stenosis occurs, the symptoms are completely different.

In general, there are dizziness, nausea, tinnitus, numbness of both upper limbs, numbness of both lower limbs, chest binding, low back pain, back pain, neck pain, difficulty walking, intermittent claudication, and even incontinence.

Spinal stenosis is a very common clinical condition that can occur in the cervical, thoracic, and lumbar spine. First of all, we must clarify a concept, that is, spinal stenosis and spinal stenosis, these are two completely different concepts, many people may have spinal stenosis, but many people have no symptoms, and really because of the spinal cord nerve compression caused by catheter stenosis, a series of related symptoms are produced, which will be called spinal stenosis, such as cervical spinal stenosis, thoracic spinal stenosis or lumbar spinal stenosis.

The symptoms that occur are actually different for everyone, mainly depending on the degree of stenosis and the location of the stenosis, such as the lumbar spine, the most typical symptom of lumbar spinal stenosis is the occurrence of intermittent claudication. If it occurs in the thoracic spine, thoracic spinal stenosis may cause spinal paralysis in many severe cases. In cervical spinal stenosis, it depends on whether there are some changes in the compression of the spinal cord compressed by the stenosis, such as simply compressing the nerve root on one side, there may be cervical radiculopathy, which may radiate to the limbs and cause pain.

If the overall compression causes the spinal cord to degenerate, it will cause cervical myelopathy, and there may be unsteadiness in holding objects or walking on cotton.

Therefore, for the symptoms of spinal stenosis, it is necessary to combine each person's specific medical history and physical examination, as well as clinical examination, auxiliary examination, imaging examination, etc., to comprehensively analyze and determine what symptoms will occur, and also to identify whether the symptoms of the patient are related to spinal stenosis, caused by other reasons, or caused by spinal stenosis.

(1) Pain, muscle weakness, lumbar spinal stenosis is common in the lower back pain, radiating pain in the buttocks and lower limbs, followed by numbness and weakness of the lower limbs, muscle atrophy. Pain can be of a variety of natures and can be sore, numbing, bloating, discharged, and burning.

2) Symptoms of cauda equina nerve compression are unclean urination, inability to control stool, numbness in the perineal area, and decreased sexual function.

3) Intermittent claudication, which is a characteristic manifestation of spinal stenosis. Intermittent limping when walking, which gets better after standing or squatting for rest.

The onset of the disease is mostly insidious, the course of the disease is slow, and it is more common in men between the ages of 40 and 50. The ** that causes stenosis is very complex, and depending on the location of the clinical stenosis, the typical symptoms of patients may include: long-term lumbosacral pain, leg pain.