3 Types Of Spinal Stenosis Treatment: Home Remedies, Minimally Invasive Treatments & Surgeries

Spinal stenosis is an extremely painful condition in the spine. It is caused when the spine begins to grow bone spurs to fill the spaces where the discs in the spine have degenerated. The bone spurs narrow the spinal column and the neural foramina. This causes the spinal cord and nerves to become pinched, resulting in severe pain. Although spinal stenosis isn't a condition that you can cure, there are treatment options to lessen the pressure and alleviate some or most of the pain. Here are some home treatments, along with some minimally invasive and invasive treatments that you can try.

Home Remedies

If you suffer from spinal stenosis, trying some home remedies to alleviate pain is the best thing that you can do for yourself. You can see how much pain you can reduce before moving on to medical procedures.

Exercise: Although exercise won't improve your spinal stenosis, it can improve the pain. Regular exercise strengths your muscles and improves your balance. Building your core muscles (abdominal muscles) help your spinal alignment which in turn, may alleviate some of the pressure on your spinal cord.

Soap: It may sound silly, but putting soap on a store spot has been found to alleviate pain and stop muscle spasms. Grate a bar of soap or cut off a couple of slices. Put the soap in a sock so the pieces don't get dropped. Put the sock on the part of your body that's causing you pain.

Research was conducted after an old folk remedy gained popularity. The folk remedy concluded that putting a bar of soap under your bed sheet alleviates muscle cramps.

Cold & Hot Packs: Cold reduces pain for some people, while warmth reduces pain for others. Some people see the greatest relief by alternating between the two. Try to use a couple hours of your day to use ice or heat every 30 minutes for 20 minutes at a time.

Minimally Invasive Treatments

If home remedies aren't giving you the results that you were hoping for, there are several minimally invasive medical treatments that can help you. These include steroid injections and spinal decompression.

Spinal decompression: Spinal decompression does exactly what it sounds like—decompresses the spine. The decompression restores space in the spinal canal to take pressure off of the spinal cord and nerves. Decompression is done with a decompression tool that goes through a hole in your skin so small, it doesn't even require stitches. it removes pieces of the bone spurs and excess tissue to give your spinal cord more room.

Spinal decompression was performed on 542 patients in 11 clinical studies. Each study validated the procedure with no major complications.

Epidural steroid injection: Steroid injections include a mixture of a local anesthetic and a corticosteroid. The combination relieves some pain instantly and relieves inflammation over time A needle injects the medicine into the spinal cord and nerves, which will essentially numb them so you don't feel pain from the pressure.

Surgery

Although many people feel some relief from a combination of one or more minimally invasive treatments along with home remedies, some people are so severe that nothing works. If you have tried all of these options and are still in immense pain, you may be a good candidate for surgery.

Interspinous devices: Interspinous devices are small titanium brackets that create space between the vertebrae to reduce the compression on the discs. They're screwed into the bone between each compressed vertebrae to create a small space.

Facet replacement: Facet replacement replaces the joints in the spine. It's generally used for arthritis and severe degenerative disc disease, however, it's believed that it may provide benefit for spinal stenosis patients as well.

Spinal stenosis is a painful issue with more than 1.2 million sufferers. If you need to ease your pain, look at some additional reading and you can start with the home remedies and go down the list to try and live a happy, active life.

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