Living With Leg and Back Pain From Lumbar Spinal Stenosis

approximately 14 million people in the united states are diagnosed with lumbar spinal stenosis with up to 600 000 new diagnoses being reported each year and due to our aging population the prevalence is expected to rise up to 64 million elderly adults by the year 2025. today solutions for finding long-term relief of lumbar spinal stenosis pain i'm erica petrini access health starts now [Music] life's normal wear and tear takes its toll on our bodies and degenerative changes of the spine are seen in up to 95 of people by the age of 50. these normal effects of aging can lead to narrowing of the spinal canal causing pressure on the nerve roots in the spine this condition is called spinal stenosis and today we're focusing on lumbar spinal stenosis which is common among adults age 60 or older the significant pain associated with lumbar spinal stenosis or lss can have a negative impact on individuals causing inactivity disability functional impairment and potentially loss of independence it can also impact simple day-to-day activities our story today comes to us from leander texas sarah crockett has spent her life dedicated to her family keeping active at various jobs and even helping to raise her grandkids all while living with persistent leg and back pain from lumbar spinal stenosis take a look am 74 years old i have six grandchildren one great-grandchild which i absolutely adore she's so precious [Music] i've been very active all through my life with my kids going to bluebirds and girl scouts and my husband and i used to go jeeping and we would take our camper and we'd go out in the middle of nowhere and have a wonderful time i came to a time that i needed to sit more and when i did walk i walked hunched over all of a sudden i'm starting to have hip pain and back pain and leg pain and i can't run like i did with the grandkids and i thought okay it's just progression of being old to compensate for that a lot of times i would either sit or i would go and lay down and try to get comfortable and once the pain wasn't so bad then i would get up and i would be active again doing whatever i had to do [Music] but it became increasingly hard to keep up with what i like to do i ended up kind of in a depressed mode because all of a sudden the activities i used to be able to do became hard labor of trying to do it and my grandkids and my children they all knew that okay mom can't stand very long we gotta have her sit okay mom sat too long now we have to help her out of a chair and i felt like i was becoming a burden [Music] lumbar spinal stenosis affects nearly 50 percent of patients presenting with lower back pain and is recognized in the articles of the united states social security act as a disabling condition we spoke to interventional pain management specialist dr eden cowan at the capital pain institute in austin to learn more lumbar spinal stenosis or lss refers to narrowing in the spinal canal in the lower back this is a progressive condition that results from normal wear and tear in our aging population but specifically it's a combination of arthritis in the spine as well as degenerative discs lumbar spinal stenosis can persist for many decades without any symptoms but once this narrowing reaches a critical level patients will often start to complain of symptoms of lss these include pain in the low back that can radiate into the buttocks the thighs or one or both extremities depending on where the stenosis and which side it's occurring on this pain can be characterized as sharp shooting or sciatic pain as most patients refer to it restless leg syndrome because they feel a heaviness with standing for a short period of time or walking a short distance you'll often find that these patients are bending forward or leaning forward in their seats because this lends to a temporary relief of those symptoms so this is why you'll see them at the grocery store leaning forward on the shopping cart in fact we call it the shopping cart sign you don't have to be a physician to see it you can see it in the community chronic pain arising from lumbar spinal stenosis is debilitating it limits people who had complete independence to rely more on their caretakers or family members to help them fulfill or perform activities of daily living it can be very frustrating can make people feel hopeless so it's not just a physical a debilitating disease but it also lends to mental and emotional distress not just for the patients but it's a ripple effect it affects the people who love and care for them and who surround them coming up the road to long-term relief from lss begins with the right diagnosis and approach to pain management [Music] welcome back according to a report in the new england journal of medicine lower back pain is the second most common symptom-related reason for visits to primary care physicians for sierra finding long-term relief was becoming more and more challenging i tried all kinds of different things that are over the counter that are supposed to help with your back and whatnot it didn't work for me so i decided i'm going to go see a chiropractor he says but we're not going to be able to fix it magically overnight it's going to take a long term long term turned into three years four years still using over-the-counter medications still going to my chiropractor and not getting the help that i needed getting out of bed i didn't want to i didn't want to move it hurt too much then i saw a doctor who put me on pain medication not just one but three different kinds so that i could survive my daily activities that i could do i realized you can't function in a world like that either i went through the back brace in the shoes and in trigger point injection acupuncture to the point where i just was given up my grandchildren couldn't come over and have fun anymore because grandma wasn't fun anymore [Music] and it just gets to the point where you don't want to go anywhere you start losing your friends you've moved on from one thing to another i'm tired of needles i'm tired of patches i'm just done the lss patient care pathway is often long in fact an average of 18 years with constant return trips to the doctor's office due to most treatments only providing short-term relief we define chronic pain as pain that's persistent for six months or more and in that time we really want to utilize any and all modalities that may help reduce those patients symptoms this may include physical therapy which helps to recondition a patient who may not be as active because of the pain they were experiencing we always promote lifestyle changes and modification as well as utilizing back braces for stability and injections which may help reduce inflammation of the nerves pain medications have risks of their own especially in an aging population it can slow their breathing organ function is not the same as it was when they were in their 20s and so that medication can linger and put them at even higher risk there is also the notion or the concern for opioid dependence which a lot of patients suffer from because sometimes the only way they can get up and about is to take medication so they find themselves more and more dependent on that pain medication while we do like to utilize all conservative measures not every modality is going to work for every patient the effectiveness of the treatment for lumbar spinal stenosis depends on the accuracy of the diagnosis unfortunately the chronic symptoms of lss are often missed or misdiagnosed if you have continued chronic pain it's important to seek out a pain specialist for an evaluation or a second opinion when i first see a patient who comes into my office i'm looking at everything i'm paying attention to how they're coming in are they walking with a cane are they using a walker for support and i notice how they sit in the chair or on the exam table if i notice that they're leaning forward i'm immediately going to start thinking about lumbar spinal stenosis after performing a focus history and physical exam and i suspect lumbar spinal stenosis i'll immediately order an mri or a ct to identify and target the level of narrowing i also order a flexion extension x-ray and that's just like an extra you would normally get except it shows the spine in dynamic motion because we want to make sure that there isn't any instability once we have those two imaging modalities back we can certainly identify that they have lumbar spinal stenosis or they don't and they are stable from a dynamic perspective from the x-ray then we can certainly offer them a minimally invasive solution that will help them regain their independence and function coming up advances in minimally invasive treatment options for lss [Music] welcome back living with the persistent symptoms and chronic pain of lumbar spinal stenosis can have a profound effect emotionally and interfere with many aspects of daily living for many patients with lumbar spinal stenosis conservative treatment options such as medications and physical therapy have been exhausted without achieving any long-term or significant relief of symptoms my daughter who's an rn stepped in and said mom i can't watch you anymore i want you to go and see this doctor i promise you you will not be disappointed and they have a way to give you relief i thought oh god here we go again but i went i went and had an mri i had the x-rays the whole gamut then i went to see my doctor she told me i had the spinal stenosis and she said there is a procedure that she could do that would relieve all the nerve pressure that is causing such difficult pain for me when i first started seeing sarah she had already been about a decade into her pain journey this was such a sad story to me because this was a previously vibrant woman who led a very active lifestyle i had to find her a solution so that she could gain her independence back and she could get her life back [Music] when we return a minimally invasive treatment option for lumbar spinal stenosis [Music] lumbar spinal stenosis is a significant cause of chronic pain and is the most common indication for spinal surgery in people older than 65 years minimally invasive spinal procedures have continued to evolve over the past few decades and are providing seniors a low-risk long-term solution that does not require open surgery or general anesthesia minimally invasive solutions are important for all of us they mean that we have a more rapid recovery smaller incisions to heal from that we may or may not need general anesthesia which poses its own risks but when we're thinking about our aging population or our parents and our grandmothers and so forth we want to give them the maximum benefit from a surgical or procedural standpoint but also limiting the risks to them it's also important to think about for this patient population because they tend to have other medical conditions that can lend to other problems from anesthesia or surgery after the workup and i went in and saw my doctor she recommended a particular procedure that would help me not have the pain that i have been experiencing for many many many years dr callan told me that i was a good candidate for the vertiflex procedure the vertiflex procedure is a clinically proven minimally invasive solution that is designed to deliver long-term relief from the leg and back pain associated with lss the procedure can be completed in an outpatient setting and most patients can return home within the same day here's dr cowan with more typically patients who are good candidate for the vertiflex procedure are 65 and older they have back and leg pain and documented lumbar spinal stenosis that can include anywhere from minimal to moderate stenosis whether it's in the central canal the foramen or the lateral recess so that's important to know they typically have a bmi of 40 or under and they've had conservative measures for six months or more unfortunately not all patients who have lumbar spinal stenosis are good candidates for the verteflex procedure this includes patients who have a bmi over 40 those who have severe osteoporosis or those who have any type of instability in dynamic motion of the spine the vertiflex procedure is performed through a small incision about the size of my thumb which is about an inch and then we deployed the device or implant it in the closed position so you can see how it'll enter and then i'll show you the final position here as it's inserted and that's where it'll stay and you can see that it helps relieve that compression that was previously there from the narrowing in the spine once the implant is in place the incision is closed with absorbable sutures or just a few staples and you can see how that lends to a very speedy recovery time the vertifex procedure is not experimental and is in fact fda approved and covered by medicare the vertaflex procedure was the subject of an extremely thorough long-term fda clinical trial for lss results from the trial proved the effectiveness of the procedure with significant improvement in pain relief nine out of ten patients in the clinical study were satisfied with their pain relief and increase in physical activity also to note 85 percent of the proportion of subjects decreased opioid dependence sierra chose to have the vertiflex procedure and we asked her about her experience after the procedure i was fully awake stood up walked with a nurse put my shoes on walked out the very same day and i healed very quickly i am now more active than i have been in many years i started a home bakery and we have so much fun doing it now i can walk to the park with my great granddaughter we can play on the monkey bars we can go down the slide i have no problem whatsoever resuming my active life again it is such a blessing to be pain-free it's so nice to have these minimally invasive options that actually help to target where these patients pain arises from rather than just masking the symptoms as as we have in the past having the ability to see sarah transition from not being able to get out of bed and only using pain medications to do so to seeing her live a more active life it's why i show up every day just to see the smile and just to see people getting back to the things that they enjoy doing i'd like to thank sierra for sharing her personal story with us and dr cowan for all the education today for more information on the vertiflex procedure you can visit payne.com and as always you can go to our website access health dot tv see you next time [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Access Health

Views: 189,019

Keywords: access health, lifetime television, nutrition, health, medical, fitness, Ereka Vetrini

Id: rPVaZw8viBI

Length: 19min 50sec (1190 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021