Chiropractic Solutions for Spinal Stenosis: What You Need to Know

Got questions about spinal stenosis? 🤔 Tune in to our latest episode of #AskTheChiropractor where Dr. Brant Hulsebus breaks down everything you need to know about managing this condition with chiropractic care! 🌀📉#icachiropractor #healthy815 #palmerproud https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13104-024-06840-6

www.rockforddc.com

Transcript

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Hello, Dr. Brant Hulsebus here and welcome to another edition of Ask the Chiropractor. Ask the Chiropractor is my little podcast that I do when someone has a question about chiropractic or chiropractic care, I try to answer. I'm a chiropractor here in Rockford, Illinois. I'm a proud graduate of Palmer College of Chiropractic and I'm happy to be the team chiropractor of the Rockford Icehogs. Let's dive into it. Hi. Welcome to another episode. Today I want to talk about spinal stenosis. Maybe you or somebody you know has been diagnosed with spinal stenosis. The easiest place to see spinal stenosis is at the grocery store. What do I mean by the grocery store? What happens is we have this compression that's going on inside of the spine itself. Inside the spine there's a spinal cord that comes down. And in between each of the vertebrae there's a canal in the backside. where the spinal cord hangs out. Now if this canal is decreased in its width by 10 millimeters then we call it spinal stenosis. And usually what makes spinal stenosis feel better is when we lean forward. So what do I mean by the grocery store? You'll see somebody pushing the grocery cart and they're hunched over the grocery cart walking around. Typically when I see a patient with this they like to stay for And I'll ask them, how do you feel in your grocery shop? And a lot of times they'll tell me that's the only time they get relief, is leaning against the shopping cart and walking through the grocery store. They can do that all the time, as long as they can lean forward on it. What is this? This is a problem with the spine. A lot of times a disc and other swelling and inflammation occurs and that hole where that spinal cord goes. I hesitate to say spinal cord because at L1, L2, the spinal cord ends. This is why they do spinal taps below L1, L2. From there, they look at horses, what they call a cauda equina. The nerves come down and just go out from there. Why? Because when you were little, your spinal cord went from the top to the bottom, but as you grew, it came up. I'm hesitant to say spinal cord pressure, because there is no spinal cord at L1, excuse me, L5. And that's most likely where this happens. So we're just going to call it the spinal area, right? Where the cord should be. It's being compressed. You lean forward, you take the pressure off of it. You're able to walk around. Obviously without a shopping cart to hold you up, you would fall on your face. That's why some people call this a shopping cart syndrome, jokingly. So it is a question I ask my patients. And what do we know about this? We know a new research paper just came out, I like to quote my papers. So what I'm looking at here is pain projectories over 12 months following a conservative. Care, consultation and patients with lumbar stenosis. The prime author is Jensen, J-E-N-S-E-N, and this is from the BMC Research Notes 17, article number 1 74 from 2024. Very new. Very new. So basically what they're saying is one of the number one things to do is movement based care when you have spinal stenosis and who specializes in movement based care? Chiropractors. Chiropractors always have. So if you have spinal stenosis, don't let people tell you not to go to the chiropractor when chiropractic care is the number one recommended treatment plans. Now a lot of people might go and have all those surgeries for spinal stenosis, but because the people who suffer from spinal stenosis are typically people who got, have had poor spinal hygiene. I had a doctor I used to call it spinal hygiene. You've had poor spinal hygiene. What does that mean? We talk about the health of the spine, we talk about whether it's movable, flexible by how much you move and exercise. But when you lack that, you start losing spinal hygiene. The spine gets really rigid. Not only that, you've heard me, if you listen to my podcast at all, talk about the importance of stabilization muscles. If your stabilization muscles are shot, they're all worn out, they're full of adipose tissue. I'm not trying to call them fat, but when they degenerate, that's what they get replaced with. When those are like that, the odds of you bouncing back or making a recovery gets slimmer and slimmer. So if you go in and they do a little cleanup surgery, the odds of you having spinal fusion down the line are very high because now that they've gone in, you can't go in and cut through stuff without damaging things. And the things they damage are the things that we need to have you help and repair. So they always recommend. Transcripts provided by Transcription Outsourcing, LLC. Pinch into position, flex a little bit and start doing traction on you trying to open that area up. Basically, what happens when you tube, when you pull the vertebras apart in traction, you create a suction, we start sucking the disc back into place. That with the chiropractic adjustment correction, we typically see get some results, but the part that's. Tough on this is because the person I listen to all the time always says that gravity and time are undefeated It takes time to correct this. The stenosis takes a long time to develop. It doesn't happen overnight These are some that takes years and years and years of being wrong and it gets to the point where I just can't take it Anymore when I finally go see the doctor and everyone's hoping for that cure to happen overnight when unfortunately with spinal stenosis It takes time And that's why this is a 12 month thing, they interview people for 12 months to talk to them about the relief and the time it took, because it does take a long time. It takes a long, long time to get better from spinal stenosis. And it takes lots of times ongoing care and it takes ongoing work and homework and activities. But can people go to the chiropractor and expect relief from spinal stenosis? Very often people get great relief from spinal stenosis under the chiropractic care. So if you were to come here and you had that diagnosis of spinal stenosis, this is what we would do so you understand. One is that we're assuming if you've been diagnosed with spinal stenosis, you've already had x rays and MRI done, because the only way to definitively diagnose a spinal stenosis is an MRI. So if you've been told you've had spinal stenosis without an MRI, no MRI, no imaging, then we really don't know that's what you have. You almost need an MRI to confirm it. You might have various symptoms out of the sun, but. Doesn't necessarily mean the spinal stenosis. So an MRI would be the preferred imaging deferred diagnosis on this now Some insurance plans some states chiropractors can order an MRI some sometimes it's more of a headache So you have to check with your chiropractor see whether or not they can get an MRI done or maybe they need to co care you With your family doctor to see the MRI performed. So once the MRI is done That would confirm the diagnosis. Then what we want to do is we want to start doing chiropractic adjustments. Now, how long does it take? How many times do I have to come? This goes back to many of my previous podcasts. How did you end your visit? How much discite have you lost? Do you have osteophytes or spurring already occurring? How much nerve damage should it be already measuring? Do you have numbness and tingling? Do you have loss of muscle? Do you have loss of strength? Do you have pain shooting down? Because lower back pain and stenosis go hand in hand. They are two different diagnoses and two different treatment plans, but they definitely go hand in hand. And so stenosis we know will take longer to take care of than lower back pain, but a lot of times when you have stenosis, Lower back pain is one of the symptoms. So I can't just tell you if you have lower back pain, you come in and get 12 adjustments, I bet you see a big change. Come in with spinal stenosis, get 12 adjustments, then we know we're on the right track, it's going the right way. Why do I keep saying 12? If you go back a couple of episodes, there was a research paper that came out that shows it takes 12 adjustments to create a change in chiropractic care. Some people get better after 12. Some people start to notice they are going to get better after 12, but you got to give it 12. So that's what we know about chiropractic adjustments from previous research. So the chiropractor should be able to assess you after doing a couple adjustments on you and maybe traction or other things that chiropractor prefers to use for spinal stenosis. There's always a follow up MRI we can do down the road to see how it's getting better, see how it's recovering. But as far as how much time does it take, It could take 6 weeks, it could take 6 months, it could take the whole 12 months that the research paper shows. But it doesn't mean you're going to be miserable the whole 12 months, it just needs to take time to get it better. Now what's the realistic outcomes of it getting well and staying well, spinal stenosis? That depends a lot on you. That depends a lot on whether or not you're willing to rebuild those stabilization muscles around there, or whether you're not. So if you were to have the surgery, stabilization muscles take some injury from the surgery. The odds of you having another surgery, research has shown us, is fairly pretty high. Having more problems coming down the road are fairly pretty high. Under the chiropractic care, if you get the chiropractic care, you get the relief that you're looking for. Then you follow through with the chiropractor's assignment, whether it's, supportive care, maintenance care and or stabilization exercises and some PT work with a maybe with a physical therapist or maybe just with a chiropractor. The odds of you having success are much, much higher as far as long term happiness, but it requires the work. If you're not really ready to put the time in that it takes to get better from stenosis with the chiropractor, then, don't kid yourself, go have the surgery. But if you want to have it get better and stay better and have a better outcome and more likely not to have more issues down the road. They go with the chiropractor, but you got to be willing to put the work in. And what we typically find as chiropractors, I think I speak for a lot of my profession, is that you got bad because you never had good habits and trying to teach an old dog new tricks can be tricky. If you're willing to put the work in, I'm sure your chiropractor is willing to put the work in and find you the supportive care that you need. But you have to be willing to take that first step and admit that you need to start working on yourself. If it's beyond the point of repair, if the spurs are too big, the degeneration is too big, the stenosis is too much, you've lost use of your legs. We've had people come in having traumatic spinal stenosis where they fell on some bad herniate or something like that. And that's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the long term spinal stenosis that occurs over time. So if you're willing to put the work in, the chiropractor is willing to put the work in, you'll probably find yourself a good connection there. So don't expect quick. Fast immediate results of spinal stenosis. It's going to be a little bit of a rotor recovery, but there is Research and data and evidence that shows that chiropractic can definitely help you down that road and get you there. Now does that mean it's going to take everybody a really long time? Absolutely not. That's why you need to look at the MRI report when you look at the overall integrity of the soft tissues, the muscles, stuff like that. I just got rid of the MRI report right before I started this podcast. And the patient's been having ongoing lower back issues. The soft tissue report on the MRI says the soft tissue looks great. So that's why this patient we're going to have a great outcome and a fast turnaround. Without that information, no, I can't really answer that. So if I have spinal stenosis, can I go to the chiropractor? It's one of the more preferred options according to the literature. Can I expect to go in there and have immediate quick results? Probably not. It's probably going to take some time work on both the chiropractor and yourself to get yourself over it. If I go and have surgery, can I expect immediate results? Probably could even be faster results than the chiropractic. But again, there's loss of integrity now. And the reason you had this loss in the first place is loss of integrity. After the surgery, they do the best they can to make it better, but now it's lost some of its integrity. So can it make a full bounce back? Probably not. The likelihood of you having to follow up more aggressive surgery are higher than under being under chiropractic care. So that you have to weigh your options and make your own choice. So can chiropractors help with spinal stenosis? There is evidence and research that says absolutely. Does it happen quick, fast, and easy? Probably not. It's probably going to take a little bit of time. But again, it took a long time to get there. So if you see yourself leaning over that grocery cart in the grocery store, getting around for some help, you better react to it sooner than later because the longer you wait, the longer it takes to get better. And if you see a loved one doing that, get them to a chiropractor as soon as you can. There's the answer spinal stenosis. Thank you for listening and come back next week. We'll have another question and ask the chiropractor Thank you And if you want to see that research paper I'll put links in the post you should be able to find it and if you have question about chiropractic or chiropractic care Always ask a chiropractor. They're the only ones that actually know the answer. Thank you