What to do about thoracic spinal stenosis?

Thoracic spinal stenosis is a comprehensive disease that usually occurs in middle-aged and elderly people, mostly men. With the increase of age, the functions of body organs will decline, and it is easy to suffer from physical diseases. Thoracic spinal stenosis is a relatively common disease that will seriously affect the patient's normal life.

Simple thoracic spinal stenosis can be treated conservatively, such as through massage. However, the conservative treatment effect is very poor when combined with spinal stenosis. Surgery is the best way to solve spinal stenosis. Once the stenosis is relieved, the pressure on the nerves will be relieved and the symptoms of numbness and pain in the legs will improve. If the stenosis lasts too long and the compression causes nerve degeneration, the surgical effect will not be good.

Clinical manifestations

The onset age of thoracic spinal stenosis is mostly middle-aged and the most common site is the lower thoracic spine, mainly located in thoracic segments 7 to 11, but it can also be seen in the upper thoracic segment and even thoracic segment 12.

The disease develops slowly and initially manifests itself as numbness, weakness, coldness, stiffness and inflexibility of the lower limbs. Both lower limbs may be affected at the same time, or symptoms may appear in one lower limb first and then affect the other lower limb. About half of the patients have intermittent claudication. The symptoms worsen after walking a certain distance, and they need to bend over or squat to rest for a while before they can walk again.

In more serious cases, patients have unsteady standing and walking and need to use crutches or walk with the support of a wall. Severe paraplegic patients have a feeling of tightness or bandage in the chest and abdomen, chest tightness, and abdominal distension. If the lesion is high and severe, patients may have difficulty breathing. Half of the patients have back pain, some for as long as several years, but only 1/4 of the patients have leg pain, and the pain is usually not serious. Bowel and urinary dysfunction appears later, mainly weakness in urination and defecation, and urinary incontinence is rare. Once the disease occurs, it often progressively worsens and the remission period is short and small. The disease progresses at varying speeds, with paraplegia occurring within a few months in some cases.

treat

1. Basic treatment principles for thoracic spinal stenosis There is no effective non-surgical treatment for thoracic spinal stenosis so far. Therefore, for patients with obvious symptoms that have affected their daily lives, most scholars believe that surgical decompression is the only effective way to relieve compression and restore spinal cord function. Therefore, once the diagnosis is established, surgical treatment should be performed as soon as possible, especially for those with faster progression of spinal cord damage. Once the spinal cord degenerates, the consequences will be disastrous and can easily cause complete paralysis.

2. Brief introduction to surgical procedures for thoracic spinal stenosis. The commonly used surgical procedure for this disease is thoracic posterior total laminectomy and decompression, which can directly relieve the compression on the posterior wall of the spinal canal. After decompression, the spinal cord moves slightly posteriorly, which indirectly relieves the compression on the anterior wall. The decompression range can be extended upward and downward as needed, and the surgical operation is more convenient and safer under direct vision. For patients with lateral disc herniation, the nucleus pulposus can be removed at the same time. However, this operation can easily cause spinal cord injury or even complete paraplegia, so you must be careful during the operation to avoid accidental injury.