Spinal Stenosis: Can You Treat Your Neck And Back Pain?

If you suffer from spinal stenosis, your condition may cause great pain and other symptoms in your neck and lower back. In order to control your symptoms, a doctor may recommend or prescribe medications and physical therapy to treat them. But if medication and physical therapy fail to relieve or ease your symptoms, ask a chiropractor for assistance soon. Learn how spinal stenosis affects you and how a chiropractor can provide relief for it below.

How Does Spinal Stenosis Affect You? 

Spinal stenosis is a condition that affects the sensitive nerves and delicate spinal cord in your spine. The tissues travel through a long hollow opening known as the spinal canal. Spinal stenosis occurs when the spinal canal narrows and pinches, or compresses, the nerves, and spinal cord. Spinal stenosis causes pain, swelling, numbness, and a wide range of other symptoms in your neck, lower back, legs, hands, and feet.

Several things may potentially lead to a narrowing of the spinal canal, including the aging process. During the aging process, the bones and joints of the spinal become large and thick enough to suppress the nerves and spinal cord. The ligaments that support the spine may also become inflexible and hard enough to suppress the nerves and spinal cord.

Along with the age-related problems above, rheumatoid arthritis, spinal injury, and scoliosis may also lead to spinal stenosis. Even if you treat the cause or causes of your spinal stenosis, the symptoms of spinal stenosis will continue to get worse. Along with your doctor's current treatments, a chiropractor can help you find the relief you seek for your symptoms.

How Does a Chiropractor Treat Spinal Stenosis?

A chiropractor's treatments are vastly different from your regular doctor's treatments. A chiropractor will use unique treatments, such as manual spinal manipulations, to remove the pressure off your nerves and spinal cord. Manipulations help reposition the bones and joints that suppress the spinal cord. 

A chiropractor may also use flexion-distraction therapy to ease your symptoms. As mentioned above, the bones and joints in the spine can become inflexible with age. Flexion-distraction therapy and similar treatments can help improve your condition by widening or increasing the spaces between your spinal tissues and spinal canal. 

A chiropractor will provide or offer several other solutions to relieve your symptoms as well. 

You can find the solutions for your neck pain symptoms by consulting a chiropractic care provider today. 

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