Treatment of Spinal Stenosis: Restoring Free Movement Without Pain

If you experience severe pain, heaviness, or weakness in your legs after a short walk, and you absolutely need to sit down or lean forward for the pain to subside — this is a classic sign of spinal stenosis. This condition gradually “takes away” a person’s ability to move freely, forcing them to stop every 50–100 meters.

Age is no reason to endure pain and remain confined to your home. At St. Luke’s Clinic (Banchery village), vertebrologists and neurosurgeons successfully treat spinal stenosis using modern conservative methods and safe microsurgery, restoring the joy of an active life to patients.

What is spinal stenosis and why do the legs “give out”?

Inside our spine, the spinal cord and large nerve roots pass. With age, due to osteochondrosis, bone tissue overgrowth (osteophytes), ligament thickening, or the appearance of hernias, this canal narrows (stenoses). As a result, the nerves are caught in a rigid “vice.”

Main symptoms of stenosis:

• Neurogenic (intermittent) claudication: during walking or standing, unbearable pain, numbness, and weakness (a feeling of “cotton legs”) appear. The patient is forced to stop and sit down to rest.
• “Shopping cart sign”: it is much easier for a person to walk if they lean on something and bend forward (for example, on a shopping cart in a supermarket or on a cane). When bending, the spinal canal slightly widens, and the nerves have more space.
• Lower back pain that radiates to both buttocks and legs.
• Gradual loss of sensation in the feet.

Accurate diagnosis before treatment

Since the symptoms of stenosis can be similar to problems with leg blood vessels, correct diagnosis is a key step. Our specialists always prescribe MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) of the spine. This study shows with millimeter accuracy exactly where and how severely the spinal cord or nerve roots are compressed.

How do we treat stenosis at St. Luke’s Clinic?

Treatment is selected individually, depending on the stage of canal narrowing and the patient’s age.

1. Conservative treatment (without surgery)

In the initial stages, when the narrowing is not yet critical, we use methods to relieve inflammation, swelling, and pain:

• Therapeutic blocks (epidural injections): The doctor, under X-ray or ultrasound guidance, injects a powerful anti-inflammatory drug as close as possible to the compressed nerve. This quickly relieves swelling, frees up space in the canal, and allows the patient to walk normally again.
• Medicinal vascular therapy (IV drips) to improve nerve nutrition.
• Special physiotherapy and rehabilitation.

2. Surgical treatment: Microdecompression

If the canal narrowing is so severe that conservative methods are ineffective, the only way to save the nerves from dying is surgery.

Don’t be afraid of surgery! In our clinic, we do not use old traumatic methods. Modern neurosurgery for stenosis is microdecompression:

• Safety under the microscope: The surgeon works under a powerful operating microscope. Through a small incision, he meticulously removes thickened ligaments or bone growths that are pressing on the nerve. The vertebrae themselves are not damaged in the process.
• Implant placement (if necessary): If stenosis is accompanied by vertebral instability (displacement), for reliability, the surgeon may install a modern titanium fixation system (screws) that will secure the spine in the correct position.

Rehabilitation: how quickly will I be able to walk?

Thanks to the use of microsurgical technologies and quality anesthesia, patients, even of advanced age, tolerate the intervention very well.

• Already the day after the operation, the patient can get up and walk around the ward.
• In most cases, the leg pain that tormented the person for years disappears immediately after waking up!
• The stay in our comfortable hospital averages 3–5 days.

Don’t deny yourself walks and an active life! Schedule an expert consultation with the vertebrologists at St. Luke’s Clinic. Modern medicine can restore your ease of movement!