Top 5 Ways To Keep Cervical Stenosis From Getting Worse And Avoid Surgery

Are you looking for help for a cervical stenosis problem? Maybe you have been searching the internet trying to learn more about what this is and how its treated. Or if it’s possible to escape surgery from it, because everybody’s telling you that you might need surgery? Well, I’ll explain a bit more about it, and I’m going to go over the top five ways to keep a cervical stenosis problem from getting worse and how to avoid surgery for it.

My name is Dr. David Middaugh. I’m a specialist physical therapist over at El Paso Manual Physical Therapy, and I see people with cervical stenosis every day in the clinic. We commonly find that they also have some arthritis in their neck. In addition to the cervical stenosis, they usually are having pain down in the shoulders or the arms. These people come in with MRI reports, and doctors have told them that their x-rays show that they have this stenosis problem.

What that is, is where the spine in the neck, there are two types of holes, within the spine for the nerves to pass through. There is a central canal, which if you have stenosis there, it’s called central stenosis. That’s where the spinal cord runs through the big thick spinal cord. And that’s the most dangerous type of stenosis you can get. A lot of times stenosis there occurs because the disc is pushing into it, you have a disc herniation and it’s starting to creep up into the space where the spinal canal is, where the spinal cord lives.

The other type is called lateral stenosis, that is where the holes in the sides of the spine, where the nerves come out, that go into your arms, those nerves can be affected as well. Because the holes in the sides of the spine are closing up. Stenosis just means that a hole is present and it’s getting smaller. On the lateral stenosis part, that can also be affected by a disc herniating, as well as the height of a disk, if you have decreased height of the disk, and the bones are coming together, the holes in the sides will also get smaller as a result. That can then pinch on the nerves in the neck area.

But let me cover the top five ways that you can stop this from getting worse so that you can avoid surgery.

Number one is stay hydrated.

Discs are critical for this kind of situation. What we know about discs is that they are over 70% water based. Making sure that you are hydrated every day, as you go forward in life, it is critical to make sure that you have proper disk health, so you don’t lose any more height in your discs, and you can maintain disc space where they are at.

Number two, avoid twisting and turning exercises or stretches.

You often see exercises and stretches, if you ever Google or look on YouTube for ways to move your neck or shoulders, or they turn their head, or you tip it this way or you twist as far as you can. Sometimes it can feel good do that, because you have tight muscles in your neck associated with this, or in your shoulders as well. It can feel good to just put a stretch on it. But what most people don’t explain is that discs, the actual discs themselves, they are not well suited to take twisting and turning forces. Discs are designed to take bending forward and backwards forces decently well. It can also take compression pretty well, but what they are poor at doing, is taking twisting and turning. You want to avoid twisting and turning exercises and stretches.

Tip number three is avoid stretching in general.

If you absolutely need to, because it’s either that or you take pain medication, then I’d say go with the stretching, but more often than not, about nine times out of 10, there is some weakness in the neck and shoulder area that is leading into some muscles getting tight. That’s why you feel like you need to stretch, because you feel that type of muscle. A much better way to address a stenosis problem in your neck would be to follow this next tip.

Tip number four, which is to get stronger neck and shoulder muscles.

This, for almost every single case I’ve seen, has been the real cure for the problem. It really stops the stenosis from progressing and allows people to get better sleep at night, move through the day easier, be able to pick up heavy things without making their neck hurt worse, even increase their flexibility without directly stretching it or turning it.

When you have proper strength through your shoulders and through your neck. The joints in the neck bones actually get offloaded, and they move with better quality. This sets up the environment for having a healthier disc, which takes pressure off the holes where the nerves come out. That can theoretically reduce the stenosis.

It’s not proven that stenosis can be reversed. But that doesn’t mean that it can’t happen. That just means that we haven’t researched it. Because what usually happens is, when people get better because they have a stenosis problem, they don’t go back for an MRI after they already got better. They continue with their life instead of going go back for another x-rays. They stay away from the doctor’s office.

Which is why we don’t have a whole lot of evidence that the stenosis got better, that the hole got bigger, or that the nerves are alleviated. People just feel better most of the time, so they get back to doing what they were doing before. But it’s my belief that it probably does begin to reverse, and if you keep up the strength in your neck and shoulders, you are likely going to have a better MRI after you strengthened, than when you were dealing with this stenosis problem.

Tip number five is by far the best tip, get expert help.

If you work with a specialist, physical therapist, or somebody that knows how to handle cervical stenosis without medications and injections and surgeries. You are going to expedite the process of getting this cervical stenosis problem under control, without having to get surgery or rely on injections or pain medications.

Here in the clinic, we will look at every single joint in the spine. Look at all the nerves that come out, we look at the shoulders, we have to look at the upper back as well, we are factoring the entire body into how that is creating your cervical stenosis problem, so that we can find the root of the problem, and address that to get you relief and results for the long term.

We don’t do short term fixes here. We are interested in the long term so that you can avoid surgery, not get injections, and not have to rely on pain medications. If you are  interested in hiring us to help you with your cervical stenosis problem, the quickest way to get in touch with us is by hitting the button right around here that asks about a discovery visit.

You’ll get a 20-minute visit with a specialist, physical therapist where you get a chance to ask questions, we’ll get a chance to check out your neck, your cervical stenosis problem, and see if it’s something that we can help. Then we begin to develop a plan to get the problem addressed.

There’s no obligation to continue treatment, you are in control of what you want to do after that. If you want to call us, you can do that as well. You can reach us at 915-503-1314 and ask about getting a free discovery visit that way too.

I wish you the best of luck in fixing your cervical stenosis problem. have the best day bye bye