Spinal Arthritis is One of the Most Painful and Difficult to Treat Forms of Arthritis

The modifications of different illnesses create one of the toughest challenges for consultants, analysts, and patients. As an example, we frequently hear through the mass media that scientists are looking for the cures for assorted sicknesses. Each of these forms of the illness cause different symptoms and treatments, and would therefore need different cures. Similarly, numerous kinds of arthritis exist, for example psoriatic arthritis, reactive arthritis, and rheumatoid arthritis. Another variety of this devastating illness is spinal arthritis.

Spinal arthritis, or spinal stenosis, involves the tapering of the spine, manifesting itself through stress on the spinal nerve as well as on the roots of nerves. This illness sometimes involves 3 regions of the backbone : the canals at the nerves' base that expand from the spinal nerve ; the openings between the backbone's bones, through which nerves exit the backbone and then continue to other body parts ; and the tube in the middle pillar of bones, through that the roots' base and the backbone continue. This tapering can include either a big or minuscule area of the backbone. The subject of spinal arthritis may feel aches or a scarcity of sensation in the shoulders, neck, or legs.

Spinal arthritis sufferers are most frequently ladies and men who are over 50 years of age. Nonetheless , younger folk who experience an injury to their backbone may also experience spinal arthritis. In addition, those that are born with tapering of the spinal channel could also become inflicted with this illness.

Spinal arthritis sufferers of every age may experience no symptoms, because of the tapering of the area in the spinal channel. However , if this narrowing puts stress on the nerve roots or spinal nerve, sufferers might endure cramps, absence of sensation, aches in the legs and arms, and weakness. Also, if the chiselled area in the backbone presses down on the nerve base, sufferers of spinal arthritis may experience discomfort sealing down their leg. They should right away engage in bending exercises, reinforcing exercises, stretching the lumbar region, and sitting.

When a victim of spinal arthritis isn't experiencing tremendous or worsening nerve organisation, then the doctor might prescribe either anti-swelling drugs that have no steroids, such as aspirin, and ibuprofen, to lower swelling and reduce aches, or drugs like Tylenol, to reduce discomfort.

If stronger treatment is required corticosteroid injections can be given into the remotest of the membranes covering the nerve roots and the spinal nerve, this will lower swelling and treat pointy agony that spreads down a leg, or down to the hips. Anaesthetic shots, and nerve blocks, can be given nearby the nerve that is influenced, to momentarily reduce agony.

Doctors frequently counsel physical treatment or exercises to increase stamina, continue the backbone's motion, and fortify back and belly muscles. This could help to make the backbone steadier. Aerobic activity is also a choice if the patient isn't in too much discomfort.

When treatment not concerning surgery is ineffectual, surgery becomes a choice. The target is to reduce the nerves' pressure or spinal nerve, and to re-establish and sustain the backbone's arrangement and strength.

Today, spinal arthritis remains one of the most devastating sorts of sicknesses that folk can have. Luckily, doctors and analysts continue to enhance its treatment, to relieve its victims' discomfort.

Does Inversion Therapy Work For Low Back Pain?

Inversion therapy is a treatment that involves anti-gravity. A person's feet are put into some sort of tight shoes, and the individual hangs upside down in search of pain relief. Does it work? Is it safe?

The theory behind inversion therapy is that it takes gravitational pressure off of the spinal anatomy such as nerve roots and intervertebral discs. The space between vertebrae is theoretically increased during anti-gravity inversion therapy. The treatment is in essence a form of spinal traction, with body weight providing the traction.

Inversion therapy has been found to be effective for short term back pain relief. There have been some well designed research studies evaluating it for long term relief. Unfortunately these studies have shown it to be ineffective for longer relief. In conjunction with a comprehensive treatment protocol for back pain, inversion therapy may fit in nicely to assist with pain relief.

When patients hang upside down for the inversion therapy, it may increase blood pressure. So for patients who have an issue with high blood pressure or heart disease, it should be avoided. Otherwise, it appears to be very safe.

The same risk factors hold true for glaucoma, which involves elevated intra-ocular pressure. This could be exacerbated with upside down inversion treatment.

Inversion therapy does not have to be 90 degrees, it may be done at less of an angle. Treatment may be achieved twice a day for 20 minutes at a time. Those who are new to inversion treatment should probably angle at 30 degrees to start for a few weeks until comfortable with the treatment. Most people do not need to go beyond 60 degrees to achieve full benefit.

Will inversion treatment help with a bulging disc? The answer is probably not. Yes inversion may pull arthritic joints and disc spaces apart, allowing patients to feel symptomatically better for a period. However, it is not like the intermittent traction with spinal decompression therapy where a negative pressure is created in the intervertebral disc. This negative pressure brings in increased nutrients and oxygen to the disc, allowing for potential healing.

Can inversion therapy help relieve sciatica pain? The answer is potentially yes. The reason is it can in fact pull the discs apart temporarily, which can relieve pain from a pinched nerve. But as mentioned, there is no real evidence that an inversion table sucks back in a herniated disc.

The bottom line is that inversion therapy may allow for short term back pain relief, but long term relief has not been seen. Sciatica pain relief may also be achieved, but as with back pain itself it may simply be short term.

Non-Surgical Decompression Options For Spinal Stenosis and Pinched Nerves

What is spinal decompression therapy and how can it help you?

Perhaps before we discuss spinal decompression therapy we should take a brief moment to talk about who might benefit from this treatment and why. As the name implies spinal decompression therapy is a treatment for spinal problems that are associated with pressure or compression. There are a number of different spinal ailments that are the result of compression of the nerves exiting the spine. The most common are slipped discs, spinal stenosis, sciatica and pinched nerves.

While the exact mechanisms of these various conditions are different they all ultimately involve pressure on or compression of the spinal nerve roots. There are surgical techniques of spinal decompression, but this article will focus on non-surgical methods available to decompress the spine. Many times these non-surgical techniques can reduce or eliminate the need for surgery. Several studies suggest that the techniques that we are about to be discuss may reduce the need for back surgery from 47 to 60 percent. So in theory more widespread use of non-surgical spinal decompression strategies could effectively eliminate the need for about one in every two spine surgery procedures. That is really great news for folks suffering from pinched spinal nerves regardless of the cause of the compression.

So how does it all work? The basic concept is really quite simple. A nerve exiting the spine gets compressed by a bad disc, spinal stenosis of spondylosis, a fancy name for spinal arthritis. Pressure on the nerve causes it to become inflamed and chemical changes occur in the nerve which makes it hyper-excitable. The result is pain, lots of it and also numbness and even weakness in the muscle of the lower back, hip and leg. Depending on the nature of the nerve compression and the amount of chemical changes that occur in each patient's compressed nerve, the signs and symptoms will vary from patient-to-patient. The important thing to remember is that the first job is to decompress the nerve. Then the inflammation and chemical changes need to be addressed for the body to heal properly.

Step one: Take the pressure off the spinal nerve to stop ongoing nerve damage. There are a number of ways to take the pressure off a pinched nerve. The general term for this is called spinal decompression; in truth we should really call it spinal nerve decompression therapy. Because it is more accurate to say we decompress the spinal nerve than to state we decompress the spine. So how do we decompress the spinal nerves? The answer is straight forward. Apply traction. Spinal traction has been used to treat back pain from nerve compression for thousands of years.

The most important question is how to most efficiently apply traction to the spine to effectively decompress the spinal nerves? There are a number of ways.

You probably can remember seeing pictures of patients strung up in harnesses with pulleys and weights. This old style of traction has been dismissed as ineffective, probably because it was inefficient in truly separating the vertebrae and causing decompression of the spinal nerve roots.

Then there are some home-based methods of spinal decompression. The two most popular ones are inversion machines that turn you upside down and cause gravity to distract the spine rather than compress it and the large exercise balls that can be used to elongate the spine through exercise. Both have pros and cons and for our discussion these should be relegated to follow-up home use after a course of true medical spinal decompression therapy.

That leaves two competing professional technologies to provide spinal decompression therapy in a medical setting. One therapy is called Spinal Decompression Therapy. It consists of a traction-like table and uses computerized sensors to monitor muscle contraction. This is important because when you start to administer traction to the spine a reflex occurs in the back muscles that resists the decompressive force. This is called the muscle stretch reflex. So this monitoring of the muscle stretch reflex is important to provide effective force to decompress the spine and pinched nerves. The Spinal Decompression Equipment times the traction with the relaxation of the muscles. Without considering this reflex muscle contraction the force used to decompress the spine will only be placing traction on the spinal muscles and not truly decompressing the pinched nerve.

In fact some scientists believe that old school traction failed to produce excellent results because they could not overcome the reflex muscle contraction hat occurs when you stretch the spinal muscles. If this was the case then traditional traction devices were limited to stretching back muscles and did very little to decompress the spine nerves. Modern Spinal Decompression equipment seems to have overcome this obstacle to true spinal nerve decompression.

An alternative to Spinal Decompression Treatment Tables is a technique called Flexion-Distraction Therapy. Flexion Distraction Therapy is unique because it is one of the only forms of decompression that treats the patient while he/she is face down. This is important for a couple of reasons.

We just talked about the muscle stretch reflex in the spinal muscles that makes them contract and resist decompression of the spine. There are many more reflexes associated with muscles. Another important reflex is called the agonist-antagonist reflex. Simply put, this is a reflex that causes the back muscle to relax when the stomach muscles are shortened. This reflex may be one of the reasons why Flexion Distraction Therapy can have profound effects on pinched spinal nerves.

While the patient is face down on the table, the Flexion Distraction Table flexes slightly. This has the effect of shortening the stomach muscles and causing a reflex relaxation of the back muscles. By slightly flexing the spine before applying the traction, the Flexion Distraction Therapy abolishes or greatly reduces the muscle stretch reflex in the back muscles. So once the spine is slightly flexed, resistance to traction of the back muscles is minimized and the spinal nerves can be effectively decompressed. Another advantage of Flexion Distraction Therapy is that the flexion movement of the table mechanically opens up the canal where most spinal nerve compression occurs.

So the properties of Flexion Distraction Therapy that make is ideal for spinal decompression is that by the nature of the procedure, back muscle relaxation and resistance to distraction are eliminated and the area of maximum nerve compression is mechanically enlarged all of which adds to effectiveness of spinal nerve root decompression.

Both Spinal Decompression technology and Flexion Distraction Technology for the non-surgical decompression of spinal nerve roots can be highly effective in reducing the pain and other symptoms associated with spinal nerve root compression. They are usually administered with additional therapies which are designed to reduce nerve inflammation and restore proper nerve chemistry. Either are worth looking into before considering surgery to decompress pinched spinal nerves.

Research supports the effectiveness of both of these competing techniques for the non-surgical decompression of spinal nerve roots.

Sitting Can Reduce Hip Mobility and Cause Back Pain

Over the course of their lives, nearly eighty percent of Americans will experience some sort of back pain. Many of them will experience pain so debilitating that they actually miss work because of it. These are extraordinarily high numbers of people with discomfort in this region of the body. While many causes of back pain can be prevented, it is only by understanding two of the most important reasons leading to soreness and injury that people can take preventative action and reduce their chances of experiencing pain. These two causes are sitting for long periods of time and lack of hip flexibility.

However, people should also realize that these two causes of back pain also work together to increase injury and soreness. Sitting for hours and hours every day in front of a computer or at a workstation leads to a cramming of the spinal discs, as well as a reduction of mobility in the hips. The hips are designed to be extremely mobile with a large range of motion, But sitting down causes the lower back to take over when movements are required. In essence, the hips tend to "turn off" and the low back takes up the slack when sitting. And when the person gets up, this habitual use of muscles continues unless corrected.

Sitting down puts increased pressure on the vertebrae of the back, especially compared to standing up. When standing, the loads placed on the spine are reduced because the abdominal muscles are more activated and the hips and leg muscles are also working to support the body. But when sitting in a chair, all of the weight of the upper body comes to rest on the pelvis directly, with no transfer of the force through the hips to the legs and feet. This results in higher loads being placed on the joints of the lower back where the lumbar (lower) spine meets the pelvis. Over time, the tissues supporting this area of the body tend to weaken and break down.

While many people feel that standing for long periods of time causes soreness and discomfort, this is usually the feeling of sore muscles. The back extensors, hips, and legs may get sore from spending too much time standing up, but usually the pressures on the tissues such as the ligaments and the spinal discs are reduced. But when sitting down for too long, the muscles may be saved from working to support the spine, but the loads are then directed to the ligaments, discs, bones, and other connective tissues. Muscles soreness can be recovered from much more quickly than damage to the discs.

Sitting also places the hips in a position where they are not allowed to expand, move, or activate muscles to support the body. This can lead to reduced flexibility and range of motion in the hips. When this happens, additional stress is placed on the low back, as the body seeks necessary mobility from the tower back that is missing in the hips. The lumbar spine, however, is not meant to have a large range of motion -- it is built to be very stable and supportive of the joints directly above and below it. When the body is lacking in mobility at the hips, back injuries occur.

Thus, sitting down for long periods of time and reduced mobility in the hip joints can lead to back injuries. The longer one sits in a chair and the less flexibility in the hips, the greater the chance of lower back pain and the worse that soreness can be. People who are seriously concerned about the health of their back must learn to reduce or mitigate the compressive forces on their spines and use their bodies as they were designed -- to keep the loads off of the discs and ligaments of the lumbar spine and utilize the natural mobility of the hips for movement and activity.

How the Nerves and Brain Communicate to Create or Ignore Pain Messages

The pain alert system in the body is one of the most useful aspects of the nervous system, at least from a survival and danger-avoidance standpoint. But when the system becomes overly sensitized, either due to tissue damage or long-term inflammation, it can cause all sorts of problems for people, the main one being chronic pain lasting months or years. But much of the pain that is felt years after an injury may be due to the nervous system and brain not communicating effectively with each other anymore.

There are pain sensors spread throughout the body; they are located near the skin, in muscles, and on bones. When these nerves receive enough of an input, they open up and allow a flood of positively-charged ions in, which sends a pain message to the spinal cord and brain. The pain receptors can be activated through a number of different mechanisms, from a hammer hitting someone's thumb, to a dangerous chemical being dropped on a hand or leg, to hot coffee being spilled. All of these can result in pain due to mechanical, chemical, or temperature changes that affect the nerves.

However, the pain messages must reach a critical level in order to send a real pain message to the brain. Lightly touching a hammer to your thumb will not usually send you screaming and sucking it to reduce the pain (unless the nerves are already highly sensitized). The pain receptors may open and allow some positive ions in, but they are not judged to be enough to create pain. The brain, along with the spinal cord, evaluates the messages received from the pain receptors and decides whether or not there is a danger. If danger is perceived, then pain is the result, but if the inputs are not sufficient to cause pain, the brain does not send the message to protect the body part.

This processing by the brain is one of the most important aspects of pain for people to understand. Elite athletes may be able to run the last 6 miles of a marathon with a stress fracture, while other people have to take the day off of work if they have a mild paper cut. Why is this? In essence, it is due to the sensory messages that the brain receives from the tissues and the messages it sends after receiving those inputs from the nerves. The actual condition of the tissues is one of the aspects the brain evaluates, but it is not the only one. It may be more important to keep running and finish the race than to send a danger message full of pain.

But when the brain believes that a person is in danger, it will send the pain message. At that point, the brain is almost completely in control and other various systems can take over. There is nothing like being hit with an object to test the reflexes to see how fast a person can get out of the way. The inflammatory system may turn on as the body then sends blood and nutrients to the site of the injury to cause swelling in order to protect the tissues. And pain from an acute injury can last as long as the brain determines that there is still a danger.

What Causes Degenerative Disc Disease?

Degenerative Disc Disease (DDD) is a process that may involve one intervertebral disc or numerous. It's a fairly common condition, at least 30% of people aged 30-50 years old will have some degree of DDD, although a lot will not have any pain at all from it.

It involves loss of hydration to the disc which is normally 80% water and can be from natural causes, post traumatic, genetics, essentially numerous causes, some of which we know and some we don't.

Here are the ones we know:

1) Acute injury to the back - This may occur from a car accident or some other accident that causes the disc to sustain tears in the outer portion of the disc. The outer portion is called the annulus and is the part that has the nerve endings where pain occurs.

2) Wear and Tear - Repetitive injury to the disc, such as occurs with heavy lifting occupations or truck driving, can over time cause disc degeneration and back pain or neck pain depending on where the problem occurs.

3) Post-surgical - Patients who undergo a discectomy for a herniated disc will have less disc after the discectomy than prior. With less spongy material to support body loads, the remaining disc will have a higher propensity for degeneration.

4) Obesity - Higher body mass will place more stress on your discs and potentially enhance the degeneration.

5) Genetics - You may be predisposed to excessive disc wear and tear, so if someone in your family has or had degenerative disc disease, you may also develop back or neck pain related to DDD.

6) Smoking - This habit adversely affects discs and can cause faster degeneration. Smoking decreases the amount of water in your discs, and that water is what helps your discs absorb stresses from movement successfully. With less water content, your intervertebral discs can wear out sooner.

As you can see, there are some causes of DDD that can be controlled, but genetics is not one of them.

How Does Degenerative Spondylolisthesis Create Back Pain and Leg Pain?

Degenerative Spondylolisthesis is an extremely common spinal condition that causes back pain along with hip, buttock, and leg pain. The term "spondy" means spine and "listhesis" means slip. From degenerative arthritis occurring, one vertebral body ends up shifting on the one below it, and this can cause pain from either:

1. Spinal arthritis


2. Spinal instability


3. Pinching nerves from the slip (spinal stenosis)

The spinal canal has a typical cross sectional area that allows nerve roots to get out just fine normally. But if one vertebra slips and thereby shifts its position on top of another level, that cross sectional area decreases. You have a bony area that is shifting, but the surrounding soft tissues are shifted right with it.

This can pull traction on nerve roots that were previously very happy with the amount of space they had to exit from the spinal canal. With the slippage, those nerve roots may get pinched at one of 3 places:

1. Pinched nerve in the area where they come off of the spinal cord (dura)


2. The area as they enter the exit hole (foramen) from the spinal canal called the lateral recess


3. The exiting hole from the spinal canal, called the foramen

Either place of compression can produce symptoms of hip, buttock, and/or leg pain called spinal stenosis. Stenosis in this case refers to constriction of an anatomic circumference. If there instability when a person moves, such that the vertebra shifts when a person stands up and moves and then goes back upon sitting, this can create intermittent symptoms of back pain and/or spinal stenosis.

Unfortunately when spondylolisthesis occurs, it is a mechanical problem. We do not have a special powder or injection material that will fix it. However, degenerative spondylolisthesis is obviously not a fatal condition, and it doesn't cause paralysis.

So it can be treated conservatively with many options including:

1. Physical Therapy


2. Pain Management injections


3. Pain Medication


4. Chiropractic Treatment


5. Spinal Decompression Treatment

If these options fail, then surgery can work very well but should be considered as a last resort.