How to best treat lumbar spinal stenosis

  The treatment of lumbar spinal stenosis depends on the condition. Those with mild symptoms can be treated conservatively, those with ineffective conservative treatment, and those with severe symptoms can be treated surgically. The development of the treatment plan depends on the specific condition of the patient.  Chinese medicine believes that the main causes of this disease are congenital deficiency of kidney qi, deficiency of kidney qi in later life, and strain injury to kidney, etc.; while repeated trauma, chronic strain injury and attack of wind, cold and dampness are common external causes. The main pathogenesis is kidney deficiency, the evil blocking the meridians, Qi and blood flow is not smooth, resulting in paralysis of the waist and leg tendons and veins to produce pain. The treatment is to invigorate blood circulation and nourish the liver and kidney. At present, the commonly used external treatment methods of Chinese medicine are acupuncture therapy, Chinese medicine fumigation, Chinese medicine compress and injection therapy. Acupuncture therapy, herbal fumigation, herbal compress play the role of opening the meridians, activating blood circulation and removing blood stasis. If painful symptoms occur, you can choose non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for treatment. At the same time, bed rest, traction, tui-na and physical therapy can be combined.  For more serious conditions or after conservative treatment is ineffective, surgery is required. Surgery is based on complete decompression and can be divided into minimally invasive surgery and open surgery. For those with more severe lumbosacral pain, obvious intermittent claudication, and severe spinal stenosis on imaging, simple spinal decompression or decompression implant fusion internal fixation is performed.  In summary, the early treatment of spinal stenosis is still based on conservative treatment, and surgery will be performed only after conservative treatment is ineffective.