Low back pain is a common disease in our daily life, but medically speaking, it is only a symptom and can be seen in a variety of diseases, such as lumbar muscle strain, lumbar disc herniation, spinal tuberculosis, lumbar spinal stenosis, etc. In recent years, with the introduction of newspapers and broadcasts, lumbar pain caused by lumbar disc herniation has become more and more recognized and understood by the majority of patients, but another important disease causing lumbar pain, lumbar spinal stenosis, is little known, which has numerous similarities in clinical symptoms with lumbar disc herniation and is easily confused. The disease is briefly introduced here for the convenience of the majority of patients. Lumbar spinal stenosis is a condition in which the lumbar spinal canal is narrowed in one or more planes due to bony or fibrous hyperplasia and displacement, resulting in clinical symptoms due to compression of the cauda equina or nerve roots. According to its etiology, it can be divided into four categories: 1. developmental spinal stenosis, including congenital microvertebral canal, chondrodysplasia, congenital spina bifida, etc. 2. other bone diseases and trauma, such as deformational bone disease, spinal tuberculosis, lumbar disc herniation, trauma, etc., can cause spinal stenosis, but these diseases themselves are clearly independent diseases, and spinal stenosis is only a part of their pathological manifestations. 3. degenerative Spinal stenosis is the most common cause of lumbar spinal stenosis. After middle age, degeneration of the spine occurs gradually, usually first in the intervertebral disc and then in the joints, causing hypertrophy and hyperplastic degeneration of the bones and fibrous structures of the spinal canal, resulting in spinal stenosis. 4. Medical spinal stenosis, mostly seen after surgical treatment of various lumbar spine diseases. Lumbar spinal stenosis is mostly seen in middle-aged and elderly patients over 40 years old, with slow onset, often preceded by a history of chronic low back pain, some up to more than 10 years. It can be divided into central spinal stenosis and radicular stenosis, which have different clinical manifestations. Central canal stenosis can be followed by low back pain and then gradually develop soreness, numbness, pain and weakness in both lower limbs. The severity of symptoms is often related to the position, with symptoms increasing when the spine is posteriorly extended and the lumbar anterior convexity increases, and decreasing when the opposite is true, so the symptoms increase when the back is extended in an upright position. The most typical manifestation of central canal stenosis is neurogenic intermittent claudication, which is characterized by symptoms such as soreness, numbness, pain and weakness of the lower limbs when walking for tens to hundreds of meters, further aggravated when continuing to walk, and inability to walk, at which time the symptoms are significantly reduced or disappear when sitting or squatting for a moment, and can continue to walk, but the symptoms appear again when walking for a short distance, and so on repeatedly. Therefore, many patients can ride a bicycle for more than 10 km without significant pain, but walking on foot can only travel tens to hundreds of meters. The symptoms of nerve root stenosis are similar to those of lumbar disc herniation on one side, but the radicular sciatica is often more severe than that of lumbar disc herniation. The pain radiates from the lower back and buttocks to the lower extremities, often with numbness. The pain is often persistent and worsens with activity, but the effect of posture on pain is less pronounced than in central canal stenosis, and intermittent claudication is not as typical as in central canal stenosis. In summary, there are many similarities between lumbar spinal stenosis and lumbar disc herniation in terms of clinical symptoms, and the two are difficult to distinguish at the beginning of lumbar spinal stenosis. It should be especially noted here that about 15% – 35% of lumbar spinal stenosis is combined with different degrees of disc herniation or bulging. The Department of Orthopedics of Jinan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine has accumulated rich experience in the diagnosis and treatment of lumbar pain caused by various causes through years of dedicated research and a lot of clinical practice, and has achieved good results in clinical application. Here we suggest that patients suffering from low back pain-like diseases, when they cannot be relieved by general treatment, should visit our hospital in time to get a clear diagnosis, relieve the pain and get recovery as soon as possible.