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Bilateral Stenosis May Require Surgical Treatment
Bilateral stenosis—when stenosis affects both arms or both legs—is a relatively rare condition, but it can be extremely debilitating when it does occur. The numbness and tingling stenosis causes can limit your activities when the pain occurs in your back and just one limb. When it takes hold of both arms or legs, it can truly ground you, making work and other activities unmanageable. Sometimes, conservative treatments recommended by your doctor will work. These include over-the-counter painkillers and anti-inflammatory medications, exercises and stretching, or physical therapy. If these don’t bring any relief from your bilateral stenosis, your doctor may try a spinal steroid injection. This may provide relief anywhere from a week to more than a year. However, spinal injections generally only provide relief temporarily, so if your condition doesn’t improve on its own before the effects of the injection wear off, your doctor may recommend surgery.
For any type of foraminal stenosis, including bilateral stenosis, a foraminotomy is generally performed. This is a procedure that widens the opening through which nerves pass from the spine into the rest of the body. In traditional surgery, the bone growth, bulging disc, enlarged ligament or other matter cutting into the opening is removed through a large incision in the back. During endoscopic bilateral stenosis surgery, like what is offered at Laser Spine Institute, the tissue is removed, but it’s done so with tiny tools fed to the surgery site through a narrow tube. This reduces the amount of tissue damage caused by the surgery and results in a lower risk of infection, better chance of success and quicker recovery time than traditional surgery.
If you’d like more information about bilateral stenosis surgery at Laser Spine Institute, contact us today. We’ll review your CT scan or MRI free of charge to determine if our procedures are right for you.