Introduction
Spinal canal stenosis is a narrowing of the spinal canal with compression of the spinal cord and nerve roots. Mainly older people are affected due to bone wear and bone attachments. In most cases, either the lumbar spine or the cervical spine is affected. Only rarely does spinal canal stenosis affect the thoracic spine. Depending on the location, pain and possibly discomfort in the legs or arms may occur, depending on the load and posture.
Specific symptoms
The most important symptoms are listed below and then explained in more detail. However, different symptoms occur depending on the area of spinal canal stenosis.
- Pain
- Leg Pain
- Headaches
- Tingling
- Numbness
- Paralysis
- Muscular weakness
When spinal stenosis causes symptoms, pain is usually the first priority.
These can occur as back pain in the area where the stenosis is located, i.e. mainly in the lumbar or cervical spine. On the other hand, the pain often radiates and is mainly felt in the legs, since the nerve tracts coming from there are squeezed. It is also typical that the symptoms initially occur under stress, as when walking.
However, the pain alone is by no means proof of the presence of spinal stenosis. Back pain in particular is a very common symptom and in most cases no medical cause of the complaints can be identified. However, if the pain typical of spinal canal stenosis is present, a diagnosis by means of imaging techniques may be considered, provided that there is a consequence for the treatment of the patient.
Typical for spinal canal stenosis is leg pain that occurs under stress such as when walking. Often, the affected person even has to stop and pause due to pain in the legs. The legs often feel heavy and tired.
The symptoms are most strongly provoked when the upper body is tilted backwards, as is the case when walking downhill, for example. Walking uphill and cycling, on the other hand, usually does not cause any problems. Leg pain is also a typical symptom of spinal stenosis, but it is only one of many possible causes.
In the case of newly occurring leg pain, a medical examination is therefore always necessary to distinguish it from other diseases such as a circulatory disorder or venous disease. Headaches are generally a very common symptom with a variety of possible causes, although they are not typical symptoms of spinal canal stenosis. Although it is possible in very rare cases that a spinal canal stenosis in the cervical spine area leads to radiating pain in the area of the head, it is also possible that the headache is caused by the spinal canal.
However, other causal clinical pictures are much more likely. Common causes of headaches are for example tension headaches or migraines. In spinal canal stenosis, a tingling sensation can occur due to depressed nerve roots.
However, such complaints are significantly less common than the pain typical of the disease. A tingling sensation usually occurs gradually if the patient has been suffering from pain when walking for a long time. The tingling as a symptom of spinal canal stenosis is usually located in the legs or feet.
If the cervical spine is affected, the symptom can also occur in the arms or hands. In rare cases, advanced spinal canal stenosis can cause numbness. This can occur mainly on the legs or in the area of the soles of the feet.
However, the condition requires that nerve fibers are so severely constricted that they can no longer conduct signals. In most patients with spinal canal stenosis, however, the disease does not progress so far. Nevertheless, feelings of numbness, especially in the area of the soles of the feet, are a common symptom that occurs particularly in older people.
Often, however, the cause is damage to small nerve fibers far from the spinal cord, for example due to diabetes, and not spinal stenosis. Paralysis indicates serious nerve damage, which can also occur due to a very pronounced spinal canal stenosis. However, other causes of paralysis are more likely and may urgently need to be identified in time.A sudden paralysis of an arm or leg is always an alarming sign of a stroke, especially in older patients, so that an emergency doctor must be called immediately in the event of these symptoms.
Other typical symptoms can be a sudden speech disorder and a half-sided drooping face. Paralysis caused by spinal canal stenosis, on the other hand, is much less common and does not occur suddenly but rather slowly. as well as paralysis symptoms in the legMany patients with spinal canal stenosis complain of weakness and a feeling of heaviness in the legs in addition to pain in the legs when walking.
This is due to the fact that the nerve tracts that control the muscles are constricted during the disease. The patient then experiences this as muscle weakness. In spinal canal stenosis, however, there is usually no actually measurable reduction in the strength of the leg muscles. This topic may also be of interest to you: Heavy legs – what to do?
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