You can recognize an L5 syndrome by these symptoms

Depending on the extent of the nerve damage, characteristic symptoms of L5 syndrome develop. The affected persons typically suffer from pain in the dermatome of the L5 nerve root.Pain is present in the rear thigh, lateral knee, front and outer side of the lower leg. The pain extends over the back of the foot to the big toes.

Those affected can feel the pain at rest or under stress. The affected parts of the body may also exhibit sensitive disorders, such as numbness, tingling, pulling and formication. If motor nerve fibres are affected in addition to the sensitive nerve fibres, muscle paralysis also occurs.

The patients then suffer from limited mobility in the hip joint and can move the leg only with difficulty. Typical is weakness of dorsiflexion of the foot, in which the affected person is unable to lift either the foot or the big toe. The heel position is severely impaired and not feasible.

Another important symptom is a local pain in the spine. This can be oppressive and stabbing. In addition to the accompanying circumstances of the herniated disc, swelling, overheating and other signs of inflammation can occur at this point.

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Pain in the affected leg is a major symptom of L5 syndrome. Pain is often found in the rear thigh, lateral knee, front and lateral lower leg, back of the foot and big toe. If a tumor or cyst presses on the nerve root, the pain is often at rest, i.e. permanent.

In the case of a herniated disc, the pain often occurs under stress. In addition to pain, sensitivity disorders often occur in the affected supply areas of the nerve root L5. These include tingling, formication and feelings of numbness.

The complaints can be temporary or permanent. Paresis describes a paralysis of the muscles due to a disorder of the responsible nerves. Nerve cells can only recover over a certain period of time after an irritation.

In the event of pressure, damage or circulatory disorders, they quickly die and cannot be replaced. In the following weeks, the muscles degenerate and become weaker. If the paresis persists beyond that, the muscle can change irreversibly, so that it can no longer perform a motor function and no or little movement can be achieved through the muscle.

In L5 syndrome, several muscles of the leg can be affected by the paresis. Since it is often supplied by several different nerves, the loss can be partially compensated by other muscle strands. The greatest motor damage in L5 syndrome typically occurs in the toe lifter muscle.

Peroneus paresis is a disorder of the nerve peroneus communis. The consequences are sensory disturbances in the lateral lower leg and back of the foot and paralysis of certain muscles that are supplied by the nerve. The consequence is that the affected person is unable to move the foot lifter and toe lifter.

A typical gait pattern is shown, the so-called stepper gait. This is caused by the fact that the foot has to be lifted higher when walking and the toes have to point towards the ground when pulling the leg forward due to gravity. Peroneal paresis is an important differential diagnosis of the L5 syndrome and should be excluded.

Foot lifter weakness is the typical failure symptom, which immediately indicates damage to the nerve root at L5 level. Two other small muscles can also lift the foot, but in case of a total failure of the L5, a clear weakness can be felt. The Trendelenburg sign describes another motor failure symptom that can occur when the nerve root L5 is damaged.

The affected nerve also originates from this segment and supplies individual small buttock muscles. If this nerve fails completely, the pelvis sinks to the opposite side because the muscles can no longer keep the pelvic ring upright. When running, this becomes noticeable as a kind of waddling, which is called Trendelenburg sign.

The L5 syndrome describes a pain in the spine caused by various underlying diseases. However, the herniated disc, the most common cause of the pain syndrome, can also be silent and cause no pain at all. In this case the ring of the intervertebral disc is torn, but no nerve root is compressed and no local complaints are caused because the exiting mass exits at a different location.Often the herniated disc is later determined as a random finding.

Also the pain can sometimes only occur after many years and thus reveal an old unnoticed herniated disc. Other narrowing of the vertebrae, for example a tumor or spinal stenosis, can also initially proceed without pain. The changes in the spine often only become noticeable suddenly when nerves or the spinal cord are affected.