I have had chronic back pain for almost a year now and come to find out I have spinal stenosis and severe protrusion of my L5-S1 disc. We have tried several weeks of therapy including traction and extensions and the pain is getting worse. Do you think I will have to have surgery?
Hi, thank you for providing the brief history of you. As mentioned by you, you have been diagnosed with CLBP with Spinal stenosis you need to undergo a careful physical therapy. Also, depending upon the symptoms the treatment is always Planned. As in my clinical practice, even with the CLBP and Spinal stenosis, we are able to get 99% of the mobility in patients with minimal pain left, for which a regular exercises are recommended. Also, extension exercises are avoided to exaggerate the pain symptoms if the pain is increasing with the extension exercises and traction. Besides, what we do initially in our clinic is medication and understand the pharmacokinetics of the Chat Doctor.  Later we focus more on the core stability and pelvic floor strengthening. We even focus on lower limb strengthening as a whole. Strengthening the gluteus muscles helps to stabilize the spine, as the whole body weight falls on the lower spine, the muscles of the hip are important to provide the base of support. Understanding the normal biomechanics and pathomechanics of the patient we deal accordingly and every patient a different therapy. Sometimes, for pain management, we use TENS therapy, Therapeutic ultrasound therapy and Myofascial release technique, Also, exercises are totally depending upon the pathomechanics and needs a careful attention. Extension exercises and traction are usually not advised by us to avoid the movement of the spinal stenosis. We deal mostly with - TENS therapy, Therapeutic ultrasound therapy and exercises. But if the symptoms of pain is not bearable by you and leading to severe lower limb weakness, than a surgery will be advised. But my clinical practice has allowed to save 100% of my patients from surgery. RegardsJay In