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Spinal Stenosis
Spinal stenosis is a narrowing of the space the spinal cord and nerves travel through, usually from age-related change. The distinctive pattern is leg pain, heaviness or pins and needles that comes on with walking or standing and eases quickly on sitting or leaning forward — over a shopping trolley, for instance. Strength and walking tolerance can be improved considerably without surgery.
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Does this sound like you?
Most people have several of these, not all of them.
- Leg pain, heaviness or cramping that builds the longer you walk
- Rapid relief on sitting or bending forward
- Better walking uphill or pushing a trolley than walking upright
- Pins and needles or numbness in both legs
- Steadily reducing walking distance over months or years
Why it happens
- Age-related thickening of ligaments and enlargement of the facet joints
- Disc height loss narrowing the space further
- Previous spinal injury or surgery
- A congenitally narrower canal, which brings symptoms on earlier
What we would do about it
Roughly in this order — each step waits for the one before it.
- Flexion-based exercise, which opens the space and is well supported by evidence
- Progressive walking programs using intervals rather than pushing into pain
- Hip and trunk strengthening to reduce the load through the spine
- Manual therapy to the stiff segments and the hips
- Cycling or water-based work as an alternative aerobic route
- Referral for a surgical opinion where walking distance keeps falling despite all of it
See a doctor first if
- Your pain followed a significant injury
- It is getting worse rather than settling
- It comes with numbness, weakness or unexplained weight loss
This page is general information, not a diagnosis. Symptoms overlap between conditions, so the right treatment depends on an assessment.
Walking distance can usually be improved
Stenosis is a mechanical problem with a mechanical answer. We measure how far you can currently walk, then build it back with a program suited to how the narrowing behaves. Ask a question first, or call us on 0403 907 587.
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Other back conditions we treat
Related reading: nerve pain down the leg, disc-related narrowing and long-term pain management.
General information only, not advice about your own problem — nothing here replaces an assessment. Source: Lumbar Spinal Stenosis on Physiopedia.
