What is canal stenosis?
Canal stenosis is a disease that affects older people, people of the third or fourth age and that consists, as its name indicates, in a stenosis, in a narrowing of the canal of the vertebrae through which the spinal cord, which is represented here and on the sides the nerves come out. This is caused by arthrosis of the joints between one vertebra and the other, and by hypertrophy or enlargement of the yellow ligament, which is a ligament between the lamina and the lamina of both vertebrae.
What symptoms does it cause?
The symptoms that the patient usually complains of are basically related to walking, to gait. Patients complain that when they walk 100 meters, 200, 300 meters they have to stop because they notice a pain or lack of sensation in both legs, they are forced to sit on a bench, sit for five or ten minutes and then they can recover and start walking again.
Who is affected?
The people most affected by this problem are basically located in the third and fourth age, that is, sixty years or even as life has been greatly extended from the seventy years we have had in consultation many patients and we have operated many with good results.
How is it solved?
The solution is always surgical because let us not forget that it is a narrowing, it is a problem of space between the neural elements contained in the spinal canal of the vertebra. Therefore, the canal has to be freed, it has to be widened. How is it widened? Cutting, removing the back part of the vertebra and above all removing the yellow ligament we were referring to before, removing it, absolutely nothing happens, the patient can lead a normal life and can go home on the second or third day to lead a normal life.
What is the postoperative period like?
The solution, as we have already explained, is surgical. Although they are patients in their sixties, seventies, eighties, or we have even operated on some patients in their nineties, anesthesia techniques have improved a great deal, patient care in the operating room is very good and postoperative care is even better. These patients can go home on the second or third day; it is not necessary to apply screws to the spine because the osteoarthritis itself fixes the spine. And after a month they are living a normal life and taking their walks now that they have free time with their friends or with whomever they feel like.