When patients present with what we would call a pinched nerve in the back, that would typically be pain shooting down the leg. Everybody knows about sciatica, which is pain shooting down the back of the leg from a pinched nerve. When patients have a pinched nerve in the neck, it’s typically pain shooting down one of the arms.
And the pain is experienced where the nerve runs, where the nerve, the body parts the nerve is responsible for.
So, reconstructive surgery for spinal fractures, it varies greatly depending upon where the fracture occurs. If it’s in the neck, a lot of times surgery is done through the front of the neck, back of the neck, or both if it’s very unstable. Similarly, if it’s in the low back or mid back, surgery can often be done just from the back, but sometimes requires surgery done in the front and the back depending upon the pressure of the nerves or how bad the fracture is.
Spinal fractures from severe trauma, such as very bad car accidents or motorcycle accidents, can sometimes respond to bracing. They often need reconstructive surgery.
A spinal fracture is a broken bone somewhere in the spine, anywhere from the bottom of the skull to the tailbone. Their presentation or symptoms vary tremendously, very commonly in osteoporosis, they can even occur spontaneously. So someone older with soft bone all of a sudden feels back pain, bending to lift or pick something up. Often an x-ray will diagnose it right away.
Spinal stenosis in the low back often starts with back pain, back pain that’s worse with walking, causing the patient to lean forward to open up the spinal canal. Classically, patients with spinal stenosis in the low back, they do well going to the supermarket because they lean over the cart and it makes more room for their spinal canal.