At the UK HealthCare Comprehensive Spine Center, our experts work together to create the treatment plan that best fits your specific needs.
Your provider might use a combination of techniques to treat neurogenic claudication.
Your treatment plan will consider multiple factors. These include your overall health, how severe your symptoms are and the underlying cause of the condition.
Analgesics, or pain relievers, include a diverse group of medicines that target various pain types. Depending on the type of pain and how severe it is, some analgesics are available over the counter. Others require a prescription.
These are the two main categories of analgesics:
- Anti-inflammatory analgesics: These work by reducing inflammation, a common source of pain.
- Opioid analgesics: These work by altering the brain's perception of pain itself.
These common, over-the-counter medicines target chemicals responsible for pain, inflammation and fever, reducing their production to ease these symptoms.
Back bracing and cervical collars support and stabilize the torso or neck while limiting motion for the spine, muscles and ligaments. Cervical collars are used to stabilize spinal fractures or after surgery, as you are recovering.
Some back braces can be made from breathable elastic or neoprene material that wraps around your torso for targeted support. An adjustable fabric fastener lets you customize the fit for optimal comfort and compression. Other braces, particularly those used for fractures, are rigid and made of hard plastic or metal. These braces minimize spine movement to allow bones to heal. A rigid brace can reduce the risk of nerve damage.
Hard collars are usually made from plexiglass or plastic. They restrict head rotation and side-to-side movement more than softer collars. They often have a chin support to allow the muscles in your neck to relax.
Occupational therapy may be recommended alongside physical therapy. This therapy focuses on helping patients perform routine daily activities, such as driving, working, bathing and cooking. At UK HealthCare, our occupational therapists work with you to understand your unique needs. They will put together a personalized therapy program to help you adapt to your environment and more easily perform your regular activities.
Physical therapy plays a crucial role in effectively managing chronic back pain. At UK HealthCare, physical therapy is an integral part of many spine treatment plans. Our spine specialists work with therapy experts who specialize in musculoskeletal care. Together, they create a plan tailored for your unique needs.
A physical therapist can:
- Create a personalized exercise plan to enhance your flexibility and range of motion
- Strengthen your core muscles to maintain proper alignment
- Improve your posture
- Educate you on correct movement techniques and modifications to use during pain episodes, helping you to engage in your favorite activities while reducing the likelihood of recurring back pain
If conservative treatments haven’t helped your pain, a targeted injection might offer short-term relief. This injection includes a steroid to reduce swelling around the nerves and a numbing medicine to ease pain right away. While a steroid injection is effective, it's important to note that the pain relief typically lasts for one to two months.
At UK HealthCare, interventional pain management is an integral part of many spine treatment plans. Our spine specialists work with pain management experts specializing in musculoskeletal care to create a plan tailored for each patient's needs.
Nonsurgical treatment options often provide relief for patients who have mild neurogenic claudication. In severe cases, however, you might need surgery to decompress the lumbar spine and alleviate neurogenic claudication. Surgery is the only curative treatment for the condition.
In some cases, surgery can be minimally invasive. Benefits of minimally invasive surgery include smaller incisions, decreased pain and quicker recovery.
During this minimally invasive procedure, a surgeon removes a portion of the back part of the spine, called the lamina. Laminotomy relieves pressure placed on the spinal nerves, usually providing pain relief within hours of surgery.
Before surgery, you may get a local anesthetic to keep you awake but numb during the procedure. Or you may receive general anesthesia so that you sleep.
You will lie face down as the surgeon makes an incision in the skin near the affected part of the lamina, drills a tiny hole into that portion of the bone, then closes the incision. In total, the surgery usually takes 60 to 90 minutes. But it may take longer if more than one vertebra is affected. After surgery, we’ll observe you as your anesthesia wears off and give you medicine to keep you comfortable. In most cases, patients can go home on the day of their surgery.
During this procedure, performed on the neck or cervical spine, your surgical team opens the narrowed spinal canal to relieve pressure on your spinal cord and nerves.
Before your laminoplasty, you will get general anesthesia to help you sleep and be pain-free. Your surgeon will make a cut in the skin above the impacted lamina — a bone on the back of a vertebra — and will move the skin, ligaments and muscles to the side to access the bone. The lamina will be cut open rather than removed, and the surgeon will add a bone graft or metal plate to keep the expanded opening in place. The surgery usually takes one to three hours.
After your anesthesia wears off, you may need to stay in the hospital for a few days. You will receive pain medicine to keep you comfortable, and you may wear a cervical collar (neck brace) as you recover. After surgery, most patients get relief from pain and numbness.
Recovery can take six to 12 weeks. You can resume light activities within a few days of surgery. But it can take six weeks before you’re ready to begin more intense activities.
Spinal decompression surgery is any of several surgery types that relieve compressed spinal nerves. During these procedures, doctors remove bones or disks to relieve pain and pressure.
Most decompressive surgeries are performed while patients are under general anesthesia. This allows for sleeping comfortably during the procedure. While the patient is asleep, the doctor will perform one of the following:
- Corpectomy: Removal of a whole disk or vertebra, as well as the disks above and below, often followed by a spinal fusion to stabilize the spine
- Discectomy: Removal of part of a disk to relieve nerve pressure
- Foraminotomy: Removal of bone or tissue to expand nerve root openings and relieve nerve pain
- Laminectomy or laminotomy: Removal of some or all of the spinal canal’s bony arches to expand the opening and relieve pressure
- Osteophyte removal: Removal of bone spurs to relieve pressure
After these procedures, you will stay in the hospital for one to five days as you recover.