metabolism and spine issues

@darrenp
I have congenital stenosis, degenerative disc disease, osteoarthritis and neurogenic claudication of cervical and lumbar spine. Mine was diagnosed when I was 42 and I am now 55. I would love to know what could be done to slow degeneration. I have had surgery on cervical and lumbar spines to decompress spinal cord and nerves. I am prediabetic but healing from surgeries hasn’t been a problem. I do expect that I will need more surgery in the future due to degenerative changes above and below where I had fusions.

If you need surgery to decompress your spine, you want to be as healthy as you can be before surgery. Seeing a nutritionist and getting physical therapy before surgery would help you prepare for surgery. Losing weight and physical movement and improving circulation would also help and I am working on all of the above. I do not smoke now but understand this can impede healing after surgery so it is good to quit if you do.

dlydailyhope,
I have stenosis, spondylolisthesis and idiopathic peripheral neuropathy.
I smoked for 25 years and hard. I'm 58. I'm the sole bread winner with a stay at home 'homeschooling wife who cares for our two young kids one four and one seven. I did sports all my life; triathlons, swimming, distance bicycling and a lot more. I was beating some of my old triathlon speeds in running, swimming and biking only two years ago. Lately I've been having trouble carrying a heavy business bag across the room as the numbness in my feet gets triggered and the pain in my ankles becomes unbearable.
Regarding the metabolic issues. I've been teetering on the brink of 'pre-diabetes' for over 15 years. Prior to that I would describe myself as a sugar addict. I've worked harder or lessor at controlling my blood sugar at different times and in response to occasionally getting it low then having it return up again. When I was first warned about blood sugar by a doctor it was ten years ago and my fasting blood sugar was 113. At that time my doctor was saying it was not technically 'pre-diabetes.' There's been an ongoing debate over where the lines should be. About three years after missing my annual check ups because of covid I was diagnosed with more metabolic issues including; fatty liver, high blood pressure and cholesterol issues. Now I've got these nerve and back issues. I've seen; Ortho, neurology, vascular docs plus regular doc. All of them insist that all my issues are not metabolic issues. Instead I'm being told that the spinal issues are 'normal' aging and that the neuropathy is 'idiopathic.'
Meanwhile, I've seen what actual diabetes can do to the human body first hand and in my research. It's such a destructive condition and especially when uncontrolled. So full diabetes is wildly destructive to humans and I'm being told that elevated blood sugar levels that show statistic relevance to my conditions is not the cause. Perhaps you can begin to see my interest in the topic. So, if diabetes is so powerful a condition why are blood sugar and other metabolic issues not at the very least co-conspirators in my conditions. An 'input' into a result doesn't have to be the sole 'input' into a result in order to be fully accountable for that result. What I mean by that is that perhaps I damaged my spine by running to hard and it's begun to degenerate as a natural part of my aging. Ok but what if I did that damage but there wasn't an underlying condition of elevated blood sugar for over 15 years. How would my body have responded to the insult if I were in top metabolic health? I think that way about how I got here but also about how I might help heal myself. I've been being told to 'chill' out regarding so many metabolic issues that they're inherited or any number of things. I've been told 'NOT to worry' about slightly elevated blood sugar levels by so many in the medical profession. For the time being I think I'll be not believing this anymore. I'm going all out to eliminate the metabolic issues. I might go down but I'm not going down because I didn't try first to correct these metabolic issues. There's an ongoing debate about whether metabolic syndrome even should be an excepted name for something. Now thanks to our little dialogue I think I'll use that term liberally to describe my condition. Thank you for responding and reading.

@darrenp
I understand where you are at. I am a single parent of a teen son and no family support. My health decline makes me worry about how I will be in 10, 20+ years.

I do believe our past heavy smoking affected our central/peripheral nervous systems (I have idiopathic small fiber peripheral and autonomic neuropathy). Smoking adds toxins to our bodies and affects our cardiovascular system. The toxins and limited blood/oxygen flow from smoking kills nerve cells. I have recently had an elevated A1C which shows prediabetes even though my blood sugar is below 100. Diabetes and cardiovascular issues affect nerves and tissues which could be behind our accelerated degeneration. I do agree that it is very important to improve diet/nutrition to reduce blood sugar and improve heart health to prevent worsening health. Blood sugar elevation kills us slowly.

@darrenp
P.S. I do think that when nerves are injured/damaged, it affects communications from brain to body and body to brain. This could affect blood flow with oxygen/nutrients to spine/discs and throughout the body. This is why it is important to control sugars and prevent diabetes and its link to neuropathy and cardiovascular damage. I think you are in the right path to getting answers to prevent worsening of spine/nerve health. A nutritionist can help with diet/supplements for diabetes prevention and heart health.
https://www.weightandwellness.com/resources/articles-and-videos/neuropathy-sugar-connection

I had two major spinal surgeries. The first was many years ago when I was 15 years old. This surgery fused almost my entire spine, lumbar and thoracic. This caused flat-back syndrome which in turn caused chronic pain later in life. The second fusion was to fix the flat back syndrome by re-shaping the lumbar.

Since the second surgery, I've gained significant weight, going from about 180 to 250 lbs. and becoming pre-diabetic. I also have very low testosterone, requiring me to take testosterone pills or injections. In my opinion, the second surgery caused these issues.

I'm happy to see this post since it reinforces my belief that the second fusion caused both pre-diabetes and low T. I am unhappy to see the post since I understand how these chronic conditions cause painful experiences.