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Cervical stenosis: Wait or treat?

Spine Health | Last Active: Sep 24, 2021 | Replies (22)

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@ray666

Hi, Jennifer. I met with the surgeon last Wednesday. Having had a chance to look over my latest imagining (another MRI and some next flexion X-rays) he advised no surgery at this time. He repeated saying my case is "borderline." He went on to say since my sole complaint is a wobbly walk (with no pain) that we put my case on a watch-and-see basis at least for six months, that I continue with my cervical PT and, should I have the slightest downturn in my symptoms I go back to see him immediately. To be honest, he said, if we did the surgery, there'd be no guarantee that my wobbly walk would go away, that my "borderline" C 5-7 problem is the cause of my unsteady gait. I'm reasonably content with a six-month wait-and-see approach, although the next day I thought, 'Mmm, this is both good and bad news.' The good news: no surgery, at least not now. The bad news: I can no longer be sure that cervical stenosis is the cause (or sole cause) of my walking difficulty. So, we'll see. As always, Jennifer, thank you a millionfold for all of your advice! Best wishes, Ray

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Replies to "Hi, Jennifer. I met with the surgeon last Wednesday. Having had a chance to look over..."

@ray666 Thank you for your update. It sounds like your doctor doesn't know either was is causing your gait issues, so it will be up to you to advocate for yourself. You can also seek another opinion. You may want to keep a journal of symptoms with time of day and the activity you were doing at the time. This will tell you if things are changing. Surgeons usually don't make promises to take away pain, and they do surgery so things won't get worse, so don't let that throw you off. If the cervical spine issue is causing the gait instability, surgery may be able to help. It did for me. My gait was unsteady when muscle spasms moved my vertebrae and changed the curvature in my neck, then my PT would realign my neck, and my gait returned to normal, so I knew it was related. Essentially when the vertebrae were moved, it effectively made the spinal canal smaller putting more pressure on my compressed spinal cord.