Taking an active role in managing your condition is key to better care. Avoid high-impact activities, such as running, jumping, or contact sports. This can worsen spinal stenosis by adding stress to the spine.

While spinal stenosis is often caused by the aging process and cannot be entirely prevented, you can take steps to maintain spinal health and potentially reduce your risk or slow its progression. These include eating a nutritious diet rich in calcium for strong bones, maintaining a healthy weight, avoiding or quitting smoking to support circulation and healing, practicing good posture, and exercising regularly to strengthen your back and core muscles.

As the spinal canal narrows, it puts pressure on the spinal cord and nerves traveling through the lower back and legs, leading to pain, numbness, and tingling. This can make walking difficult. As the condition progresses, walking may become more painful and challenging, causing a limp or instability. In severe cases, spinal stenosis can make standing, climbing stairs, or even traveling short distances on foot difficult.

The best treatment for lumbar spinal stenosis would be a laminectomy, which is a surgery involving the removal of bone spurs and the bone walls of the vertebrae. Undergoing this procedure helps open up the spinal column, thus removing the pressure on the nerves.

• Patients can help manage their pain by walking on level ground instead of walking on a downhill angle, this can increase lumbar lordosis.
• Symptoms may be less severe when walking uphill or riding a bike, this is due to spine flexion.