It’s one of the more com­mon spinal prob­lems for peo­ple over 55 – lum­bar spinal stenosis.

You get low back pain and leg pain that’s worse stand­ing or walk­ing.  You feel bet­ter bend­ing for­ward or sit­ting down.  And your legs tire pre­ma­turely when you walk.

The symp­toms of spinal steno­sis are com­monly caused by nar­row­ing of the spinal canal from grad­ual spinal joint degen­er­a­tion.  The nerves of the spinal cord get pinched, caus­ing pain and leav­ing your leg mus­cles weakened.

Although spinal steno­sis is com­mon, the stan­dards for diag­nos­ing it are con­tro­ver­sial.  Some doc­tors focus on the nature of the pain and the way it behaves.  Oth­ers focus on imag­ing stud­ies such as MRIs that pic­ture the amount of space avail­able for the spinal cord.

The prob­lem is that not every­one with stenosis-like symp­toms has canal nar­row­ing that shows up on MRI.  And vice versa – not every­one with spinal canal nar­row­ing has pain, weak­ness, or other symptoms.

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