Dr. Ronald Kloc On Lumbar Spinal Stenosis

June 13, 2022

Lumbar spinal stenosis narrows the spinal cord and affects up to 15% of seniors, causing back and leg pain to the point where it can become difficult to even walk. “Seniors afflicted with lumbar spinal stenosis tend to naturally flex or bend forward, something we call a positive shopping cart sign. When you go to the store and grab a shopping cart, you naturally tend to bend over and forward as you push it.  This helps relieve the pain and pressure, but that can’t help you for long,” said Dr. Kloc.

In this video, Dr. Ronald Kloc talks about a procedure that offers relief from lumbar spinal stenosis on a more realistic and permanent basis.

Lumbar spinal stenosis can stop you in your tracks. It restricts your mobility. It gets in the way of what you want to do. It adversely affects the quality of your life. Why should you let it rule your life?

If you or a loved one are suffering from this debilitating condition, schedule a consultation today at (641) 494-5475.

Transcript

Ronald Kloc, DO:

Lumbar spinal stenosis is a condition that a lot of seniors get, and it could be up to 15%. It’s very common and it’s very debilitating because what it does is it narrows the spinal cord. It’s making walking difficult. It’s giving you back pain. It’s giving you leg pain. It’s causing an upset to your life to the degree where sometimes it’s hard to just stand and cook in the kitchen.

What people do when they’re afflicted with spinal stenosis? A lot of them will flex forward, they’ll always be kind of bent forward. It’s what we call a positive shopping cart sign, you go to the store, you grab the shopping cart and you bend over, right?

What happens is you gently flex open the spine and that flexion usually helps to some degree, and that will help relieve the pressure but they can’t do that all the time. Standing, you get that pain all the time so what we’re going to do is put a spacer in there between the spinous process which forces essentially their back into flexion. They won’t know that their back is being flexed but it’ll relieve the pressure on the spine.

Through research, they show that they have five-year data that shows that relieves back pain 65%, leg pain 75%. It reduces opioid usage by 85% and patient satisfaction, which is the ultimate test, is shown to be a 95% positive.

Patients are looking for answers. I like to explain the problem to them. I like to sit with them, look at their imaging studies and explain to them why they have a problem and what could be done to fix it. When I can take somebody who walks in and can barely walk and turn them into being quite functional, that’s very satisfying.