Thread: back pain and walking

I have moderate to severe spinal canal stenosis, disc degenerative disease,scoliosis, facet jpint hytrpohy, all at L4-5 region they say walking is best excercise if i walk more than 3 minutes i feel severe weakness in legs, and severe cramping in lower back where i cant walk any further, i have had 3 years what kind of excercise can i do

Ohh, I'm sorry you have to suffer with stenosis.. I did myself and already had surgery for it. I am just wondering who told you the best excercise for it is walking?????

I only ask that because it is known and all medical literature i've ever read about stenosis says walking is the worst for someone with stenosis. The more upright or leaning back you are, the worse it gets. What i've been told is that cycling or a stationary cycle would be the best exercise for stenosis. This is because you lean forward to hold on and doing this opens up the spinal canal more, therefore it is usually not as painful. Just thinking about what i've been through, I cannot even imagine you trying to walk, that's awful. I still cannot believe someone told you to walk. I know I'm not a doctor, but I am just telling you this because i've been through it, my physical therapists, rheumatologist, pain management docs, and my orthopedic spine surgeon ALL have told me walking makes it worse. Although sometimes another thing that might not be as painful would be walking Uphill, b/c walking uphill one usually benRAB forward. So perhaps a treadmill with a steep incline feature might work, but if you have it severely, I would doubt it. I couldn't do it myself.

What kind of doctor did you see? And they did suggest any sort of pain management or even discuss surgery as an optiion? Gosh, I feel so bad for you that you were told that, and doing all that walking, as you can see and feel is only making it worse.