Straighten up! Don’t wait to focus on your spine health.
October is National Spine Health Awareness Month ,an opportunity for spine specialists to highlight the importance of spine health and how spiner elated issues — including spinal fractures, disorders of the spine, and more — can affect one’s mobility and overall quality of life. Memorial Hermann neurosurgeon Dr. Geoffrey Zubay explains the importance of protecting your spine at a young age, as well as what you can do to prevent issues throughout your lifetime.
Q: Spine health is often overlooked – why is focusing on this topic so important?
A: The lifetime incidence of low back pain is greater than 75 percent in the general population, and the incidence of spinal disorders is greater than 28 percent. The impact these problems have on people is sometimes unavoidable, but in many cases, lifestyle choices and personal health management can significantly decrease the incidence of these problems. Spine issues can begin in childhood. Sometimes this is the result of the emphasis today on high-impact sports and children performing them at excessive volumes. This can be very damaging to the young spine as it grows and matures, resulting in long-term consequences and an impact on the quality of life. We see with increasing frequency young adults presenting with wear- and tear-related spine problems completely inappropriate for their ages. We need to be more mindful of the long-term problems people will have to live with because of the injuries they sustain as a child or adolescent. The spine is an incredibly complex, multisegmented structure, with each segment being subject to age-and use related changes.
Q: Are you seeing any specific spine issues as an indirect result of the COVID-19 pandemic?
A: Because people’s routines have changed so much since March 2020, I do think we are seeing a higher incidence of spine problems. In the beginning, a majority of gyms temporarily closed, and many people lost their routines of regular, structured exercise. Routine is very important. The loss of physical fitness routines leads to undesired weight gain and, more importantly, the loss of core fitness, which often exacerbates underlying problems.
Now that most exercise classes and gyms have reopened, people are getting back to their routines, but we are also seeing injuries from overdoing it too quickly after such a long break. The bottom line is that it is important to be mindful of your body and especially your spine. Pay close attention and take care of any issues that arise.
Q: What steps can you take now to protect your spine to avoid surgery in the future?
A: It is important to remember that too much of anything is usually not a good thing. For example, running every day as a sole source of exercise will typically not be tolerated well. Rather, a good exercise routine should focus on strength, cardio and the core. Furthermore, people need to be flexible with lifestyle changes and aging and understand that some activities may need to be modified throughout their lives.
Despite doing all the right things, most people will still experience problems related to the spine. When this happens, self-directed therapies should be the first step, including the use of over-the-counter anti-inflammatories, pain patches, rest, stretching and avoidance of activities that may aggravate the problem. If there is a failure to improve over the following weeks, evaluation by a healthcare provider should be sought for further analysis and the possible implementation of other nonsurgical therapies.
Q: Due to the current surge in COVID-19 patients, what warrants spine surgery at this time?
A: First, it is important to address that there is a misconception about what elective surgery entails. Most spine surgeries are elective. What makes a spine surgery emergent is if there is a crisis with a rapid loss of function or a risk of the spinal cord being compressed, which could lead to potential spinal cord injury or paralysis. Another reason you would need immediate spine surgery would be a trauma or an infection. But for most other issues, surgeries are elective, meaning they don’t need to happen right away. Those surgeries typically take place because of a gradual, progressive disability related to nerve compression or pain not responding to conservative management therapies, leading to undesired lifestyle changes. I think that earlier in the pandemic, a lot of people were avoiding any kind of maintenance care for fear of being exposed to COVID-19, but it is critical that anyone with concerns about their spine health seek out a provider for assessment and conservative management, so that they don’t allow their problem to worsen. This could be with a sports medicine doctor, a primary care provider, a neurologist, neurosurgeon or other healthcare provider.
Have concerns about the health of your spine? Fill out a Contact Us form or learn about Memorial Hermann’s comprehensive programs focused on spine disorders and related conditions at memorialhermann.org/spine