Your spinal bone requires a steady blood delivery to act properly. This allows it to transfer nerve impulses over the full body. The impulses resemble signals or messages that assist you with essential yet basic body activities like activating your arms and legs, and ensuring your organs like your intestines act as they have to.
However, if the blood supply to your spine is interrupted or something blocks it, it becomes incapable of getting the oxygen and nutrients essential to do its process. This can result in what pain physicians in Dallas label a “spinal stroke” or a “spinal cord infarction.”
What Is Spinal Stroke?
A spinal stroke happens when blood cannot approach part of the spine. While the blood flow is cut off as a result of spinal stroke, the affected portion of the spinal cord is unable to get oxygen and nutrients.
The tissues may be distorted and unable to transfer nerve impulses to the other parts of your body. These nerve signals play a vital role in controlling activities related to the body including walking and sitting.
What Are the Symptoms of a Spinal Stroke?
As you’ve experienced a stroke, you can observe signs and symptoms in seconds or a few hours. And they generally tend to get worse as time progresses. The symptoms may also vary, according to the part of your spine they have an impact on.
Spinal stroke signs can include:
- Arm pain
- Neck pain
- Muscle tightness in your legs or hands
- Burning, numbness, or tingling feelings
- Muscle sprains
- Tightness or discomfort in your chest
- Loss of temperature feelings of objects or water
- A sudden demand to pee or poop
- Partial or complete paralysis
Causes
Most spinal strokes happen due to modifications in the shape of blood arteries. For example, blood artery walls may become thick, which will end in the narrowing of vessels. This can somehow happen as a habitual consequence of increasing age.
However, specific parameters increase the chances of this incidence, including:
- high levels of cholesterol
- high blood flow
- heart disease or previous family history of heart disorders
- obesity
- Increased blood sugar
- smoking
- excessive intake of alcohol
- Decreased exercise
All of these ailments put additional stress on circulatory regulation, increasing the risk of damaged and dysfunctional vessels supplying blood.
For example, increased blood pressure leads to damage and weakened blood vessels, allowing them more aggressively to rupture and get damaged. This can result in a stroke.
In some instances, problems associated with the heart can end in spinal strokes. These issues include extremely low blood pressure or decreased blood flow toward the aorta. In rare situations, tangled blood arteries can also lead to a spinal stroke.
Diagnosis
Anyone observing a spinal stroke requires immediate medical help and prompt detection.
Pain physicians in Dallas will look for general indicators of an issue related to the spinal cord, like weakness in the legs. In case they indicate a spinal stroke, further MRI is usually required to rule out related conditions causing damage to the spinal cord.
Furthermore, MRI can also confirm the presence and vicinity of a bleed or blockage.
How is a Spinal Stroke Treated?
Treatment focuses on addressing the source of the spinal stroke and reducing symptoms. For instance:
- If you have a blood clotting condition, your healthcare provider may prescribe medications like anticoagulants or antiplatelet drugs, such as warfarin and heparin, to decrease the risk of further clot formation.
- For high or decreased blood pressure, your doctor might recommend medication to regulate your blood pressure.
- If a tumor caused the spinal stroke, corticosteroid injectables are used to reduce inflammation. Surgical treatments are then employed to remove the tumor.
- If you experience paralysis or lose feelings in certain areas of your body, you may demand physical and occupational treatments to preserve the activity of your muscles.
- In cases you observe bladder incontinence, you might require the usage of a urinary catheter.
If someone smokes, he will probably be requested to quit. To enhance your blood pressure and maintain cholesterol levels, you must adopt a balanced diet and healthy nutrition rich in fruits, whole grains, and vegetables.
Complications of a Spinal Stroke
Complications vary according to which part of the spinal cord is damaged. For example, if there is a disturbance in blood supply towards the front area of the spinal cord, the legs might face permanent paralysis.
Prominent complications include:
- Respiratory difficulties
- permanent paralysis
- Bladder and bowel incontinence
- sexual disorders
- neuropathic aches
- pressure soreness due to decreased sensation in specific parts of the human body
- muscle tone issues, such as spasticity or decreased muscle tone
- Anxiety
Conclusion
As a spinal stroke can end in various impacts such as poor mobility, there is still hope for rehabilitation through neuroplasticity. Adopting rehabilitation techniques such as occupational or physical therapy by pain management in Dallas is essential to improve recovery.
