Kunitachi Ozawa Acupuncture Clinic.

Case Reports

症例報告
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diagnosed with lumbar intervertebral disc herniation and lumbar spinal canal stenosis, but improved with trigger point treatment of the gluteus medius

diagnosed with lumbar intervertebral disc herniation and lumbar spinal canal stenosis, but improved with trigger point treatment of the gluteus medius

【female, 70s】

【female, 70s】

main symptoms

inability to walk. coldness and pain from below the right knee.
she was diagnosed with lumbar disc herniation between L4 and L5 and lumbar spinal canal stenosis after an MRI examination at an orthopedic clinic.
she is scheduled to be admitted to the hospital for tests and is told that surgery is a possibility.
she has suffered from the symptoms for about 3 months and has recently been unable to go out due to heavy pain.
she has both pain and numbness.
even when there is no pain, there is numbness.
the most numbness is in the right leg on the outside of the lower leg.
she came to us because she did not want to have surgery and wanted us to do everything, we could help her.

visual observation and palpation

on visual observation, there was no problem, and on palpation, muscle tension was observed in the right gluteus medius muscle.
since there were no obvious symptoms such as numbness due to disc herniation or intermittent claudication due to spinal canal stenosis, i judged that the pain was caused by a trigger point in the muscle and focused my treatment on the trigger point in the gluteus medius muscle.

treatment

treatment area: gluteus medius muscle only

1st to 5th treatment: symptoms may worsen after treatment.
6th to 8th treatment: there will be a time when symptoms improve after treatment.
9th to 10th treatment: there will be a period when there are no numbness or pain symptoms.
11th treatment: Symptoms are completely gone, and walking is possible.

Summary

when this kind of pain appears, people generally go to an orthopedic surgeon.
then, an examination will show that there is something different from normal.
if you are old enough, you can take an MRI or other imaging to find out what is different from normal, but if you have pain or unbearable numbness, you may associate the abnormality found in the imaging diagnosis with pain or numbness.
when you think, "what is the cause of this pain or numbness? however, the cause cannot be seen on the image.
however, in japan, where western medicine is the mainstream, it is important to recognize that the cause of the pain or numbness may lie in areas that do not appear on the image.
however, the fact is that we do not have the time to do so.

in this case, pain and numbness led to an imaging diagnosis of spinal canal stenosis.
there was a possibility of surgery soon, but a family member referred her to our clinic, where she was treated intensively for possible trigger points in the muscles, and her pain and numbness improved.

i'm sorry to say that there are many patients who come to our clinic these days with this kind of case.
i think this means that more and more patients are getting uncomfortable or have doubts about diagnostic imaging.

of course, if a case requires a referral, we will write a referral letter to the appropriate medical institution.

in many cases, the person with pain or numbness does not have the time to think about it.
family members may ask, "is the imaging diagnosis really, correct?” "is surgery really necessary?” i would like you to think about it.
trigger point therapy may be indicated for symptoms that cannot be truly determined by diagnostic imaging.
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