Q: This is really helpful. However, I have a different kind of spinal problem—bone spurs in the cervical and lumbar spine, which are creating or combined with a narrowing of the spinal column, especially in my neck. An orthopedist just told me to avoid bending my neck back, which doesn't limit yoga too much. However, I'd really like to know if there are other poses that are good or bad for this condition. I've been doing PNF exercises, recommended by a physical therapist, for my neck, but wonder if you have thoughts about yoga and this situation. A: I received this in response to my post Friday Q&A: Preventiing Vertebral Fractures. So, I thought I’d address bone spurs in more detail today. Bones spurs, also called “osteophytes,” are boney outgrowths from the edges of bones, usually occurring where joints form between two bones. They are most often associated with osteoporosis, the most common kind of arthritis. Bone spurs can also form in places other than joints. An example is the case of plantar fasciitis, where inflammation of fascia that is attached to your heel bone (or in other cases, inflamed tendons or ligaments) is thought to trigger formation of a bone spur.
Many people discover they have bones spurs on routine X-rays, but without any symptoms associated with them—good news for these folks! In fact, most bone spurs don’t actually cause pain or other symptoms. However, for some people, bone spurs in the knee, hip, hands, or shoulders do cause swelling and pain, which can interfere with normal use of those areas, limiting movement to some extent. And, as in our reader’s case, they can also develop in the vertebral bones of the spine, where they can grow into and narrow the spaces where the spinal cord or spinal nerves pass. In addition to pain, this can cause numbness and weakness.
As I mentioned above, osteoarthritis is not only associated with bones spurs, but is felt to stimulate their growth. The damage and inflammation to the joints due to osteoarthritis triggers a response by the body to attempt to repair the damaged area but an abnormal bone spur grows instead of new cartilage and healthy bone. The typical western treatment for bone spurs is pain medication such as acetaminophen or anti-inflammatories such as ibuprofen, except in the rare event that a bone spur is actually damaging a nerve where surgery might be recommended.
If bones spurs in the neck and lower back area of the spine grow into the space where the spinal cord descends from the brain in the spinal canal, they can be one of many factors that could contribute to central spinal stenosis. I am not going to get into this condition here, but I do have a past post that can give you more info if you are curious: A Pair of Serendipities Re: Spinal Stenosis.
As for yoga’s potential role in helping someone who has neck or low back pain associated with bone spurs, here are a few thoughts. First, each person’s case is very different, so make sure you don’t have any other serious problems in those areas in addition to bone spurs by getting checked out by a specialist. Second, my recommendations here are very general and will need to be modified based on your unique situation.
Whether you have or have not done yoga before, it is important to try and maintain as much mobility and strength in your spine as you can, making sure that as you move to use pain as your limiting factor. Yoga asana that could help include standing poses that help with posture, such as Mountain pose (Tadasana) and Arms Overhead pose (Urdva Hastasana), and easy versions of most of the other standing poses, which allow you to make only mild to moderate movements of your spine into flexion (forward bending), extension (back bending), side bending, and twisting if those movements are approved by your doctor and physical therapist.
Prone and all-fours poses that move your spine in different directions, such as Locust (Salabasana), Cobra (Bhujangasana), Child’s pose (Balasana), and Cat-Cow poses, and others, could help as well. You can also support good posture by practicing seated poses such as Easy Sitting pose (Sukasana0, Hero pose (Virasana) and Cobbler’s pose (Baddha Konasana), while maintaining a good inner lift (vertical extension) of your spine, can also support good posture. You can also carefully take those sitting poses into easy modified twists, side bends and forward bends.
To address both flexibility and strength, definitely experiment with both dynamic and static versions of all these poses.
Poses to avoid include any pose where your neck or lower back are bearing unusual amounts of weight. For your neck, this would include full inversions such as Headstand and Shoulderstand or variations of those poses, as well as poses that take the neck into deep flexion (such as in Bridge pose) or extension (such as Fish pose).
For your lower spine, avoid (or approach very cautiously) any pose that takes your lower back into an extreme amount of movement. This includes deep forward bends (such as Seated Forward Bend and full Standing Forward Bend), deep backbends (such as Upward Facing Dog and Upward Bow), deep twists (such as classic version of Sage’s Twist 1 and Revolved Triangle Pose), and deep side bends (such as Gate Latch pose and even Crescent Moon pose). And of course, always avoid any pose that causes significant pain.
I hope that these recommendations will allow you to continue to enjoy your yoga practice and potentially have a positive impact on the health of your spine.
—Baxter
Got a question? Email Baxter at [email protected].
Subscribe to Yoga for Healthy Aging by Email ° Follow Yoga for Healthy Aging on Facebook ° Join this site with Google Friend Connect
