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Do you have a spinal condition that’s causing you chronic pain intense enough to interfere with your life or day-to-day activities? Are you afraid you’ll never be able to get your pain under control or that it might continue to worsen as you age?
Many people with spinal disorders feel frustrated, confused, and helpless about their conditions. As many as 500,000 people suffer from some form of spinal injury each year. The good news is that you can ease your concerns and fears by gaining a better understanding of your condition.
At NJ Spine and Orthopedic, we work to help you understand your symptoms, diagnose your condition and inform you of the various treatments. Below is an overview of the most common types of spine conditions, as well as other orthopedic conditions.
An Achilles Tendon Rupture occurs when the tendon that connects your calf muscle to your heel bone becomes torn. Usually, this happens during forceful lower body movements or fast-pivoting. This type of injury is frequently associated with “weekend warriors,” who may be more sedentary during the work week but engage in intense athletic activities during the weekend.
An ankle fracture occurs when any of the bones that compose the ankle joint sustains a break. The ankle joint is the nexus were the tibia, fibula, and talus meet. Obviously, ankle fractures can come in many different varieties from simple, clean breaks to compound fractures. Depending upon the bones affected, the patient can experience different symptoms.
Ankle Instability occurs when the moving parts of your ankle (i.e. ligaments, tendons, and bones) wear down over time, making the ankle more prone to buckling and injury. Obviously, overuse (particularly in regard to athletics) is a common cause of the disorder; but anyone one with a genetically weak ankle or who uses the ankle repetitively (such as during their occupation) is at risk of developing this condition.
An ankle sprain occurs when the ligaments that support the ankle suffer an injury, for example, when one steps the wrong way or rolls the foot too far inward or outward. Such injuries can involve many different ligaments, including the anterior talofibular ligament (ATFL), the calcaneofibular ligament (CFL), or the posterior talofibular ligament (PTFL). For individuals with ankle instability, ankle sprains are particularly common.
Basal Joint Arthritis develops when the cartilage that pads the trapezium bone of the wrist and the metacarpal bone of the thumb wears away. A common complication of aging or joint overuse, basal joint arthritis affects millions of sufferers in the U.S. The condition, which often co-occurs with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, generates pain in the thumb, hand, or forearm.
A biceps tendon tear occurs when the tendons that connect your biceps muscles to your shoulder and/or elbow suffers and injury and rips. Usually, this injury type predominantly affects athletes although anyone who engages in repetitive overhead motions is at an elevated risk of developing this condition. Furthermore, biceps tendon tears can be partial or complete in nature.
Do you suffer from persistent and chronic pain in your neck, upper back or lower back area? Approximately 1-2% of the population have serious bulging discs. A bulging disc is a common spinal injury that occurs when the exterior layer of the disc, known as the annulus, bulges outside the space it usually occupies between the vertebrae, causing chronic pain.
A bunion, also known as hallux valgus, occurs when a large bony bump develops along the metatarsophalangeal joint (MTP) where the innermost metatarsal bone meets the big toe. This bony protrusion typically forms when the MTP joint shifts out of alignment, forcing the big toe to turn inward, toward the second toe. This can lead to numerous secondary problems, such as calluses and corns, etc.
Do you suffer from chronic, crippling, or cramping pain in your hands or wrists? Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a condition that occurs when the median nerve in the hand suffers compression. Your carpal tunnel is a narrow passageway in your carpal bones (i.e. wrist) through which the median nerve runs. This key nerve supplies sensation to your wrists, hands, and fingers. When your median nerve is damaged or compressed, neurological symptoms of pain or loss of fine motor control can occur.
Do you suffer from chronic, crippling, or cramping pain in your hands or wrists? Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a condition that occurs when the median nerve in the hand suffers compression. Your carpal tunnel is a narrow passageway in your carpal bones (i.e. wrist) through which the median nerve runs. This key nerve supplies sensation to your wrists, hands, and fingers. When your median nerve is damaged or compressed, neurological symptoms of pain or loss of fine motor control can occur.
Do you suffer from chronic, crippling, or cramping pain in your hands or wrists? Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is a condition that occurs when the median nerve in the hand suffers compression. Your carpal tunnel is a narrow passageway in your carpal bones (i.e. wrist) through which the median nerve runs. This key nerve supplies sensation to your wrists, hands, and fingers. When your median nerve is damaged or compressed, neurological symptoms of pain or loss of fine motor control can occur.
Do you find that you can’t move your back the way you used to? Disc degeneration may be the culprit. Disc degeneration refers to the gradual breakdown of at least one of the intervertebral discs found in the spine. It is typically associated with aging and occurs when the discs lose their flexibility, elasticity and shock-absorbing characteristics due to years of wear and tear.
A Diabetic Foot Ulcer often occurs in response to poor circulation or peripheral neuropathy from diabetes. Typically, an innocuous sore evolves rapidly into a much more serious condition, one that can require limb amputation if not promptly addressed. For individuals with diabetes, therefore, routine foot care becomes absolutely essential. One can prevent diabetic foot ulcers by instituting regular checks, cleaning, and supporting the feet.
If you participate in repetitive actions or awkward sitting positions, you run the risk of losing the optimal alignment of the spine. When this happens, you’ll lose functional strength and your spine will be more susceptible to a disc tear. Also known as a slipped, herniated or ruptured disc, disc tear is a condition in which the external layers of the intervertebral discs that cushion the spine develop a tear.
Dysplasia is a medical condition in which the cells of tissue, bone, or organs develop abnormally. Dysplasia can develop anywhere in the body, at varying levels of severity, and can lead to other ailments involving precancerous cells or enlarged tissue.
Facet joints are the joints in your spine that give you the flexibility to bend, turn and twist. Facet joint disease, also known as osteoarthritis, is a type of pain that occurs at the joint between two vertebrae in your spinal area.
Failed surgery is a generalized term used to describe a condition where patients have not had satisfactory results with spinal or back surgery and have continued to experience chronic pain after the surgery. NJ Spine and Ortho is here to help you recover.
The term “foramen” refers to an opening. The term stenosis refers to a narrowing. Thus, foraminal stenosis refers to a narrowing of the cervical disc space (opening) in the spine. It is mostly caused by a herniated disc, degenerative disc disease or facet arthritis.
Frozen shoulder occurs when the ligaments that compose your shoulder capsule begin to form scar tissue (whether from age, injury, or diseases such as diabetes). As the scar tissue accumulates, the loose connective tissue that forms your shoulder capsule begins to tighten. When the capsule becomes too stiff, the range of motion in your arm becomes limited and pain can result.
Golfer’s Elbow, or medial epicondylitis, occurs when the tendon that connects the inside of the elbow to the forearm becomes inflamed. Usually, this occurs when one engages in activities that apply repetitive stress to the flexor muscles of the wrist. Common activities that lead to this problem include golf, baseball, bowling, weight lifting, painting, yard work, or using a screwdriver.
A hammertoe is a type of toe deformity that affects the second, third, or fourth toes. It occurs when an unnatural bend develops in the proximal interphalangeal joint, aka the first bend in the toe, closest to the foot. Sometimes, this occurs in response to a congenital or neuromuscular imbalance in the toe muscles. Other times, environmental factors, like improper footwear, can bend the toe into unnatural positions.
Did you know that the vertebrae that form your spine are protected by small, spongy discs? When your discs are in good shape, they keep the spine elastic and act as shock-absorbers. But when they get damaged due to overuse or injury, they may break or tear open. This is what’s called a herniated disc.
Hip Dysplasia is a congenital defect of the hip joint, in which the ball of the femur forms abnormally or the socket of the hip is too shallow. When these two structures fit together abnormally, excess friction, hip osteoarthritis, and pain can result. Hip Dysplasia affects over 20% of individuals who require a total hip replacement.
The ball-and-socket joint in the hips allows you to move, sit, stand, and exercise easily, but these tasks are often much more difficult if you feel pain in this area. Hip impingement, also known as femoroacetabular impingement (FAI), occurs when the ball and socket of the hip do not fit together properly.
A hip labral tear occurs when the cartilage that lines the outer ridge of your hip socket suffers gradual trauma or sudden injury. A labral hip tear can occur for a variety of reasons from capsular laxity to hip impingement syndrome and sports injuries. Usually, pain is felt in a C-shape that encircles the hip from the front to back.
The hip is the third-most-susceptible part of the body to develop osteoarthritis, after the knees and the hands. Hip osteoarthritis is a degenerative inflammation that causes the breakdown of cartilage tissues in the hip area. With time, this degeneration may cause pain, swelling and even deformity.
Knee Osteoarthritis occurs when the cartilage that cushions the components of the knee joint begins to wear away. The knee, a synovial hinge joint, is formed by three bones: the femur (thighbone), tibia (shinbone), and patella (kneecap). When the cartilage that lines these bones breaks down—whether from age or overuse—painful inflammation and joint damage can occur.
Kyphosis, sometimes known as a hunchback, is an excessive rounding of the upper spine. In older adults, kyphosis may develop due to weakness in the spinal bones causing them to compress or crack. Other types of kyphosis seen in children and teens may appear due to malformation of the spine or continual wedging of spinal bones over a period of time.
Pain is your body’s way of telling you that something is not quite right. Lower back pain is often an indication that a nerve in the lumbar spine is being compacted or compressed and that pressure needs to be relieved.
Morton’s Neuroma occurs when overuse of the foot causes the nerves that run between our toes to thicken. As these nerves harden, sufferers typically experience neurological symptoms of pain between the toes or in the ball of the foot. Individuals who participate in sports such as dance or running; those who wear improper footwear; and individuals who were born with sub-optimal foot anatomy (e.g. flat feet or high arches) develop this condition more frequently than the average population.
Neck pain can occur for numerous reasons, such as poor posture, slouching, and even trauma. It can also be associated with various conditions or disorders that affect the tissues, nerves, bones, joints, muscles, or other related structures in the neck region of the spinal column.
Sometimes fingers go numb, or people experience a tingling sensation because the hands go to sleep. After shaking the hand, the numbness and tingling go away, and people move on. However, tingling sensation and numbness are common symptoms of several underlying conditions, including those affecting the peripheral nervous system.
Osteoarthritis (OA) occurs when the cartilage that cushions your bones begins to wear down from injury or the advanced stages of wear and tear. When this occurs, the bones at a joint may start to rub against one another instead of glide, thus creating friction and inflammation. OA affects 27 million Americans each year and is widely recognized as the most common form of joint disability in the world.
As people age, many find their bones weakening and breaking easily due to osteopenia. About 34 million Americans have this disease, which is especially common in people over 50. Osteopenia is the loss of bone mineral density (BMD), which may mean you have insufficient minerals in your bones, causing them to lose strength.
Osteoporosis is an age-related condition that occurs when bone reabsorption outpaces bone reformation, leaving bones brittle and more prone to fracture. Although a measure of bone loss is considered to be a natural consequence of aging, osteoporosis results in excessively porous or fragile bones that fracture easily.
Patellar Tendinitis (or Jumper’s Knee) occurs when the tendon that connects your patella (or kneecap) to your shinbone suffers inflammation or injury. Because overuse is the primary cause of patellar tendinitis, athletes are particularly at risk for developing this condition. “Weekend warriors” who fail to warm up or condition properly before working out may also sustain this type of injury.
There’s no pain quite like a pinched nerve. It limits your flexibility, restricts your motion and makes it almost impossible to carry out your daily activities. A pinched nerve usually occurs when the peripheral nerve becomes compressed as it exits the spinal column. This often causes chronic pain.
Plantar Fasciitis refers to any condition that causes inflammation or injury to the plantar fascia of the foot. Your plantar fascia—a nerve-rich connective structure—extends from your heel to the underside of your toes. Responsible for cushioning the components of your foot from injury, your plantar fascia can become irritated when overworked.
A quadriceps tendon tear occurs when a tendon that attaches one of the four quadriceps muscles (the rectus femoris, vastus lateralis, vastus medialis, and vastus intermedius) to the kneecap suffers an injury. Usually, this condition affects middle-aged individuals who participate in sports, with men being 8 times more likely than women to sustain this type of injury.
From top to bottom, down the full length of your spine, are nerves that exit through holes (foramen) on both the right side and left side of the spine. These nerves are called radicular nerves. In radiculopathy, a problem occurs when the nerves are compressed as they exit the spinal column.
Rotator Cuff Tendinitis occurs when the tendons that support your shoulder joint sustain an injury or suffer inflammation. In individuals under age 35, rotator cuff tendinitis usually occurs as the result of a traumatic or sports-related injury. In individuals over age 35, this condition often emerges as the result of chronic strain on the shoulder joint.
Sacroiliitis is a term used to describe any inflammation in one or both sacroiliac joints. Sacroiliac joints are found in the lower parts of your back where the spine connects to the pelvis and lower skeleton near the hip area.
Do you suffer from radiating pain down one or both of your legs? Sciatica is a condition caused by a compression of the sciatic nerve. The sciatic nerve runs down from your lower back to the lower extremities. Compression of the sciatic nerve is often caused by disc herniation, disc bulge or misalignment.
Scoliosis is an irregular sideways curvature of the spinal column and is most often diagnosed in early childhood and adolescence. The spine’s normal curvature occurs at the cervical, lumbar, and thoracic regions, positioning the head over the pelvis and working as a shock absorber to distribute pressure during movement.
Bursae are tiny, fluid-filled sacs that protect your shoulder against accidental injury from the spinal tissues that support it. In the shoulder, your Subacromial Bursa sits above the rotator cuff and below a portion of the shoulder blade known as the acromion bone. Shoulder Bursitis occurs when the Subacromial Bursa becomes inflamed or swollen.
If you use your shoulders frequently in sports, work, or otherwise, you may experience shoulder pain, which could indicate shoulder tendonitis. This tendonitis is a condition that results from rotator cuff or bicep tendon inflammation pinching or trapping tendons against the bones in the shoulder.
A SLAP tear occurs when the labrum of the shoulder tears from the anterior to posterior side where it attaches to the biceps tendon. The labrum is a ring of cartilage that lines the socket of the shoulder, also known as the glenoid cavity. These types of injuries can occur with repetitive motion (such as occupational injuries), from trauma, or age-related degeneration.
The medical term for spinal bone spurs is spinal osteophytes, and they are tiny pieces of bone that stick out from the normal bone in areas where there is inflammation. Friction against other bones causes the production of additional bone cells.
Spinal stenosis, which mostly affects adults 50 and older, is a condition in which the space in the spinal column begins to narrow. For most people, stenosis comes as a result of arthritis. It has no cure, but various treatments and exercises can be done to keep pain at bay.
Spinal tumors are abnormal growths that occur on the spinal cord, bones, or nerves. Although rare, spinal tumors can occur as primary tumors (arising in the spinal cord) or secondary tumors (metastasizing to the spine from other regions of the body that are affected by cancer). In addition, doctors classify spinal tumors as Vertebral Column Tumors (affecting the vertebrae), Intramedullary Tumors (affecting the spinal cord), or Intradural-Extramedullary Tumors (affecting the meninges).
Spondylolisthesis pronounced (spon-dee-low-lye-sis-thesis) is a common injury that occurs as a result of stress or fracture in one of the bones that make up the spinal column. It’s a common cause of back pain in children, adolescents and athletes who participate in sports like football and gymnastics, where there is repeated stress and trauma on the back.
Synovial joints have a sheath of tissue called a joint capsule that contains a synovium. The synovial membrane, or synovium, is the inner lining of a joint. This inner lining secretes synovial fluid, which cushions the joints during movement.
Tennis elbow occurs when the tendons that support your elbow and allow for the extension of the wrist become inflamed. This condition affects individuals—like plumbers, painters, and carpenters—who rely on their hands during the course of their everyday work life.
A Torn ACL is a common form of knee injury that affects both athletes and active people in general. ACL stands for Anterior Cruciate Ligament, one of the four main ligaments that connects the femur (or thighbone) to the tibia (or shinbone). ACL tears can be classed as complete (a clean rip all the way through the ligament) or incomplete (a partial tear).
A torn MCL occurs when the medial collateral ligament that keeps your inner knee stable suffers an injury. Oftentimes, this occurs when an athlete (such as a football player or skier) changes directions too quickly or lands incorrectly after attempting a jump. Because the medial collateral ligament has a good blood supply, it tends to heal more easily than ACL injuries.
A Torn Meniscus occurs when you rip the cartilage that forms a protective barrier between your tibia (shinbone) and femur (thighbone). This form of knee injury can occur as a result of aging or overuse. However, more commonly, meniscal tears occur from sports that involve high-impact collisions (e.g. rugby), quick footwork (e.g. skiing), or frequent squatting (e.g. weightlifting).
Trochanteric Bursitis occurs when the trochanteric bursae, a set of fluid-filled sacs that cushion your hip bone, suffers inflammation or injury. Your trochanteric bursae sit between the juncture where the trochanter of your upper thigh bone meets your iliotibial band. When these bursae become irritated, lateral hip pain often signals the presence of bursitis.
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