Can Kyphoplasty Relieve My Muscle Spasms?

Worldwide, one in three women and one in five men over the age of 50 have some degree of osteoporosis, or loss of bone density, leaving them at risk for fractures, including compression fractures along the spine. These fractures can lead to a host of problems, including muscle spasms in your back.

If you want relief from back pain due to compression fractures, one of the best solutions is a kyphoplasty procedure, which we offer here at Comprehensive Pain Management. Drs. Do Chan and Boris Shwartzman have considerable experience helping to restore vertebrae that have succumbed to compression fractures, allowing patients to find relief from back pain and muscle spasms.

The making of a compression fracture

Compression fractures aren’t like typical bone fractures in which the problem presents itself acutely and quite obviously. Instead, compression fractures can develop slowly, and some people don’t feel any symptoms at all. As the cracks in the vertebra increase or deepen, the bony structure can collapse, often to the inside, which is why compression fractures can lead to a hump in your upper back.

Most compression fractures occur in your upper back, or thoracic spine, and in the upper vertebrae of your lumbar spine (lower back).

Compression fractures are fairly common, especially among postmenopausal women. It’s estimated that one-quarter of postmenoapusal women in the United States have compression fractures.

While we mentioned hunching over as one complication of a compression fracture, the other problem can be pain. As your spine shifts, it places pressure on your surrounding connective tissues, especially your muscles, which can object to the new positioning by spasming, causing a great deal of discomfort.

Restoring your spine

If you’re experiencing muscle spasms as a result of a compression fracture, we offer a procedure called kyphoplasty that restores the height and structural integrity of the collapsed vertebra.

Here’s a step-by-step look at this pain-relieving technique:

• When you come in, we have you lie down on your stomach on the table
• We administer a local anesthetic for your comfort
• Using live X-ray guidance, we insert a balloon into your collapsed vertebra
• We inflate the balloon
• We then remove the balloon and inject a type of cement into the newly created space
• The cement hardens and restores height to your vertebra

We perform your kyphoplasty on an outpatient basis, and it usually takes less than 45 minutes, though it may take an hour or more if you have multiple compression fractures.

After your kyphoplasty, we ask that you take it easy for a day or two, and you should avoid strenuous activities for six weeks. 

To ensure your great results, we can supply you with some physical therapy exercises that help strengthen the muscles surrounding your spine again as a further step against muscle spasms.

To learn more about how a kyphoplasty can help relieve muscle spasms due to compression fractures, we invite you to contact one of our offices — in Attleboro or Franklin, Massachusetts, or South Kingstown or Warwick, Rhode Island — to set up a consultation.