hi,
thank-you for providing the brief history of you.
as you mentioned you have stenosis in thoracic and lumbar region. also you have
scoliosis. added to this you has degenerative
disc disease.
well, let's walk step by step which can help you understand better the condition you have been facing.
Stenosis of spine -
the cause of formation of stenosis in the spinal column is not known. and as per my thinking it's a protective mechanism of the body to safe guard the
spinal cord Inititally, but as the protective mechanism fails the system arises. that is the reason that most people only find the present of stenosis when they get symptoms.The protective mechanism is similar to the antivirus one use in the computer.
degenerative disc disease -
this is the normal wear and tear of the tissue. as ageing happens the spine also get some up and down changes. as the compression of load on the spine is applied over a period of time there leads to weakness of the spine muscles and then affect the joints of the spine and later the disc.
Scoliosis. -
as you will be seeing it is the lateral curvature of the spine. now since the spine is malaligned from its normal anatomical position there are chances for it to apply the different physics onto the load bearing joints. Now this is a deep matter to explain.
coming back to point - you have already taken epidural injection for pain and the radiotherapy as well. All of the this has a symptomatic relief and this all tries to allow body to later takes its role for your good health.
along with this I will recommend you to do
physical therapy. A non invasive way of dealing with pain by using Therapeutic
ultrasound therapy and
TENS. both will help to your symptoms to come down along with regular medicines.
also you need to understand that the body has to go back to the normal anatomical position. now body is not an iron rod where you fix in between two chambers and make it straight mechanically. body is a combination of soft and hard tissues and for correction of it you have to perform exercises which are guided more of Strengthening the core muscle, spinal muscles, lower limb muscles and upper limb muscles. Now why I mentioned almost all the parts of the body to be exercised is because body functions as a single
unit. and until the unit is united they don't work better.
also you need to do regular breathing exercises, as dude to scoliosis chances of one side of the lung to be weaker is more.
Well, I have seen many cases with same issues like stenosis + disc herniation + scoliosis. I have only made a point to workout behind such cases by looking the body as a whole unit. A combination of medicine and exercise is the choice I preferred.
I hope you have got a sound knowledge about your issues now. You can discuss the same with your physician.
only question I can ask you. how long can you keep taking epidural injection. one point it has to stop as to.keep.in mind that it may have side effects later.
with the grace of God I wish you a good health.
For any questions related to exercises you can ask me.
regards
Jay Indravadan Patel