Cervical Spondylosis Mylopathy/ Spinal stenosis / Back pain / Sakit belakang kebas kaki dan tangan

CSM

I remember almost three years ago my health was going south and I did not know what caused the gradual deterioration of my health. I thought it was just the aging process since I was entering my 50s and that I would feel tired easily. Normally, after coming back from the office at  6pm I was totally mentally and physically exhausted. It was a total lethargic feeling that I really felt lazy to do anything else. The minute I fell into the bed I was almost totally knocked out. I had the feeling that I would rather be in bed than be doing something else.

Earlier in the day at the office, I had problems climbing the staircase. Climbing the staircase was an arduous task for me and sometimes I had the feeling that it was an insurmountable task of just climbing the few staircases. At first, I thought I had some form of osteoporosis since I was on the heavier side. My weight was around 100 kilos. I know it was no easy task for the knees to support the extra weight. My knees had been doing a  fantastic and reliable job of providing the support but after decades of trouble-free knees, there is bound to be some wear and tear to the soft tissues or the cartilage or the padding between the knees and the bones. But it was not osteoporosis. It was something else.

I also had problems with my arms and fingers. I had difficulty to actually buttoning and unbuttoning my shirt. A simple thing of buttoning and unbuttoning the shirt has become a seriously difficult task to do. Sometimes I needed someone to assist me with the simple task. Another problem is that I had difficulty with is twisting the knob of a stove as my hobby then was cooking. A mundane thing that some people take for granted was an extremely difficult task for me to undertake. I felt so helpless. My arm was also becoming less and less muscular. I could not hold things strongly and firmly. And the arms could not hold things for long. Meaning that the things that I grabbed or gripped were not very strong. It seemed that my muscle was losing its flexibility and strength or what doctors called as muscle wasting. This was also compounded by the lack of sensation when touching things.  My fingers were practically numb and almost useless. I had difficultly in using my fingers to eat and I had to resort to using bigger forks and spoons. It was OK for a while but later I even got more clumsy in using the utensils and it was getting from bad to worst.

Spinal stenosis

The last straw that really makes me realized that I was experiencing something that was not right was that I was walking gaitly (walking abnormally). My body balance was not behaving normally. I was not actually walking normally. In fact, I could not walk properly and this was aggravated by the feeling of lack of energy to walk. Then I decided to let myself be admitted to the hospital. After a battery of tests and the use of MRI, I was diagnosed as having what the doctor called CSM or Cervical Spondylosis Mylopathy or sometimes called Spinal Stenosis. This is actually a disease of the spine or the compression of the spine. Sometimes it is called Spinal Stenosis. So If you have those symptoms my advice to you is to seek advice and see the doctor ASAP for further confirmatory tests.