The Bonati Institute Glossary: Bone Spurs

The mission of The Bonati Institute is to provide hope to people suffering with chronic pain from a back or neck condition. We believe that a well-informed patient is vital to restoring hope and finding answers to pain. We developed this web site primarily to help educate pain sufferers and their families. We’ve found that the more individuals in pain learn about their anatomy, their condition and the options available to them the more likely they will be to choose the advanced arthroscopic procedures offered by The Bonati Institute.

Bone Spurs

Bone spurs, also known as osteophytes, are bony projections that form along joints and are often seen in conditions such as arthritis. The bone spurs themselves aren't painful, but they can rub against nearby nerves and cause pain.

Bone spurs are largely responsible for limitations in joint motion. The reason for bone spur formation is the body’s attempt to increase the surface area of a joint to better distribute weight across a joint surface that has been damaged by arthritis or other conditions. Unfortunately, this is largely wasted effort by our body as the bone spur can become restrictive and painful.

Bone spurs are a signal of an underlying problem that often needs to be addressed. It isn't clear what causes bone spurs, but doctors believe they occur in reaction to changes in your joints due to diseases and aging — most commonly osteoarthritis.

Symptoms

Where your bone spurs are located determines where you'll feel pain and whether you'll experience any other signs or symptoms. For instance, bones spurs on the bones of your spine can push against your nerves causing intermittent or constant pain.

Causes

As osteoarthritis breaks down the cartilage in your joint, your body attempts to repair the loss. Often this means creating new areas of bone along the edges of your existing bones.

Your body may also create bone spurs to add stability to aging joints. Bone spurs are the hallmark of other diseases and conditions, including:

• Spondylosis. In this condition, osteoarthritis and bone spurs cause degeneration of the bones in your neck (cervical spondylosis) or your lower back (lumbar spondylosis).
• Spinal stenosis. Bone spurs can contribute to a narrowing of the bones that make up your spine (spinal stenosis), putting pressure on your spinal cord.

Complications

Bone spurs can break off from the larger bone, becoming what doctors call loose bodies. Often bone spurs that have become loose bodies will float in your joint or become embedded in the lining of the joint (synovium). Loose bodies can drift into the areas in between the bones that make up your joint, getting in the way and causing intermittent locking — a sensation that something is preventing you from moving your joint. This joint locking can come and go as the loose bodies move into and out of the way of your joint.

Treatment

The Bonati Arthroscopic Laser Foramenoplasty

A foramen is the window through which a nerve root exits the spine. Bone spurs that form as a result of Degenerative Disc Disease or spinal arthritis may narrow the foramen causing spinal stenosis or foraminal stenosis, conditions that typically cause severe pain. Also, a foramen may be narrowed by a herniated disc or scar tissue from previous surgery. These problems are treated by foramenoplasty.

Foramenoplasty is performed through a small incision in the back, while the patient is conscious under a low-level IV sedation. The narrowed foramen is located with fluoroscopic x-rays, and a guide wire is placed down to the area of disease. Then, a hollow tube is inserted over the wire to the foramen. The endoscope and surgical instruments are inserted through the tube. The miniaturized television camera on the endoscope provides direct visualization of scar tissue, bone spurs, and diseased disc material. After surgery the patient is prescribed a short course of physical rehabilitation

Benefits of this procedure

• Fewer risks, local anesthesia, a small incision
• Minimal blood loss
• Short recuperation time
• Minimal damage to tissues
• Surgeries are done in an outpatient setting
• Patient sees a faster return to a normal lifestyle