There’s no doubt about it. When you feel off balance or dizzy, it’s a scary feeling — almost like being in a fun house at a carnival where the floor is moving — but these instances are anything but fun.
If you’re experiencing balance issues, you’re at risk of falling and injuring yourself, so understandably, you’ll want to get to the bottom of it ASAP by seeking medical help.
Fortunately, Dr. Benjamin Cohen is a dedicated and highly experienced spinal surgeon who diagnoses and treats a wide range of conditions, from scoliosis and spinal stenosis to spinal tumors. He can help you understand your symptoms and create a customized treatment plan to give you lasting relief.
First, it’s important to realize that when you experience balance challenges, you may feel more than unsteady. You might also experience vertigo (a sense that you’re spinning when you’re not), dizziness, lightheadedness, and blurred vision. When you combine all those symptoms, it’s no wonder balance issues arise, and you feel panicked.
There are a host of possible causes for balance problems, some of which are:
Does that last one surprise you? Your brain controls how you feel, think, learn, and move. Your spinal cord delivers messages between your brain and the nerves all over your body. When this sophisticated messaging system encounters interference, problems arise, including stability problems.
There are several types of spinal tumors, and all have the potential to affect your balance.
Primary tumors originate in the spinal cord. Intramedullary tumors develop within the spinal cord, vertebral column tumors originate in the discs or vertebral bones, and intradural-extramedullary tumors develop in the spinal canal, under the membranes that envelop the spinal cord but outside of the nerves.
If cancer in another part of the body spreads to the spine, this is known as a secondary or metastatic spinal tumor. Unfortunately, patients living with prostate, breast, and lung cancer can experience secondary spinal tumors more often.
Spinal cord tumor size and location cause all sorts of symptoms, and balance problems arise when other symptoms, like pain, numbness in the arms, legs, or chest, and weakness that affects the arms and legs can contribute to balance problems and challenges staying upright.
Effective treatment for spinal tumors addresses balance issues and can help you get back on your feet — figuratively and literally.
When Dr. Cohen evaluates your spinal tumor, he collects as much information as he can about it, as that informs his treatment plan. Treatment depends on factors like the type of tumor, its size and location, and your specific symptoms and their severity.
It’s important to know that both benign and malignant spinal tumors cause symptoms that lower your quality of life, including pain, numbness, tingling, and instability. Feeling uncertain about your ability to move well is very limiting.
A surgical solution may be what Dr. Cohen recommends. His goal is always to remove the entire tumor, but that isn’t always possible. In this case, either before or after your tumor removal surgery, chemotherapy, and/or radiation to eliminate the rest of the tumor may be what he advises.
Spinal decompression surgery can also relieve tumor-related pressure on your nerve roots and help protect your nerve function. After decompression surgery, Dr. Cohen may recommend spinal fusion surgery to strengthen and stabilize your spine.
These procedures are delicate because while Dr. Cohen is working to remove your tumor, he also wants to maintain your neurological function. Whenever possible, he performs minimally invasive surgery, which involves making small incisions as opposed to a single large one and using specially designed surgical tools. These procedures are associated with less pain, bleeding, and scarring and speedier recovery.
Call our Garden City office at 516-246-5008 if you suddenly experience spinal pain, numbness, and dizziness that you can’t attribute to a recent sports injury or accident or if you don’t have a chronic condition like arthritis. You can also book an appointment online.
