Spondylosis

Spondylosis also known as Pars Defect is a stress fracture on the bones of the lower spine. This injury is usually caused by overuse of the spine. Pars is most common in children and adolescents but can happen to anyone.

Causes

When playing sports repetitive bending like motions are used and this can lead to this injury. When pars affect someone, there can be various symptoms. The most common of them are pain and stiffness to the lower back. The pain is usually dormant until activated. Whether it is running, getting bumped into, walking, etc. all these can activate the pain. After activated, everything from sitting to running will usually have discomfort. When activated, the only way for me to not feel pain is to either lay down or to keep my spine from bending or moving around. Besides the most common symptoms, some other may include numbness and tingling down your leg.

Recovery

Spondylosis isn’t an injury that can be healed by anything other than mostly rest, and light physical therapy. Surgery isn’t an option for people who have this. For medicines anti inflammatories are usually used for it. Treatment usually is in four stages. The first being rest. This step is critical for the healing of Pars. Resting usually lasts four weeks or until no pain is felt while doing daily activities. Which then goes to the next stage. This next stage of rehabilitation includes light physical therapy. This stage has light stretching really just trying to strengthen back small back muscles. This stage of the process is however long necessary usually being a couple of weeks. Then on to the third stage is more of intense stretching and starting to introduce more of jogging and swimming. Again this can last however long needed but again is usually a couple of weeks. Then is the fourth stage of recovery. This is starting to introduce weights at the PT place. It also includes a lot more running and more intense stretching. This will also last a couple of weeks.In a perfect world the recovery will last 12 weeks or less. But you can’t put a number of when it will be healed. It is as the person needs. If the fracture is activated that could set you back to square one. Therefore, a more realistic timeframe is around 12 or more weeks.