Question
I had a laminectomy and a spinal fusion 2 years ago due to spinal stenosis. The pain is gone but now it is difficult to stand up straight because of stiffness. I do stretching and yoga but still have the problem. What can I do to help my flexibilit?

Answer
Hello George,

Sorry to hear about your pain, but I do think you're already ahead of the game if you are stretching and doing yoga.
The good news is that I think I can give you a few more things that you can do yourself to get rid of the stiffness you are
experiencing.

My totally free Do-It-Yourself-Joint-Pain-Relief website,
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/
is where I'm going to point you.  The website has free follow-along videos with joint pain relief techniques for every joint in the body.

If you take a moment and think of all the muscles in your body like the rigging (ropes) on a big old-fashioned sailboat, you can begin to understand that all the tension in all the muscles must balance off each other for us to stand, sit, walk, run, etc. in the way our body is designed to do so.  Since you already stretch and do yoga this is probably not new information.  But sometimes it's difficult to get at everything that needs to be released by stretching alone, so I built a website to help the folks that need a little more.

The Site Map page on my website,
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/joint-pain-relief-site-map.html
lists every page on my website and if you scroll down to the lower back section you'll see a long list of pages to choose from.
I'm going to recommend you start with the Pelvic Girdle Pain Relief Page,
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/pelvic-girdle-pain-relief.html
as I think it may help you assess some tight areas that are often overlooked.
Next, I would then go to the main Lower Back Pain Relief page,
http://www.do-it-yourself-joint-pain-relief.com/lower-back-pain-relief.html

Any of the pages in the lower back pain section of the Site Map page can be helpful.  And as you'll see, there's a fair amount of overlap in the techniques, so it may not be as much work as it appears at first.

Since you've had surgery already do be careful and use your common sense.  If something I recommend just doesn't "feel right" feel free not to do it.  Go do some other techniques for a while and see what results you can get elsewhere.  Releasing a body is a bit like peeling an onion.  You may have to go around and around a bit, but you'll get there.

I do hope this proves helpful.

All the best,

Gary