Patient's question:
My son is 5 years and 4 months old. Recently, he has been experiencing symptoms of frequent urination with small amounts of urine. The examination revealed phimosis, and an X-ray showed a hidden spinal defect. Could you please ask the doctor what the cause of this is and how to treat and improve the symptoms?Doctor's answer:
Spina bifida is divided into two types: open spina bifida and hidden spina bifida. The true cause of the condition is spinal cord tethering. It can be said that open spina bifida is almost always accompanied by spinal cord tethering, while hidden spina bifida is partly associated with it, and spinal cord tethering is the actual cause of the condition. In daily life, we commonly see bedwetting in children, which is primarily due to physiological factors, such as the immaturity of the child's nervous system or excessive fatigue. However, there are also some pathological causes that are often overlooked by the general public, with the most common being spinal cord tethering syndrome.Almost all meningocele cases are accompanied by spinal cord tethering, and the latter is the direct cause of the condition, so it will be discussed in detail here. Spinal cord tethering is not uncommon in clinical practice, but the general public, as well as pediatricians and other specialists, often lack sufficient awareness of it, leading to parents not taking their children to seek medical attention or doctors misdiagnosing and mistreating the condition. By the time the condition progresses to a certain extent, spinal cord nerve function may suffer permanent damage, resulting in severe disability, and by then, it is too late to regret. Here, we urge parents to take children's enuresis seriously and seek medical attention from experienced neurosurgeons.