Bone spur, also known as osteophytes, is a common rheumatic disease, mostly seen in middle-aged and elderly people and heavy manual workers. After the cartilage is destroyed, the cartilage membrane overgrows and produces new bone, which forms bone superfluous after ossification, which is a compensatory reaction in the pathological process of osteoarthritis. The hyperplastic bone is usually present around both ends of the bone, but when projected on a planar radiograph, it may only appear as a thick spur with a wide base and a thin tip. For ease of description, this is referred to as a “bone spur”. Misconception 1: Swollen and painful joints are caused by bone spurs. Some people think that a bone spur is a nail or a bamboo spur that is deeply embedded in the tissue. Only when the bone growth is stimulated for a long time and sterile inflammation develops around the bone spur, does it cause pain and other symptoms. Misconception 2: The larger the bone spur, the greater the pain and swelling in the joint. It is common to see patients with bone spurs in both knees, but one side of the bone spur is very large, but the pain is very mild or even painless; the other side of the bone spur is small, but the pain is severe. This is because the large spur does not cause aseptic inflammation around the spur, but the small spur does. Therefore, the size of the bone spur is not directly related to the degree of pain. Misconception #3: Exercise more and you won’t get bone spurs This is only half right. Experiments have shown that long-term overload exercise or labor not only aggravates the wear and tear on the joint surface, but also produces high stress on the joint, stimulates bone remodeling, accelerates bone spur formation and subchondral bone hardening, and aggravates the degeneration of cartilage. On the other hand, proper and correct exercise and labor practices can prevent or treat osteoarthritis. Therefore, exercise and labor are a double-edged sword. Misconception 4: Special drugs can eliminate bone spurs Bone spurs have the same composition as normal bone tissue, and some so-called special drugs that boast of dissolving or eliminating bone spurs are purely illusory. Although bone spurs cannot be eliminated, the inflammation can subside. Once the inflammation is eliminated, the pain is also relieved. Therefore, the key to the treatment of osteophytes is not the elimination of bone spurs, but the “permanent” elimination of the inflammation caused by bone spurs. Misconception 5: Surgery is better than conservative treatment Although surgery can remove bone spurs, it should be limited to a very small number of bone spurs that compress nerves, blood vessels, and the spinal cord, causing serious dysfunction, and for which conservative treatment is ineffective. Because surgery itself is also a form of trauma, it can cause sterile inflammation in some patients and even stimulate bone growth faster. In up to 40% of patients, the bone spur will recur after 15 years. Therefore, surgical excision does not necessarily cut off the root. Misconception 6: Bone spurs are harmful but not beneficial In fact, bone growth is a compensatory mechanism of the body. In a sense, it is beneficial to the body. For example, some patients with long-term lumbar pain suddenly disappeared after several years, and the X-ray found that the lumbar vertebrae had grown bone spurs, which increased the stability of the lumbar vertebrae and eliminated the pain; another example is that patients with lumbar vertebrae instability such as lumbar spondylolisthesis or lumbar tuberculosis, doctors will artificially create bone spurs, and after surgery to remove the diseased tissue, autologous bone is placed between the two vertebrae, so that the two vertebrae are fused together, and after the generation of large beam bone spurs between the vertebrae, the The lumbar spine is stabilized, and the back pain is eliminated.