I often see people feel their neck pain, shoulder pain, long-term can not relieve, they suspect that they have “cervical spondylosis”. When you go to the hospital to take an X-ray, the film says “cervical curvature straightening, cervical spine osteophytes”, you think you have “cervical spondylosis”.
I. Etiology.
There are actually many causes of neck and shoulder pain. First of all, heart disease should be ruled out. Coronary heart disease myocardial ischemia will cause pain in the left side of the chest and left shoulder, which is the first thing that needs to be ruled out by doing electrocardiogram and checking myocardial enzyme profile. Secondly, we need to rule out cholecystitis. The inflammation of the gallbladder will cause pain in the top of the right shoulder, which should be ruled out by ultrasound.
Prolonged head-down work can lead to degeneration and protrusion of the cervical discs (Figure 1). The body will compensate for the occurrence of cervical intervertebral joint (hook vertebral joint), yellow ligament hyperplasia, which in turn compresses the nerve, spinal cord, vertebral artery and sympathetic nerve in the vertebral artery epicardium leading to a series of symptoms and signs.
II. Performance.
Cervical spondylosis often manifests as neck pain and drowsiness, and can also lead to numbness and pain in the arms. Severe manifestations include numbness and weakness of the upper and lower limbs, as well as dizziness, memory loss, panic, and blurred vision.
Third, prevention.
How to prevent cervical spondylosis
1, first of all, we must avoid long-term uninterrupted head-down posture (including ambulatory work, reading cell phones, Internet, playing mahjong, etc.). Every hour to get up once, such as radio gymnastics, tai chi, etc., or just give yourself 5 minutes to kick the legs, activities of the neck.
2, followed by taking the correct sitting position, as shown in the figure below.
3, strengthen the neck muscle exercise. You can jog, swim, and also include “square dance”. These are full-body activities, not only to exercise the heart and lungs, but also to exercise the muscles of the whole body (including the neck).
Fourth, treatment.
Once you have cervical spondylosis, how to treat it
The purpose of non-surgical treatment is to: eliminate nerve root edema and reduce local inflammation; relax the neck muscles and reduce the pressure in the intervertebral disc; eliminate the inflammatory reaction in the neck muscles and break the vicious circle. Non-surgical treatment is recommended for patients with “neck pain only, without or with mild arm numbness”.
Methods include
1. Rest and braking, avoiding various activities in a prolonged low posture. Wearing a neck brace can relax the neck muscles and ease the neck pain. However, wearing a neck brace for a long time will lead to relaxation of the neck muscles, and once the brace is removed, it will be difficult to play the role of stabilizing the cervical spine, which will further aggravate the symptoms. The latest international view is “combination of motion and static”. That is, rest and braking during the acute period of pain, and appropriate activities after pain relief, in order to relieve the neck muscle spasm, to rebuild the dynamic balance of the human neck muscles.
2, (in the regular hospital) physical therapy, massage, massage, hot compress can play a “blood circulation, blood stasis, anti-inflammatory and pain relief” purpose. Incorrect violent massage will aggravate the symptoms and condition.
3.Traction is effective in relieving muscle spasm in the neck, which is a passive measure to relieve nerve root compression and is temporarily effective. However, traction is strictly prohibited for spinal cord type cervical spondylosis with weakness of the limbs.
4, can be supplemented by drug treatment, including anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving – flurbiprofen babu cream, pain-relieving ointment and other creams and oral drugs such as celecoxib and etoricoxib, swelling – mai zhi ling, muscle relaxation – ethylprednisolone, nerve nutrition – methylcobalamin, and blood circulation and blood stasis Chinese medicine (compound danshin drops, duyiwei capsule).
For patients whose conservative treatment is ineffective for 3-6 months, whose pain and nerve root damage symptoms (numbness and weakness in hands and feet) are progressively aggravated, and whose quality of life is seriously affected, surgical treatment such as disc removal and cervical intervertebral fusion stabilization can be performed.