When you go to the doctor or have a medical checkup and find osteophytes in the cervical and lumbar spine by chance, your friends who are not aware of this are often very worried and even deceived by quacks, thinking that osteophytes are incurable diseases that can cause paralysis, thus seeking medical advice everywhere, which not only costs a lot of money, but also increases the mental pressure. So what exactly is osteophytes? Today we have invited Dr. Zhang Shuncong from the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine to talk with us. (1) What is the nature of osteophytes? The essence of osteomalacia is an “aging” phenomenon of human bones, which is a normal physiological phenomenon. As people age, the muscles, ligaments and other tissues around the spine and joints undergo normal, degenerative changes, causing the balance of the spine and joints to be disrupted, resulting in instability of the spine and joints. In order for the body to adapt to these changes and restore a new state of equilibrium, it increases the surface area of the bones by means of osteophytes, reducing the pressure per unit area of the bones and making the spine or joints more stable. It can be said that the phenomenon of osteomalacia is a self-protective mechanism of the organism, an instinct of the body. It is only when osteophytes cause pain, swelling, limb dysfunction and other symptoms, making people feel “uncomfortable”, that people regard osteophytes as a disease. (2) What is the connection between osteophytes and clinical symptoms? The majority of patients do not have clinical symptoms of osteophytes, and they are only found incidentally during physical examinations or medical visits. Only when the osteophytes develop to a certain extent, that is, when the enlarged bone is relatively large and involves compression of nerves and blood vessels, as well as when the osteophytes themselves cause local tissue sterile inflammation, do clinical symptoms arise. Therefore, we say that there is no necessary connection between the presence of osteophytes and clinical symptoms, and not all osteophytes, need to be treated. (3) Does osteophytes progress indefinitely? Although the phenomenon of osteophytes increases with age, there is a limit to the degree of osteophytes that will not progress indefinitely, specifically in each individual. We know from the above that osteophytes are a self-protective mechanism for the body to restore a new equilibrium. When the new balance is re-established and the spine or joints are restored to a stable state, osteophytes will naturally stop. However, this cessation does not mean the disappearance of the aforementioned compression symptoms; on the contrary, it is possible that the compression symptoms persist. (4) How should I treat osteophytes? Since osteophytes are an ordinary aging phenomenon of the human body and a self-protective mechanism, there is no need to deliberately treat osteophytes if there is no obvious discomfort. For patients whose osteophytes have involved nerves and blood vessels, or caused damage to joints, resulting in clinical symptoms such as pain, swelling and joint dysfunction, we can treat the cause of the disease and treat the symptoms. In other words, we only treat the clinical symptoms caused by osteophytes, but not the osteophytes themselves. Nowadays, there are many “charlatans” who boast that they have “ancestral secret recipes” to remove bone spurs, which are all nonsense and have only one purpose: to cheat money. Think about it yourself: if there is a drug that can eliminate bone growth, how can you be sure that this drug will not eliminate your normal bone? (5) What are the principles of treatment for osteophytes? So how to treat bone growth if it compresses the nerves and blood vessels? In fact, we do not have to eliminate the hyperplastic bone. It is important to know that the growth of bone is not a kind of reinforcement of the instability of the body. As long as the enlarged bone does not cause pain and other uncomfortable symptoms, we can live peacefully with the enlarged bone. That’s why the purpose of our treatment is to eliminate the symptoms! Prof. Zhang Shuncong of the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Traditional Chinese Medicine emphasized that all the current methods of treatment for osteophytes: massage, acupuncture, closure, traction, nebulization, Chinese herbal medicine, western medicine, etc. have to a certain extent played a role in activating blood stasis, moving paralysis, anti-inflammatory and analgesic, relieving the symptoms of pain and restoring normal joint activities, but there is absolutely no and can not be a so-called “elimination of bone”. But there is absolutely no drug that can “eliminate the bone”. Even the purpose of surgery is to treat the secondary lesions of osteophytes, unless the bone spur is blocking the movement of the joint, the doctor will recommend surgery to remove it, and because of the original cause of instability, the “bone spur” will often reappear soon after removal. Therefore, Prof. Shuncong Zhang once again suggests to the majority of patients that they should not pay any attention to the osteophytes that do not affect their daily activities, especially the so-called lumbar and cervical spine osteophytes, and that they should not be removed! Of course, it is necessary to consult an orthopedic surgeon in a regular hospital for the development of osteophytes that compress nerves and blood vessels.