How to properly understand cervical hypertension?

  Cervical hypertension is a central blood pressure abnormality caused by cervical spine strain, degeneration, trauma, etc., which destabilizes and misaligns the cervical spine, produces aseptic inflammation, and directly or indirectly stimulates the cervical sympathetic ganglion or vertebral artery and causes vasodilator dysfunction and ischemia in the brain. With the increasing incidence of cervical spondylosis, it is found in the clinic that about 30% of hypertensive patients are related to cervical spondylosis.  Cervical hypertension is poorly treated with antihypertensive drugs, and the changes in blood pressure are related to exertion and changes in neck position, and the blood pressure is highly variable, unstable, and high and low. If this condition is treated as common hypertension, the effect is relatively poor and the constant replacement of antihypertensive drugs often causes a burden on the patient’s heart. Hypertension can aggravate and prematurely develop cervical spondylosis, and cervical spondylosis can affect the treatment of hypertension. Therefore, both doctors and patients must have a correct understanding of cervical hypertension in order to achieve the correct treatment effect.  Cervical hypertension has the following characteristics: i. The increase or decrease in blood pressure is synchronized with the onset of cervical spine disease symptoms. When the patient has symptoms of cervical spondylosis such as pain at the back of the neck, headache or dizziness, the blood pressure rises; after the head and neck symptoms are relieved, the blood pressure also decreases. This feature is especially obvious in the early stage of the disease, and gradually decreases with the prolongation of the disease.  Second, hypertension occurs before the onset of hypertension, and hypotension or blood pressure fluctuations occur for a considerable period of time. Patients exhibit symptoms such as dizziness, lightheadedness, memory loss, and general weakness.  Third, antihypertensive drugs are mostly insensitive to hypertension, while the treatment of cervical spondylosis has a significant effect on blood pressure improvement. With the improvement of cervical spondylosis condition, blood pressure basically tends to stabilize.  Fourth, in the 24-hour ambulatory blood pressure observation, the patient’s blood pressure can drop by 20-30 mmHg when traction and manipulation are performed to treat cervical spondylosis, and the blood pressure will rise again in the interval between treatments.  Fifth, hypertension is related to the degree of vertebral instability or subluxation, that is, the greater the vertebral subluxation, the more serious the hypertension, but it is not necessarily completely consistent with the degree of osteophytes. This is because to some extent, osteophytes or ossification of the anterior longitudinal ligament enhance the stability of the spine and reduce the impact of abnormal organism proliferation on local neurovascularity.  Therefore, for patients with long-term hypertension, unsatisfactory blood pressure control with medication, no family history of hypertension in the family, and symptom onset with characteristics similar to cervical spondylosis, this is the time to first seek an orthopedic surgeon to take cervical spine x-rays or cervical spine CT films to rule out cervical hypertension.  The treatment of cervical hypertension is mainly to treat the lesions of the cervical spine. If it is caused by cervical spondylosis, then choose suitable treatment methods, such as traction, physiotherapy, massage, etc.; if it is caused by cervical dislocation, fracture or trauma, then actively treat the trauma, dislocation and fracture of the cervical spine, after the trauma is cured, the blood pressure will also return to normal.