What is cervical spondylosis
Cervical spondylosis, also known as cervical spine syndrome, is a general term for cervical osteoarthritis, proliferative cervicitis, cervical nerve root syndrome, and cervical disc prolapse, which manifests as a series of pathological changes secondary to cervical disc degeneration and stimulation or compression of adjacent nerve roots, spinal cord, vertebral artery, and cervical sympathetic nerves, and causes a variety of symptoms and signs.
The stable structure of the normal cervical spine consists of cervical vertebrae, joints, intervertebral discs, ligaments and muscles, which maintain the stability of the cervical spine, limit the excessive activity of the cervical spine, and enable the cervical spine to perform various physiological activities. Due to muscle strain, intervertebral disc degeneration and narrowing of the intervertebral space, ligamentous laxity and proliferative bone spurs can occur, thus reducing the stability of the cervical spine, which will aggravate the chronic accumulative injury of the cervical spine and accelerate the degeneration of the cervical spine.
Why do people get cervical spondylosis? Who is prone to cervical spondylosis?
The cervical spine joint is very active in people’s daily life and has the function of flexion and extension and rotation. Due to the accumulation of a large number of activities and strain, chronic damage can be formed after a long time and degenerative lesions can easily occur, which is the intrinsic cause of the disease.
Generally speaking, cervical spondylosis is a common disease among middle-aged and elderly people, with the most common occurrence in the age group of 40-60 years old and 45-55 years old. However, with the accelerated pace of work in society, people are under unprecedented physical and mental pressure, and the onset of cervical spondylosis is on a younger trend.
Cervical spondylosis is mostly seen in people who work with their head and neck in the same posture for a long time, or who have frequent head and neck activities and are engaged in occupations where the neck is prone to injury, such as surgeons, teachers, metrologists, people who work with computers, drivers, soccer players, teenagers with heavy learning tasks, etc. In addition, people who are used to using high pillows and have a history of cervical spine trauma are prone to cervical spondylosis.
What are the symptoms of cervical spondylosis?
The symptoms of cervical spondylosis are diverse. The location and segments of herniated discs and bone spurs are different, resulting in different types and severity of compressed tissues, and therefore the symptoms vary greatly: at the earliest stage, only the cervical nerves are stimulated, causing neck discomfort, neck pain and restricted movement. When the spinal nerve roots on both sides are compressed, in addition to neck symptoms, they may also manifest as radiating pain in the upper extremities, weakness in finger grip, and sensory hypersensitivity in the fingertips. If the vertebral artery is compressed, the main symptoms are headache, dizziness, and visual impairment; clinical symptoms similar to “coronary heart disease” or “gastrointestinal disorders” may also occur.
When the spinal cord is compressed, the main symptoms are numbness and weakness of the limbs, inflexibility, a feeling of thoracic and abdominal strapping, a feeling of walking on cotton, difficulty in walking, abnormal gait or even unsteadiness in standing and urinary and fecal dysfunction, while the symptoms of the neck may not be obvious at this time.
In addition, almost all cervical spondylosis patients have varying degrees of cervical spine movement dysfunction, such as forward flexion and backward extension, lateral flexion and rotation, and other activities are limited.
It is worth mentioning that cervical spondylosis is a common disease, so the public is prone to misunderstandings, such as neck pain and thinking it is cervical spondylosis. In reality, the diagnosis of cervical spondylosis requires a combination of medical history, imaging examinations (such as x-ray) and systematic examination by a physician. If you experience one or more of the above symptoms, you should go to a regular hospital for relevant examinations and be treated according to your doctor’s professional advice.
What measures are beneficial to the health of the cervical spine?
Correct posture
Adjust the height of the table and chair to the best state in proportion to your height, and more importantly, straighten your waist, spread your shoulders back naturally, and distance between your eyes and the desktop is about 35 cm. Between work to often do with breathing natural lifting after the action: about every 10 minutes to raise the head or back to rest for a moment, so that the head, neck, shoulders, chest in a slightly tense normal physiological curve state, and try to avoid excessive head and neck leaning forward or backward. The hips should be in full contact with the chair surface, and can often be used to rest on the back of the chair back for a short time.
Reasonable diet
Cervical spondylosis to the middle-aged and elderly, the diet should be light, easy to digest, avoid greasy and thick-tasting products. For those with insufficient liver and kidney function, eat more wolfberry, chrysanthemum, sesame and cinnamon, and avoid spicy and stimulating foods. For those with blurred vision and lacrimation, it is advisable to eat more foods containing calcium, selenium and zinc. Such as soy products, animal liver, eggs, fish, mushrooms, etc.
Reasonable exercise
When you are tired of sitting in front of the computer, you can let your neck do the “rice” exercise to move your muscles. Kite flying, swimming, badminton and yoga are all suitable exercises, especially swimming, which allows the neck muscles to move in all directions and is a good exercise for the cervical spine. Playing table tennis requires frequent head bowing, which is not suitable for people at risk of cervical spondylosis.
Non-surgical treatment of cervical spondylosis
Rest: rest can relax the neck muscles and reduce the pressure on the intervertebral disc due to muscle spasm and head weight; reduce the neck activity, which is conducive to the decreasing of tissue congestion and edema, especially beneficial to the decongestion of the protruding intervertebral disc.
Collar and neck brace: both can play the role of braking to protect the cervical spine, reduce nerve wear, reduce the role of intervertebral joint traumatic reaction, and is conducive to the decreasing of tissue edema and consolidate the effect of treatment.
Physiotherapy: It is also a more effective and commonly used treatment method.
Cervical traction therapy: It is a more effective and widely used treatment for cervical spondylosis, applicable to all types of cervical spondylosis, effective for early cases, and attention should be paid to the time, intensity and angle of traction for patients with serious degenerative changes in cervical spondylosis.
Drugs: can play a supplementary symptomatic treatment role in the treatment of cervical spondylosis. The doctor will choose suitable drugs for you according to your condition.
Traditional massage and massage therapy: It is a more effective treatment measure for cervical spondylosis. However, for cervical spine small joint disorder, cervical spine subluxation, serious osteoporosis and other disorders, cervical spine rotation reset technique must be used with caution and prohibited.
Local application of various topical medicines: it has good effect on reducing the pain caused by myofasciitis and muscle strain.
What surgical treatments are available for cervical spondylosis?
When non-surgical treatment is not effective, surgical treatment must be considered. The purpose of surgery is to enlarge the nerve root canal, transverse foramen, intervertebral foramen and vertebral canal, so as to relieve or release the irritation and compression of nerves, blood vessels and cervical medulla; to remove the diseased intervertebral disc, bone superfluous and overly thick or ossified ligaments, so as to achieve decompression and eliminate irritation, compression and adhesion; to restore or enhance the stability of the cervical spine by intervertebral bone grafting and restore its physiological curve, or to limit local activities and prevent further spinal cord and nerve compression.
Surgical treatments include posterior laminectomy and decompression, anterior discectomy, interbody bone grafting, spur resection, and vertebral artery decompression. During treatment, your doctor will choose the appropriate method based on your condition.
Who should choose surgical treatment?
In general, surgical treatment is indicated for the following groups of people.
Those whose radicular pain has not been relieved or continues to worsen after non-surgical treatment for cervical disc herniation and seriously affects their lives and workers.
cervical spondylosis with symptoms of spinal cord involvement and partial or complete obstruction by myelography
patients with cervical spondylosis who have sudden cervical trauma or acute spastic paralysis of limbs without obvious trauma
cervical spondylosis causing repeated cervical vertigo, syncope or sudden collapse, which has been ineffective with non-surgical treatment
cervical spondylosis with definite sympathetic symptoms that have been ineffective with non-surgical treatment and seriously affect the worker
Those with cervical spondylosis with anterior vertebral body bones causing symptoms of esophageal or laryngeal recurrent nerve compression.