How is sympathetic cervical spondylosis differentially diagnosed?

  1. Meniere’s disease: It is an unexplained otologic disorder originating in the middle ear with symptoms such as headache, vertigo, nausea and vomiting, tinnitus, deafness, nystagmus, slow pulse, and low blood pressure. Its attacks are associated with overexertion, lack of sleep, and mood swings, rather than being triggered by neck activity. Performing otologic examination can identify it.  2. Embolism of the auditory artery in the ear: Patients have sudden onset of tinnitus, deafness and vertigo, with severe and persistent symptoms.  3.Incompetent coronary artery supply: These patients often have precordial pain, accompanied by chest tightness and shortness of breath, and reflex pain in only one upper limb or both upper limbs ulnar side, without other segmental pain and perceptual changes in the upper limbs; electrocardiogram, plate motion test and other tests are mostly abnormal, and taking nitroglycerides can relieve the symptoms.  4, neurosis: patients with symptoms, but physical examination without neurogenic or spinal cord victimization signs, neurology drugs have certain efficacy, reduce mental stress symptoms can be significantly relieved.  5, glaucoma: there may be ipsilateral migraine, orbital pain and nausea, vomiting, ophthalmologic examination can be found in the vision loss, but also red vision.  Vertebral artery cervical spondylosis: The diagnosis of vertebral artery cervical spondylosis and sympathetic cervical spondylosis itself is controversial, and due to anatomical and physiological pathology, vertebral artery cervical spondylosis and sympathetic cervical spondylosis have a lot of crossover in etiology and clinical manifestations, which makes it difficult to differentiate vertebral artery cervical spondylosis from sympathetic cervical spondylosis in clinical practice.  First of all, the clinical manifestations of vertebral artery type focus on the symptoms of vascular compression and insufficient blood supply, while the sympathetic type shows symptoms of sympathetic excitation or inhibition, and patients show complex symptoms of sympathetic reflexes in different segments, such as visual disturbance, tinnitus and nystagmus, reduced muscle strength, and hyperactive tendon reflexes, also known as Barre-Lieou syndrome. This is closely related to the nature and number of postganglionic fibers involved in the reflexes. Atypical angina due to sympathetic cervical spondylosis is one of the specific types. The symptoms of sympathetic cervical spondylosis are not only the manifestations of vertebral artery cervical spondylosis, but also other symptoms of sympathetic nerve dysfunction, i.e. sympathetic excitation or inhibition, such as headache, dizziness, tachycardia, cold limbs, etc., or bradycardia, low blood pressure, enhanced gastrointestinal motility, lacrimation, nasal congestion, etc. Nearly one-third of patients have no other symptoms of cervical spondylosis. Secondly, there is no vertebral artery stenosis on angiography of sympathetic cervical spondylosis on ancillary examination to differentiate it from vertebral artery-type spondylosis. It was also found that the results of color Doppler ultrasonography were different in the two types of cervical spondylosis, vertebral artery type cervical spondylosis and sympathetic type cervical spondylosis, in which the resistance index (RI) and pulsatility index (PI) were higher in vertebral artery type cervical spondylosis than in patients with sympathetic type cervical spondylosis. Finally, in terms of diagnostic treatment tools, vertebral artery type requires vertebral arteriography or MRI vertebral artery visualization, and sympathetic type requires effective further differentiation by cervical high epidural closure or cervical sympathetic nerve closure.