How much do you know about the causes and treatments of cervical spondylosis?

Modern people study and work at a fast pace, coupled with bad living habits, many people frequently experience soreness and discomfort in the head, neck, and shoulders, pain, numbness in the hands, etc. Over time, it will form an unbalanced body posture that cannot be shaken off, followed by chronic neck, shoulder, waist, and leg pain that always bothers us, especially the age of patients with cervical spondylosis is getting younger and younger, and the cervical curvature becomes straight, the cervical spine becomes unstable, and scoliosis even frequently occurs in young people.

1. The main reason for the younger age of cervical spondylosis patients is inseparable from bad daily living habits

1. Sitting posture: Many young people need to use computers for a long time when studying or working. If the sitting posture is incorrect, it will directly lead to cervical spondylosis.

2. Looking down at your phone: “Looking down at your phone” is the main reason for the younger age of cervical spondylosis. When the head is upright, the neck bears about 5 kg of weight. When the neck is 60% lower, the neck bears about 25 kg of weight, which is equivalent to two large watermelons pressing on the neck. When you look down, your muscles are very tense, and when you look up, your muscles relax. (The world is so beautiful, look up more often)

3. Lack of protection awareness: When the weather changes, if you do not pay attention to keeping your neck warm, it is very likely to induce cervical spondylosis. Participating in sports activities, if the exercise is too intense, suddenly twisting the neck or encountering external violence, it is also easy to cause cervical injury.

2. Classification of cervical spondylosis

There are four types of cervical spondylosis, including cervical type, radiculopathy type, spinal type and other types. Among them, the cervical type is the most common and often appears first, the spinal type is the most serious, and the radiculopathy type causes soreness, swelling, discomfort, pain, and even numbness in the hands in the head, neck, and shoulders, which requires further treatment to improve.

alert

When you feel unwell, do not receive spinal massage or other treatments in non-medical institutions, because although it is more comfortable after the muscles are passively relaxed, it will aggravate the instability of the cervical spine and cause a series of subsequent problems, not to mention those violent treatments that lead to malignant conditions such as paraplegia. If you have neck pain, stiff neck, dizziness, tinnitus, numbness and weakness in the hands and feet, decreased fine motor skills of the hands, stiff limbs, a feeling of walking on cotton, urinary and bowel dysfunction, and a sense of restraint in the trunk, you should seek medical attention in time to avoid further damage to the tissue and acceleration of the degeneration process, which will lead to serious consequences.

Treatment

1. General treatment

(1) Avoid lowering your head for long periods of time, such as working at a desk for a long time, looking down at your phone for a long time, or driving for a long time. These will cause increased stress on the neck for a long time, leading to cervical disc herniation, ligament hypertrophy, or bone hyperplasia, which will eventually lead to cervical spondylosis and aggravate the symptoms of cervical spondylosis.

(2) Neck core muscle strength training, such as neck flexion and extension exercises or neck resistance exercises, can increase core muscle strength and stabilize the cervical spine, thereby avoiding cervical spondylosis.

2. Drug treatment

Neurotrophic drugs such as vitamin B1 and B12 can be used to help the recovery of diseased nerves; non-steroidal anti-inflammatory analgesics such as diclofenac sodium and celecoxib are commonly used drugs; Chinese medicines that promote blood circulation, remove blood stasis, relax muscles and tendons such as Jingfukang, Jingtong Granules, and Zhuanggu Joint Pills can reduce nerve root congestion, edema and aseptic inflammation.

3. The characteristic treatment methods of the pain department for cervical spondylosis are divided into three levels or comprehensive treatments:

The first is the release treatment of soft tissue, which mainly uses non-invasive methods such as shock wave and ultrasonic drug penetration; non-drug treatment with tools such as myofascial pulse radiofrequency and silver needles;

The second is nerve root release treatment, which is mainly suitable for patients with radiculopathy and some patients with pain on the medial edge of the scapula indicating stimulation of the dorsal scapular nerve or the posterior branch of the cervical nerve. Nerve injection and radiofrequency minimally invasive technology can be accurately performed under ultrasound guidance.

The third is cervical radiculopathy caused by cervical disc herniation compressing nerves. Plasma radiofrequency ablation technology for the protrusion target under CT guidance is used to solve the compression of disc herniation to the maximum extent with minimal trauma. The perforaminal endoscopic technique, through a 0.7-1 cm incision, only requires one stitch to solve more complex problems such as bone hyperplasia and spinal canal stenosis in addition to disc herniation under direct vision.

If any treatment for cervical spondylosis is to have a lasting effect, it is also necessary to combine the patient's overall body imbalance with local and whole-body functional exercises. The longer the onset of cervical spondylosis, the worse the treatment effect. It is recommended to adopt an early comprehensive treatment plan combined with rehabilitation exercises.

(Yang Xu, deputy chief physician of the Pain Department of Qinhuangdao First Hospital)