Osteochondrosis: treatment, symptoms, signs, causes

Here is another pathology that is considered age-related but often occurs without any relationship to age.

For example, this fact: more than half of patients with osteochondrosis around the world noticed the first signs of its development at the age of 25. Yes, no one thought that old age could come so soon. . . Some see these years as mature, some are more used to referring them to near adolescence, and for some, 60s don't seem to be a reason to feel bad. But everyone will resolutely agree that for the aging process it is, to put it mildly, not yet an age.

What's the problem? In fact, it is multifaceted and may seem complicated to a layman. But in reality there is nothing complicated. In the section on spinal disc herniation we said that its content is water with dissolved proteins, right? Thus, all osteochondrosis, along with its speed, severity and treatment projections, is, in fact, built on these proteins. What do we mean? Now everything will become clear.

The proteins in the "filling" of the intervertebral disc are called glycosaminoglycans. Maybe we don't need to remember this name.

But we must absolutely remember that the main purpose of glycosaminate dicanes is to retain water. In addition, with the possibility of its gradual release under pressure. In other words, the proteins that create the jelly-like consistency of the disc "filler" are made so that the water inside it is heated at rest and under load is gradually squeezed out.

Of course, the water itself is too fluid to do such a thing. That's why the body synthesizes special - unique proteins! analogue of food gelling agents such as carrageenan, gum, starch.

In order for the contents of the intervertebral disc (and this, we recall, is the basis of its cushioning properties) to remain in order, we need for life:

• monitor what we eat, avoiding deficiencies in vital substances, especially proteins;
• avoid back muscle cramps;
• maintain active circulation of cerebrospinal fluid and blood inside it to normalize metabolic processes in the tissues of the spine;
• avoid injuries and infections of the tissues of the spine;
• maintain the metabolism rate of water salt in the body.

Symptoms of osteochondrosis

So, right at the beginning, our back will begin to "tap" to the rhythm of our every movement. However, for a long time this crunch can only be heard. In the future, a period of sensations will come - constant pulling, aching pains and discomfort in the areas affected by osteochondrosis. They are felt at rest and gradually increase with movement. Subjectively, patients notice that the joints affected by the process appear to tire faster than others. As a result, as the feeling of fatigue intensifies, so does the aching pain.

But this, of course, is far from the end of the process, even if it is no longer the beginning. After all, the condition of the disc does not improve, and the condition of the cartilage deteriorates as the situation drags on, and very quickly. Over time, the crunches themselves become painful.

Each of these sounds is now accompanied by an explosion of dull pain both in the place of its appearance and in nearby tissues of any kind. It seems to spread like a large painful wave from one point of the joint, exactly according to the laws of resonance.

Cervical osteochondrosis symptoms

If we have problems with the cervical spine, we may feel:

• headache resistant to standard treatment: dull, aching, throbbing, constant, evenly distributed over the whole head. It coincides with increased neck pain and is similar to headaches that appear with blood pressure spikes. As a rule, with osteochondrosis, too high pressure leads to headache;
• unmotivated attacks of dizziness during the day: with sudden changes in posture, head movements, tremors. Dizziness often coincides with the rhythm of breathing: a dangerous "lightness" in the head appears with each inhalation and disappears during exhalation. This symptomatology means that at the moment the intracranial pressure is reduced, and not excessive, as in the previous example. As a rule, these two symptoms are observed alternately in all patients with cervical osteochondrosis, occur periodically and last for several days. Sometimes one replaces the other, sometimes they are separated by periods of relative pressure;
• aching pain in the neck, especially at the base of the skull. In the initial stages, it is expressed with a vague discomfort during the day and a creak when turning your head. But touching the spine in this area or trying to massage the muscles gives pain and stiffness to the muscle fiber. Subsequently, the pain is permanent, it increases when turning the head to the side, bending at the chest, after sleeping on a high or too soft pillow;
• aching pains in the chest (as if under the ribs), under the shoulder blade, with return to the muscles of the shoulder and upper chest. They resemble an attack of angina pectoris or coronary heart disease as much as the pain of a herniated disc, but are more permanent. For example, in diseases of the cardiovascular system, the pain rarely lasts more than a few hours and depends little on the respiratory rate. With osteochondrosis, it is constant, worsens with each breath, lasts for periods of up to several days or more;
• "Lumbago" along the entire shoulder line, often to the fingertips. As a rule, depending on the degree of progress of osteochondrosis, the patient suffers at the same time either short-term "low back pain" in the shoulder joint or attacks of numbness and prolonged acute "low back pain" along the entire inner surface of the shoulder. arm. As for the violation of the small neurons of the shoulder, it does not make itself felt at rest, but sharply aggravates with the first movements of the head after a long immobility. Patients describe it as "electrical discharges along the spine, in the shoulder muscles. And irradiation in the hand is often accompanied by a spasm of the wrist muscles and a violation of the sensitivity of the ring finger, as well as the little finger;
• quite often, although in less than half of all cases with cervical osteochondrosis, the sensitivity and mobility of the tongue decrease. Patients may become unable to distinguish some tastes (do not recognize bitter, sour, sweet, but it is easy to name a mixed taste). Some people report changes in diction, especially when they need to speak quickly and / or clearly.

Symptoms of osteochondrosis of the thoracic region

Thoracic osteochondrosis signs:

• aching, drawing pain in the chest, "somewhere under the ribs". Unlike coronary artery disease, the patient has difficulty determining its center more accurately. Such pain significantly depends on the rhythm of breathing: it increases with inspiration and cough. And despite all the uncertainty of its location in the chest, each of these attacks clearly echoes in the causal vertebrae / vertebrae. In 99 cases out of 100 it is the broken vertebrae that hurts the most;
• disorders of sensitivity and mobility of the pulmonary diaphragm - the appearance of a sensation of incomplete inhalation, inability to perform lower exhalation;
• pain and discomfort in the gastrointestinal tract - especially often the stomach, upper intestine, liver and pancreas. The pain can range from mild, subtle discomfort to noticeable cramps. Therefore, osteochondrosis of the thoracic region is often mistaken for slow gastritis, enteritis, colitis, chronic pancreatitis.

Lumbar Osteochondrosis Symptoms

Lumbar osteochondrosis, also called low back pain (so you know it's the same), is the most common form of the disease.

With him we will have:

• Aching pain in the lower back, aggravated by bending, sitting for a long time or standing - in general, almost any movement of the body. As a rule, it disturbs the sick at night, in the presence of the habit of sleeping on the back, with straightened legs. It only subsides with prolonged stay or the habit of sleeping in the fetal position. That is, with the knees tucked into the chest. Patients with lumbar osteochondrosis quickly and voluntarily switch from a soft to a hard bed, as it is easier to maintain the position of the embryo on a hard floor all night;
• lumbar stiffness syndrome. It involves: the inability to bend quickly after a long standing or sitting position, associated not so much with pain as with a general decrease in muscle extensibility and stiffness of the bones in the affected area; numbness rapidly advancing in the lumbar region when sitting or standing, associated with an acute violation of the nerve endings in this position of the vertebrae;
• entrapment of the sciatic nerve (the main neural trunk for the legs, which enters the spine in the coccyx region). With osteochondrosis of the lumbosacral region, it belongs to the number of sciatica scenarios, although it is not the only one. Despite the existence of many other variants, sciatica is often a painful complication of osteochondrosis.

Treatment of osteochondrosis

We will have to undergo treatment for a long time, so first we will improve the quality of life of our own back.

1. We remove the duvet and feather pillow from the bed. We leave a main mattress, we take an orthopedic pillow: dense, low, with a fixed depression in the middle. Typically, these pillows are made with polyester filling. Therefore, it is necessary to make sure that it is not too soft - now it is harmful to us. And the likelihood of it being "blown away", turning into a flat pancake in a week, is very high. The thickness of the roller along the edges should be equal to the length of our neck from the base of the skull to the 7th vertebra which protrudes when the head is tilted. If it's 1. 5-2cm lower, the better.
2. We will buy another pillow that is not too thick or use our old feather in a new quality. From now on, we will always have to put this pillow under the thighs or buttocks in the supine position, as well as below the knee when sleeping in the fetal position. We experience the optimal height, width and position of the pillow - the right thing, placed in the right place, will lead to the immediate disappearance of pain in the most obvious focus in this particular position.
3. It is strictly forbidden to lift and carry objects weighing more than 10 kg in case of osteochondrosis. Therefore, any training should take place with us with your weight or the minimum. With any type of osteochondrosis, it is wiser for us not to do it ourselves, but to go to the gym. He's in the gym, because cardio (treadmill, bike, ski) and fitness aren't the same thing. Now, by all means, we need to organize our additional back support and work with strictly the same correct body position. The best for such purposes is a simulator - a steel frame, in which both we and the weight lifted can move only in an amplitude limited by the structure.
4. After any exertion (including normal standing walking), we should perform a light massage of the back, gently stretching it. Heat can be applied to particularly severe back pain points, as long as the focus of pain does not migrate along with the change in posture, of course. And since pain migration is a frequent phenomenon in osteochondrosis, sometimes a simple "five minutes" on a mat like the Lyapko applicator is five times more effective than any heating pad. After all, we can't really buy a heating mattress instead! Furthermore, in the hot season, heating such a large area risks ending up in heat stroke. . .

If we understand all this, we take into account and are sure that we will not forget it, we will organize the activation of metabolic processes for our spine. As already mentioned, you shouldn't train at home with osteochondrosis. More precisely, we must not get carried away by this: it is better to work with a professional orthopedist or an instructor where there is equipment that can compensate for the lack of strength that has arisen in our spine. But since, unfortunately, not everyone has such an opportunity, we still dare to recommend some warm-up exercises with a reduced likelihood of complications.

There is only one rule here that shouldn't be broken. That is to say: if we decide to take everything in our hands, before starting the training, we absolutely must order or purchase a special medical bandage or corset. A bandage for reliable fixation of exactly that part of the back where there is a pathological process. You should only work on it, providing support to the problematic section of the spine, which is currently missing.

Like this:

1. We will sit next to the table, the lid of which would rest against our stomach, on a chair with a narrow and high back. We need to have solid support for both the back and the nape of the neck. Let us lean with the whole back against the back of the chair, stretch our arms, sliding them along the lid, to the maximum. It is also necessary to bend a little, pushing the shoulder blades forward, but for this it is forbidden to tear the back of the head or the back from the support. On the line where our palms remain in this position, an object weighing more than 10 kg should be placed. Its shape and surface should be comfortable, since then we will have to take this object with the palms slightly from the bottom and pull it towards us, without lifting it from the surface. You have to move it not so much with your hands as with the effort of the scapular muscles, which are now trying to return the forearms extended forward to their normal position. As you can see it is a "tame" rowing machine and slightly adapted to our needs. More precisely, its modification, which implies a simple pressure on oneself. In any case, this exercise develops the muscles of the center of the back well - between the shoulder blades and the lats. After pulling the weight towards us, it should be moved back and the pull should be repeated 15 more times.
2. Let's get close to the table that is already familiar to us and rest our pelvic bones on the edge of the lid. We put our hands behind our heads, let our heads fall so that our forehead rests on the table. At the same time, the back shouldn't be rounded - we'll round it up later. For now, our task is to do 15 push-ups on the table itself with the back straight and the hands on the back of the head. Correct body position means that in the future, if we fall on the table, we will be our whole face, not our forehead. Therefore, above the lid itself, we should dwell, avoiding relying on it.
3. Let's use one of the exercises detailed in the section on preventing back diseases. Namely: we are lying on the floor, arms extended above the head, with straight legs folded together. Lift one arm (any) off the floor and stretch it forward at the same time, as well as the opposite leg. Of course, you shouldn't try to throw your leg above your head, but pull it back with a kicking motion. Then lower the limbs, mentally count to three and repeat with another pair of "opposite hand-leg". In total, you need to do 20 repetitions for both pairs of limbs.
4. We sit on the ground, with our backs to the wall, with our legs stretched out in front of us. Don't lean your back too firmly against the wall and rest your palms firmly on the floor. Now we need to lift the body on one hand from the floor as high as possible. It is best to keep your legs straight while maintaining the sitting position. If it doesn't work with straight lines, you can try tightening them to your chest. In this case, you will have to take into account that changing the position of the legs will shift the center of gravity and will require you to rest your head against the wall. Repeat 5-7 times.
5. We will get a special weightlifting belt - wide, made of thick leather that perfectly fixes the lower back. In milder forms of osteochondrosis, it is quite possible to leave only the bandage that fixes the diseased area. Bring a 15-liter basin or bucket into the bathroom that we use on the farm. We fill it with water so that it does not splash on the edges, we take it to any free space. Dishes with water should be placed on the floor, the legs should be slightly apart and bent. knees for stability, move your body forward slightly. We should get a very ambiguous pose: a slight forward bend, with the buttocks noticeably set back, but an even line of the spine at the top of the torso. This is completely normal and correct from the point of view of the anatomy of the human body. When we reach the desired position, we should still sit down until we can grasp the handles of the pelvis without arching the back. Next, the pelvis must be raised, in a synchronized movement that straightens the knees and lower back.

As mentioned above, self-massage is easier for most people to understand intuitively, based on the sensations in the process. And we simply recommend that you regularly (daily) conduct an independent session with a masseur, finding out the structural features of your back - with all its pathologies and proportions. However, there are no two identical tours in the world. So no massage therapist or doctor will study this organ better than us. Meanwhile, the individual details of our back structure can be extremely important here. Especially if only part of the spine is affected or its damage includes "aggravating circumstances" in the spirit of curvature, hernia, malformations.

However, here are some recommendations regarding the nuances of massage from the various departments. Indeed, in the original they are known only to specialists and are often omitted in the popular presentation of massage techniques. Like this:

With cervical osteochondrosis, the process affects both types of muscles with equal frequency and strength. Therefore, regular, albeit thorough, massage does not always bring patients the relief they were hoping for. After all, the shoulder girdle is the most massive in the whole body, and the skeletal muscles are nowhere "hidden" as deeply as here.

And for the complete satisfaction of the result, we will take into account several provisions in which it will be easier to achieve them:

• When massaging the sore deltoid muscles, their outer edge is easier to "reach" by pressing a finger from above into the depression between the collarbone and the "bulge" of the shoulder joint. You shouldn't press your finger too hard - there. in addition to the muscle, there are also the shoulder ligaments. However, as we knead the stiff head of the muscle, we will begin to more accurately distinguish between its soft fiber and the elastic ligament apparatus. It is necessary to work exclusively with a soft head, kneading it with twisting movements. Then you can go up and 2-3 cm up along the shoulder line, continuing to work from the top;
• the inner border of the deltoid (the most problematic shoulder muscle in everyday life) is attached to the seventh vertebra. It acts stronger than the others when we, as they say, bow our heads to the chest. But under the head of the deltoid muscle there is a number of skeletal muscles and it completely covers them from manipulation from above. Meanwhile, the lion's share of osteochondrosis "discharges" pass through their fibers. Therefore, we must lie on our back on a soft surface.

The middle of the back will give us less problems with the number of muscle fibers themselves. However, their design is very complex in the sense that most of the muscle heads here are not attached to the edges of the bones, but, as it were, go under them. This is especially true of the shoulder blades, to which all the muscles of the center are attached on one side, but none of these attachments are located directly on the edge of the bone or above it:

• if we are tormented by burning or stabbing pains "somewhere under the shoulder blade", it does not matter if they are observed in the upper part of the shoulder blade, below or even in the middle. The fact is that in the usual lying position we will not reach these places. We need to lie down so that the massaged hand hangs freely from the bed and is on the floor. The working hand is always the opposite and should be tightly wrapped from above, behind the back of the head. Uncomfortable, but effective. It is best to massage the central part under the shoulder blade with a hard massager: we will hardly reach with our fingers and therefore we will not be able to press. To increase the area reached, a pillow can be placed under the elbow of the working hand;
• how to stretch the upper corners of the latissimus dorsi, putting your hand on it, even the genius of acrobatics will not be able to. The lats are the muscles that allow bodybuilders and physically well-developed individuals in general to demonstrate the classic V-shaped extension of the back from the torso to the shoulders. It is they who the rowing machine develops well - pulling heavy objects on the chest. They are located in the upper back and strictly on the sides. The value of the developed lats for the strength of the arms and lower back cannot be overestimated, so they must not only be developed, but also monitor their condition. In addition, the vast majority of people do not follow them at all, and in ordinary life they are used directly very rarely. For back massage, it is best to use a lying position on your side. In this case, for stability, the legs should be brought closer to the stomach, the working hand should be pulled forward along the bed and brought under the armpit of the arm to be massaged. For convenience, the hand to be massaged does not need to be held down at the side - it is more appropriate to lower it on the bed at chest level as well. Then the lower edge of the shoulder blade will stretch after it and the lats will immediately be attached to it.

The lumbar region has its own structural features. First, the same row of small skeletal muscles here runs along the spine, moving the vertebrae when turning. Secondly, in this place, many muscles from above are attached to the sacrum. That is, connecting the lower back to the upper one, allowing you to maintain and maintain the S-shaped back curvature rate for life. By the way, for this reason, weakness in the middle of the back (scoliosis) is often accompanied by the curvature of the lower back - lordosis and kyphosis. The main muscle of the lumbar spine is the dorsal. Without his health, we won't see a normal S-shaped curve like our ears. And the sacrum and coccyx will hurt us constantly, even without osteochondrosis.

So let's get started:

• it should be remembered that the great dorsal muscle goes strongly obliquely: its upper edge is attached to the lower part of the scapula, and the lower one - to the sacral bones, that is, to the coccyx. Therefore, if we walk directly from the armpit with our fingers or a massager along the side, we will knead a muscle that is equally related to both the back and the abdomen: the oblique abdominal muscle. This is not the back, which connects the lower back to the shoulder - the oblique muscle is responsible for tilting the body strictly to the side. Mainly to successfully straighten out of this inclination. He suffers a lot from scoliosis and pelvic injuries. Its main section for us is the lower one, near the femur itself. There are two heads with which it is attached to the tibial joint. One is located closer to the buttock (it merges with its uppermost lobe) and the second goes slightly forward, towards the groin area. So if we make it a habit to massage the entire area around the protrusions of the pelvic bones, it certainly will not become superfluous;
• if for some reason (most often due to pain) we decide to warm up the buttocks, it is best to do it lying on your side, bending your knees to your chest. This position makes all the gluteal muscles available for massage. For the first time, the buttocks can feel very painful and as if they are made entirely of tendon tissue - they will be so dense to the touch. Actually, they shouldn't be like this: it's a spasm. It is particularly evident in the upper lobes and in the central part. Normally, the finger in the middle of the buttocks should be pressed freely to the depth of one phalanx: the gluteal muscle series is not less than the shoulder muscle series. This is what we need to achieve without looking at any burning pain.