Osteochondrosis: treatment, symptoms, signs, causes

Here is another condition which is considered to be related to age, but which often occurs unrelated to age.

For example, this fact: more than half of patients with osteochondrosis worldwide noticed the first signs of its development by the age of 25. Yes, no one thought old age could come so soon. . . Some people see these years as ripe, some are more used to referring to them as near adolescence, and for some 60 doesn't seem like a reason to feel bad. But resolutely, everyone will agree that for the aging process, it is, to say the least, not yet an age.

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

The proteins that "fill" the intervertebral disc are called glycosaminoglycans. Maybe we don't need to remember that name.

But we absolutely have to remember that the main purpose of glycosamine dicans is to retain water. In addition, with the possibility of its gradual release under pressure. In other words, the proteins that create the gelatinous texture of the "filler" for the disc are made so that the water is heated inside while at rest, and under load it is gradually expelled.

Of course, the water itself is too fluid to do something like this. This is why the body synthesizes special proteins - unique! analogue of food gelling agents such as carrageenan, gums, starch.

In order for the contents of the intervertebral disc (and this is, let us remember, the basis of its damping properties) to remain in order, we need throughout life:

• monitor our diet by avoiding deficiencies in vital substances, especially proteins;
• avoid muscle cramps in the back;
• maintain active circulation of cerebrospinal fluid and blood to normalize metabolic processes in the tissues of the spine;
• avoid injury and infection of the tissues of the spine;
• maintain the rate of water-salt metabolism in the body.

Symptoms of osteochondrosis

So, at the very beginning, our back will start to "tap" to the rhythm of our every movement. However, for quite a long time, this crackle can only be heard. In the future, there will be a period of sensations - constant pulling, aching pain and discomfort in the areas affected by osteochondrosis. They are felt at rest, and with movement they gradually increase. Subjectively, patients find that the joints affected by the process seem to tire more quickly than others. As a result, as the feeling of fatigue intensifies, the aching pain also increases.

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 ache both at the place of its appearance and in nearby tissues of all types. It seems to spread as a painful wave spreading out from one point in the joint - exactly according to the laws of resonance.

Symptoms of cervical osteochondrosis

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

• headaches resistant to standard treatment - deaf, painful, throbbing, constant, evenly distributed over the entire head. It coincides with increased neck pain and is similar to headaches that appear with increases in blood pressure. As a rule, with osteochondrosis, too high pressure leads to headaches;
• unmotivated vertigo attacks throughout the day: with sudden changes in posture, head movements, tremors. Often the dizziness coincides with the rhythm of the breath - a dangerous "lightness" in the head appears with each inhalation and disappears with the exhalation. Such symptomatology means that at this time 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 early stages, it results in a vague discomfort during the day and a cracking sound when turning the head. But touching the spine in this area or trying to massage the muscles causes pain and stiffness in the muscle fiber. Subsequently, the pain is permanent, increases when turning the head to the side, leaning towards the chest, after sleeping on a high or too soft pillow;
• aching pain in the chest (such as under the ribs), under the scapula, with a return to the muscles of the shoulder and upper chest. They look as much like an attack of angina or coronary heart disease as they do pain in a herniated disc, but are more permanent. For example, in diseases of the cardiovascular system, the pain seldom 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 line of the shoulder, often down to the fingertips. As a rule, depending on the degree of development of osteochondrosis, the patient suffers at the same time either from short-lived "lumbago" in the shoulder joint or from episodes of numbness and "acute back pain prolonged over the entire internal surface of the arm. As for the attack of the small neurons of the shoulder, it is not felt at rest, but worsens sharply with the first movements of the head after a long immobility. Patients describe it as "electric shocks along the spine, in the muscles of the shoulders. And irradiation in the hand is often accompanied by a spasm of the muscles of the wrist and a violation of the sensitivity of the ring finger, as well as the little finger;
• quite often, although in less than half of cases of cervical osteochondrosis, the tenderness and mobility of the tongue decrease. Patients may become unable to distinguish certain tastes (not recognizing bitter, sour, sweet, but it is easy to name a mixed taste). Some people report changes in diction, especially when it is necessary to speak quickly and / or clearly.

Symptoms of osteochondrosis of the thoracic region

Signs of thoracic osteochondrosis:

• aching pain in the chest, "somewhere under the ribs". Unlike coronary artery disease, it is difficult for the patient to determine his center more precisely. Such pain significantly depends on the rhythm of breathing - it increases with inspiration and coughing. And despite all the uncertainty of its location in the chest, every such attack clearly resonates in the causal vertebra / vertebra. In 99 out of 100 cases, it is the displaced vertebra that hurts the most;
• disorders of the sensitivity and mobility of the pulmonary diaphragm - the appearance of a feeling of incomplete inhalation, inability to perform the lower exhalation;
• pain and discomfort in the gastrointestinal tract - often especially the stomach, upper intestines, liver, and pancreas. The pain can range from mild, inaudible discomfort to obvious cramps. Therefore, osteochondrosis of the thoracic region is often confused with slow gastritis, enteritis, colitis, chronic pancreatitis.

Symptoms of lumbar osteochondrosis

Lumbar osteochondrosis, also called lumbago (so we know it's one and the same), is the most common form of the disease.

With him we will have:

• Painful pain in the lower back, made worse by bending over, sitting for a long time, or standing - usually almost any movement of the body. As a rule, it bothers the sick at night, in the presence of the habit of sleeping on the back with the legs straightened. It only improves with a prolonged stay or the habit of sleeping in a fetal position. That is to say with the knees tucked into the chest. Patients with lumbar osteochondrosis move quickly and voluntarily from a soft bed to a hard bed, since it is easier to maintain the position of the embryo on a hard floor all night;
• lumbar stiffness syndrome. This involves: the inability to bend down quickly after prolonged standing or sitting, associated not so much with pain as with a general decrease in muscle extensibility and stiffness of the bones in the affected area; rapidly developing numbness in the lumbar region when sitting or standing, associated with acute damage to the nerve endings in this position of the vertebrae;
• entrapment of the sciatic nerve (the main neural trunk of the legs, entering the spine in the coccyx region). Along with osteochondrosis of the lumbosacral region, it belongs to the number of sciatica scenarios, but not the only one. Despite the existence of several 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. Let's remove the feather bed and the feather pillow from the bed. Let's leave a main mattress, get an orthopedic pillow - dense, low, with a fixed depression in the middle. Typically, these pillows are filled with polyester filling. Therefore, you have to make sure that it is not too soft - now it is harmful to us. And the probability that it "flies", turns into a flat pancake within a week, is very high. The thickness of the roll along the edges should equal the length of our neck from the base of the skull to the 7th vertebra which protrudes when the head is tilted. If it is 1. 5-2cm less, the better.
2. We will buy another pillow not too thick or use our old feather in a new quality. From now on, we will always need to put this pillow under the thighs or buttocks when lying down, as well as under the top of the knee when we sleep in the fetal position. Let's experiment with the optimal height, width and position of the pillow - the right thing, placed in the right place, will instantly make the pain go away at the most visible point in that particular position.
3. It is strictly forbidden to lift and transport objects weighing more than 10 kg in case of osteochondrosis. Therefore, all training should take place with us at your own weight or minimum weight. With any type of osteochondrosis, it is wiser for us not to do it on our own, but to go to the gym. It's in the gym, since cardio (treadmill, bike, ski) and fitness are not the same thing. Now, by all means, we have to organize our extra back support and work with strictly the same correct body position. Best for such purposes is a simulator - a steel frame, in which we and the lifted weight can move only in an amplitude limited by the structure.
4. After any exertion (including routine standing walking), we should perform a light massage on the back, stretching it gently. Heat can be applied to places where back pain is particularly severe - provided that the focus of the pain does not migrate with the change in posture, of course. And as in osteochondrosis, pain migration is a frequent occurrence, sometimes a mere "five minutes" on a mat like the Lyapko applicator is five times more effective than any heating pad. After all, we really can't buy a heated mattress instead! In addition, in the hot season, heating such a large area risks ending up in heat stroke. . .

If we understand all this, take into account and be sure that we will not forget, we will organize the activation of metabolic processes in our spine. As already mentioned, you should not exercise at home with osteochondrosis. More precisely, one should not get carried away with it - it is better to work with a professional orthopedist or an instructor where there is equipment that can compensate for the deficiencies in strength that have arisen in our spine. But since, alas, not everyone has such an opportunity, all the same we dare to recommend warm-up exercises with a reduced probability of complications.

There is only one rule here that must not be broken. Namely: if we decide to take everything in hand, before starting the training, we absolutely must order or buy a medical bandage or a special corset. A plaster for reliable fixation exactly on the part of the back where there is a pathological process. You only have to work in it, providing support for the problematic part of the spine, which it currently lacks.

So:

1. We will sit down close to the table, the cover of which has rested against our stomachs, on a chair with a narrow, high back. We need to have firm support for the back and the back of the head. Let us lean all our backs on the back of the chair, stretch our arms, sliding them along the cover, to the maximum. It is even necessary to sag a little by pushing the shoulder blades forward, but for this it is forbidden to tear the back of the head or the back of 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, because then we will have to take this object with our palms slightly from the bottom and pull it towards us, without lifting it from the surface. It should be moved less with the hands than with the effort of the scapular muscles, which now try to bring the forearms stretched forward in their normal position. As you can see, we are talking about a "home" rower and slightly adjusted to our needs. More precisely, its modification, involving a simple pressure on oneself. In any case, this exercise develops the muscles of the middle of the back well - between the shoulder blades, as well as the back muscles. After pulling the weight towards us, it should be moved back and the pull should be repeated 15 more times.
2. Let's stand near the table that is already familiar to us and rest our pelvic bones on the edge of the lid. Put our hands behind our heads, let our heads fall so that our foreheads rest on the table. At the same time, the back should not be rounded - we will round it later. For now, our task is to make 15 elbows at the table itself with the back straight and the hands behind the head. The 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 cover itself it is necessary to linger, avoiding to lean on it.
3. We use one of the exercises detailed in the section on preventing back disease. Namely: we are lying on the ground, arms extended above the head, straight legs bent. Lift one (any) arm off the floor and stretch forward at the same time, along with the opposite leg. Of course, you shouldn't be trying to throw your leg over 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 are seated on the floor with our backs to the wall, our legs stretched out in front of us. Do not rest your back too much against the wall and rest your palms firmly on the floor. Now we need to raise the body with one hand above the ground as high as possible. It is best to keep the legs straight while maintaining their sitting position. If that doesn't work with straight lines, you can try squeezing them against 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 require you to lean your head against the wall. Repeat 5-7 times.
5. We will get a special belt for weightlifting - wide, made of thick skin that perfectly fixes the lower back. In milder forms of osteochondrosis, it is quite possible to leave only the bandage fixing the diseased area. Take 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 around the edges, we take it out to any free space. Dishes with water should be placed on the floor, the legs should be slightly apart and bent. knees for stability, slightly move the body forward. We should get a very ambiguous pose - a slight forward bend, with buttocks noticeably indented, but an even line of the spine across the upper torso. This is completely normal and correct from the point of view of the anatomy of the human body. When the desired position is reached, we still have to sit down until we can grasp the pelvis handles without rounding the back. After that, the pelvis should be raised, with a synchronized movement straightening the knees and lower back.

As mentioned above, self-massage is easier to understand intuitively for most people, relying on the sensations of the process. And we simply recommend that you regularly (daily) conduct an independent session with a masseur, to discover the structural features of your back - with all its pathologies and proportions. All the same, no two towers are the same in the world. So no masseur 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 one part of the spine is affected or if its lesion has "aggravating circumstances" in the mind of curvature, hernia, malformations.

Nevertheless, here are some recommendations related to the nuances of massage from the different departments. Indeed, in the original they are known only to specialists and are often omitted in the popular presentation of massage techniques. So:

With cervical osteochondrosis, the process affects both types of muscles equally often and strongly. Therefore, regular massage, although thorough, does not always give patients the relief they hoped for. After all, the shoulder girdle is the most massive in the whole body, and nowhere are skeletal muscles "hidden" so deeply as here.

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

• When massaging sore deltoids, their outer edge is easier to "reach" by pressing a finger from above into the depression between the collarbone and the "hump" of the shoulder joint. You shouldn't press your finger too hard there. in addition to the muscle, the ligaments of the shoulder are also located. However, as we knead the stiff head of the muscle, we will begin to more accurately distinguish its soft fiber from 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 back up 2-3 cm along the shoulder line, continuing to work from above;
• the inner edge of the deltoid (the most problematic shoulder muscle in everyday life) is attached to the 7th vertebra. He acts stronger than others when we, as they say, bow our heads to our chest. But under the head of the deltoid muscle there are a number of skeletal muscles, and that completely covers them with manipulation from above. Meanwhile, the lion's share of osteochondrosis "dumps" pass through their fibers. Therefore, we have to lie on our backs on a soft surface.

The mid-back will give us less of a problem with the number of muscle fibers itself. However, their design is very complex - in the sense that most of the muscle heads are not attached to the edges of the bones, but, so to speak, pass under them. This is especially true for the shoulder blades, to which all of the middle muscles are attached on one side, but none of these attachments are located directly on or above the edge of the bone:

• if we are tormented by burning or stabbing pains "somewhere under the scapula" it does not matter whether they are observed at the top of the scapula, below, or even in the middle. The fact is that in the usual lying position we will not reach these places. We have to lie down so that the massaged hand hangs freely from the bed and rests on the floor. The working hand is always on the opposite side, and it should be coiled tightly from the top, behind the back of the head. Disadvantage, but effective. It is better to massage the middle part under the scapula with a hard massager - we will barely reach our fingers, and therefore we will not be able to press. To increase the area to which we reach, a pillow can be placed under the elbow of the working hand;
• how to stretch the upper corners of the latissimus dorsi, getting their hands on it, even the genius of acrobatics will not be able to. Lats are the muscles that allow bodybuilders and physically well-developed people in general to demonstrate the classic V-shaped extension of the back from the torso to the shoulders. These are the ones the rower thrives on - the pulling of heavy objects to 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 can not be overestimated, so they should not only be developed, but also monitor their condition. Moreover, the vast majority of people do not follow them at all, and in ordinary life they are very rarely used directly. For back massage, it is best to use a lying position on your side. In this case, for more stability, the legs should be brought closer to the stomach, the active hand should be pulled forward along the bed and brought under the armpit of the massaged arm. For convenience, the hand to be massaged does not need to be kept lowered to the side - it is more appropriate to lower it also on the bed at chest level. Then the lower edge of the scapula will stretch after it, and the lats are immediately 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 during rotation. Second, in this place many muscles coming from above are attached to the sacrum. That is, connecting the lower back to the upper part - in fact, allowing you to maintain and maintain throughout life the rate of S-shaped back curvature. By the way, for this reason, weakness in the middle of the back (scoliosis) is often accompanied by a curvature of the lower back - lordosis and kyphosis. The main muscle in the lumbar spine is the lats. Without its health, we won't see a normal S-shaped curvature like our ears. And the sacrum and coccyx will hurt us constantly, even without osteochondrosis.

So let's start:

• it should be remembered that the latissimus dorsi muscle goes sharply obliquely: its upper edge is attached to the lower part of the scapula, and the lower - to the sacred bones, that is, to the coccyx. Therefore, if directly from the armpit we walk with our fingers or a massager to the side, we will knead a muscle that is also related to the back and abdomen - the oblique abdominal muscle. It is not the lats, which connect the lower back to the shoulder - the oblique muscle is responsible for tilting the body strictly to the side. Especially to succeed in straightening this inclination. She suffers a lot from scoliosis and pelvic lesions. Its main section for us is the lower part, near the femur itself. There are two heads with which it is attached to the tibial joint. One is located closer to the buttock (merges with its upper lobe) and the second goes slightly forward, towards the groin. So, if we get into the habit of massaging the entire area around the protuberances of the pelvic bones, it certainly will not become superfluous;
• if for some reason (most often because of pain) we decide to warm the buttocks, it is better to do it while lying on your side, bending the knees against the chest. This position makes all the gluteal muscles available for massage. For the first time, the buttocks may seem very sore to us and as if they are made entirely of tendon tissue - they will be so dense to the touch. In reality, they shouldn't be like that - it's a spasm. It is particularly visible in the upper lobes and the middle part. Normally, the finger in the middle of the buttocks should be squeezed freely to the depth of a phalanx - the set of gluteal muscles is not lower than the set of shoulder muscles. This is what we have to achieve without looking at any burning pain.