Chondrosis
Causes and symptoms of chondrosis
What is chondrosis?
Chondrosis is an insidious and not fully understood disease. According to the definition adopted in official medicine, pathology is accompanied by degeneration in certain areas of cartilage tissue into bone tissue. For a very long time, it was believed that back pain and limited mobility of the cervical vertebrae belong to age-related changes, which are almost impossible to get rid of, just as it is impossible to turn back the clock. However, modern medicine, in addition to the depletion of cartilage and bone tissue with age, has discovered new causes of pain in the spine and has developed new methods and methods for treating chondrosis, which make it possible to forget about the symptoms of this disease for a long time.
The causes of chondrosis
It was found that the cervical muscles are also involved in the development of the pathological process in chondrosis. The short muscle fibers connecting the processes of the vertebrae in patients suffering from this disease are very tense, which contributes to the appearance of muscle clamps.
Thus, the cause of chondrosis is prolonged sitting in one place, a rare change in posture during sedentary work, prolonged tension of the same muscle group. Muscle hypertonicity can be caused by sleeping on an uncomfortable pillow for several nights in a row and even a cold shower if taken without special training.
Also, the cause of chondrosis can be stress and emotional upheaval. Muscle clamps can be the result of chronic stress or fear, a kind of reaction of an adult to constantly emerging traumatic situations.
Chondrosis also develops against the background of metabolic disorders, vascular diseases. Overweight, high blood pressure, and high blood sugar are also a risk factor.
Chondrosis symptoms
Symptoms of chondrosis are severe pain that limits mobility, a feeling of unpleasant heaviness and tension in the lumbar or cervical spine.
Pathology can manifest itself as muscle pain, as well as radiating pain from the internal organs. So, chondrosis of the cervical spine can be accompanied by visual impairment, tinnitus, headaches and dizziness. With pathology of the thoracic spine, breathing difficulties, pain in the heart area appear. Lumbar chondrosis sometimes manifests itself as a violation of the digestive tract and genitourinary system.
Chondrosis treatment
Chondrosis can be treated conservatively and surgically. The purpose of therapeutic methods is to eliminate pain, restore the normal functioning of the spinal roots, stop progressive degenerative changes in the spine.
In some cases, patients are shown surgical intervention, most often they resort to it when conservative treatment is ineffective. In this case, the amount of treatment will depend on the severity of the disease and its clinical manifestations.
Chondrosis in most cases requires long-term treatment, the timing is determined mainly by the nature of the course of the disease, age-related changes, the method of therapy, as well as how carefully the patient follows the recommendations of a specialist.
The active phase of conservative treatment lasts on average from one to 3 months, the postoperative recovery period takes about a year.
At the initial stage of treatment, patients may notice an increase in pain syndrome, this is due to the reaction of muscle fibers and other formations to the effect of therapy methods that are unusual for the body.
The pain is relieved in a relatively short period of time thanks to physiotherapy, medications, physiotherapy exercises.
The success of treatment depends largely on the patients themselves, from whom perseverance, will, perseverance, and the desire to be healthy are required.
The full range of conservative treatment includes physiotherapy exercises, physiotherapy procedures, massage, manual therapy, spinal traction, reflexology methods, drug treatment.
Physical therapy allows you to correct and strengthen the muscle corset, causes decompression of the nerve roots, increases the range of motion and allows you to form correct stereotypes during movement, contributes to the formation of correct posture, makes the ligamentous-muscular apparatus more flexible and helps prevent complications.
The positive effect of exercise therapy is achieved through regular training using special equipment and the performance of joint gymnastics. Special exercises improve blood circulation in muscle fibers, normalize metabolic processes and nutrition of intervertebral discs, increase the space between the vertebrae, form a corset of muscles, which reduces the load on the spine.
Low-frequency currents, magnetic fields, ultrasound, laser, etc. can be used as physiotherapeutic methods. These procedures are prescribed to patients to relieve pain, relieve inflammation, during rehabilitation after surgery. Physiotherapy helps to shorten the duration of treatment, increases the effectiveness of drug therapy.
Massage allows you to relieve muscle tension, get rid of muscle pain, improve blood circulation, and has a tonic effect.
Manual therapy relieves acute and chronic pain in the spine and joints, increases range of motion and corrects posture. A special direction of manual therapy - visceral therapy - helps to restore the physiological mobility of organs, improves blood circulation, lymph circulation, normalizes metabolic processes, increases the body's defenses, helps to avoid exacerbation of chronic diseases.
Spinal traction, or traction, is used to relieve pain, increase the space between the vertebrae, and restore the physiological curves of the spine.
Reflexotherapy against the background of other methods allows you to increase the effectiveness of treatment, relieve pain, help normalize sleep, balance the psyche, and help fight overweight and bad habits.
Drug treatment is prescribed for exacerbation of the disease in order to relieve pain, relieve inflammation, and stimulate metabolic processes.
Despite the fact that each of the above methods is considered highly effective in itself, a lasting therapeutic effect can be achieved only with an integrated approach to the treatment of chondrosis with the obligatory training on specialized equipment, which allows the patient to form a full-fledged muscle corset.
Article author: Mochalov Pavel Alexandrovich | d. m. n. therapist
Education: Moscow Medical Institute. IM Sechenov, specialty - "General Medicine" in 1991, in 1993 "Occupational Diseases", in 1996 "Therapy".
