Kiev. Ukraine. Ukraine Gate – February 01, 2021 – Health
The problem is familiar to many.
The neurologist told why you should not be afraid of osteochondrosis and how to establish the correct diagnosis before sounding the alarm.
According to neurologist Lyudmila Pidkuimukha, a standard examination of a patient begins with the phrase: “I have osteochondrosis, hernia or protrusion there. How to live with it now? ” To reassure everyone who suspects these diagnoses, the doctor suggests calm down and gradually figure out whether everything is really so scary.
Our spine is made up of vertebrae and intervertebral discs. This is a kind of support, a kind of frame of our body.
The spine takes over all the stress that you have during the day. It doesn’t matter if you work sedentary, or you spend all day on your feet – all physical activity leads to a minimum decrease in the height of the intervertebral disc. However, at night, when we are in a horizontal position, the structure and height of the disc are restored.
Excessive physical activity, hypothermia, a constant sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet, and lack of exercise lead to the fact that the intervertebral disc simply loses its ability to recover.
How does this happen:
Microcracks appear on it, the disc loses its elasticity, becomes no longer so stable and more mobile.
There are protrusions (protrusion of the disc without rupture of external fibers) or hernias (rupture of external fibrous fibers and protrusion of the nucleus pulposus (solid gelatinous mass).
By itself, a protrusion or hernia is not a threat. It all depends on what changes it has caused.
It is important to establish whether there is a compression (compression) of the nerve and whether nerve conduction is preserved. And only after that, we can talk about the severity of the condition. Also, the doctor will take into account the severity of the pain syndrome, the presence of problems with urination, and other mandatory items that only a neurologist can establish.
The term “osteochondrosis” includes many other radiological signs: thickening of the ligaments, arthrosis of the intervertebral joints, marginal growths on the vertebrae (osteophytes).
The very diagnosis of osteochondrosis is not established by masseurs and is not determined “by eye”. First, you will have to get an X-ray, undergo an MRI, and other procedures prescribed by a doctor, and only on the basis of X-ray data can you see exactly what disorders have arisen due to osteochondrosis in you.
Osteochondrosis is present in 90% of people
But we are not interested in the fact of its presence, but in the symptoms that it provokes and whether it causes a disruption in the work of nervous structures.
Sometimes pain can be caused by somatoform pain disorders, muscle-tonic syndromes, depressive episodes that have nothing to do with the spine. So, osteochondrosis is not a sentence. The main thing is to apply for an examination in time.
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