Osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine does not manifest as often as osteochondrosis in other departments, but it is as rejuvenated as other types of this disease. To date, it has been diagnosed in 20-year-old young people, which is also related to lifestyle and diet.
Thoracic osteochondrosis is the rarest form of pathology, but the most dangerous of all types of osteochondrosis. The symptoms of thoracic osteochondrosis are so atypical that they can be attributed to other diseases, such as myocardial infarction or angina pectoris.
The disease is really a threat, because after some time, if there is no proper treatment, osteochondrosis can cause heart failure, and the line between these conditions is very thin.
Symptoms of osteochondrosis
The thoracic spine is less mobile due to its anatomical characteristics. As a result, it is less burdened, so osteochondrosis occurs much less frequently here. When the first pathological changes in the thoracic part appear, patients do not feel the signs of the disease for a long time, because it develops slowly.
The symptoms of osteochondrosis depend on the stage of development of the disease and are completely related to it. In the early phase, the symptoms are less pronounced, while late osteochondrosis causes serious signs, for example, a feeling of pain in the heart, rapid heartbeat. Manifestations of the disease are as follows:
- in the first stage of disease development, discomfort in osteochondrosis arises due to violation of the integrity of the intervertebral disc. The rupture can be caused by a sharp awkward movement or a large load in the area of the thoracic vertebrae. In these moments, patients suffer from increased sensitivity in this part of the spine, feel severe pain and muscle tension. Patients notice that the sensations are comparable to the electrical discharge passing through the back;
- the second stage of the disease is characterized by protrusion of intervertebral discs, which protrude up to 5 mm. The spinal column becomes unstable, the diagnosis requires a thorough analysis of the patient's health, because patients constantly complain of discomfort and pain in the chest, muscle tension, which can be a symptom of various pathologies;
- The third degree of thoracic osteochondrosis has more significant manifestations - pain is more frequent, patients suffer from breathing problems (sudden lack of air, feeling short of breath), feel headaches, and heart problems with osteochondrosis.
Bitan!The fourth stage of the disease is the most dangerous for the patient. Here, osteophytes appear on the surface of the vertebrae, which compress the spinal cord and nerve endings.
At different stages of the disease, patients are haunted by the following symptoms of pathology:
- intercostal neuralgia - a feeling of sharp pain in the sternum. Initially, the point of pain may be only in one place, but after a while the pain completely covers the human chest. Patients find it difficult to breathe, change body position. If you try to bend over, move, or get up from the place, then the painful feelings increase significantly;
- muscle cramps - the pain in the back muscles is quite strong, and the pain spreads to the lumbar zone, it can radiate even to the abdomen and shoulders. Cramps are reflex in nature, ie. they themselves do not respond to pain, but respond to spastic contractions of other muscles;
- a feeling of discomfort that occurs earlier - can have different strengths and manifest long before they worsen. Unpleasant feelings haunt patients for days or even weeks before the onset of severe signs of osteochondrosis. Usually the discomfort occurs exclusively in the back and sternum and may either disappear or worsen again;
- in osteochondrosis, the symptoms of the pathology are usually more pronounced at night. By morning, the patient feels satisfactory, although osteochondrosis reappears in the cold season or sudden movements.
Atypical symptoms
Chondrosis is insidious in that its symptoms may not resemble back pain at all. And sometimes patients have no doubt that the problem lies in the spine - they take painkillers or heart medications, which have absolutely nothing to do with the cause of the pain.
With more symptoms, you must consult a clinic for expert advice - only after a comprehensive examination can be detected osteochondrosis or heart pathology
To suspect osteochondrosis, you need to know what manifestations may indicate the disease:
- the appearance of pain in the heart, more similar to the symptoms of angina pectoris or even myocardial infarction. Such colic can last for weeks, and medications used to dilate coronary arteries do not have a positive effect on the situation at all;
- exacerbation of the disease can cause pain in the mammary glands and a feeling of withdrawal in women, as during pregnancy. Therefore, when such feelings occur, it is necessary to consult a mammologist;
- spastic upper abdominal pain, which some patients consider symptoms of gastritis, cholecystitis, or pancreatitis. The pain is usually aggravated by increased physical activity. Such signs of pathology can seriously affect the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract;
- problems with the functioning of the bladder and genitals;
- sore throat and esophagus, foreign body sensation and pain when swallowing.
Osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine manifests Dorsago syndrome, which is characterized by the appearance of very severe pain in the sternum that occurs when getting up from certain positions - sitting or lying down. Uncomfortable feelings behind the sternum are so strong that patients find it difficult to breathe, muscle stiffness, pain when turning the neck, in the lower back.
Dorsalgia develops slowly. In the initial phase, discomfort occurs only with active movements, and after a while it is felt constantly. At the peak of the disease, even a deep breath can cause painful dorsalgia.
Signs of heart pain
Patients often confuse heart pain with manifestations of osteochondrosis, which is not surprising, because in vertebral diseases, the discomfort in the sternum is so strong that patients, under fear, suspect the worst - heart problems. To distinguish heart pain from osteochondrosis, you need to know the main characteristics of heart pain:
- localization - the correct definition of localization will allow partial elimination of suspicion of chondrosis. Heart pain usually occurs clearly behind the sternum or is localized in the left half of the sternum. Rays between the shoulder blades, can give the lower jaw, felt in the left hand;
- characteristic of pain - pain in the heart is characterized by enviable persistence, it is compressive, oppressive in nature, burns behind the sternum, and due to the sharp nature of such pain is called "dagger";
- provoking factors - usually heart pain has a clear factor, under the influence of which the pressure increases and discomfort arises. It can be both physical activity and a factor of emotional stress, stress. At rest, when the person is relaxed and not nervous, pain in the area of the heart usually does not occur, but even with the minimum load caused by vasoconstriction, angina pectoris develops;
- time factor - heart pain does not last long, you can always determine its beginning and end. As a rule, an attack of angina pectoris develops within minutes. The heart does not sting in advance, does not hurt and does not pull. Usually, the period of previous discomfort is what makes it possible to distinguish osteochondrosis from true heart pain, the duration of which is usually limited to 15-20 minutes;
- the nature of the cessation of chest pain is an important factor that doctors also take into account when distinguishing osteochondrosis from heart disease. Usually, a heart attack pumps quickly, while the patient needs to stop the provoking factor - stop exercising or calm down in the presence of stress. You can take a nitroglycerin tablet, which in most cases helps to eliminate discomfort and even completely stop the pain within a few minutes. In myocardial infarction, nitroglycerin does not cope with pain and patients need urgent care.
Tip!These characteristics are typical for heart pain, however, angina pectoris can also cause difficulty breathing, causing abdominal pain. Therefore, the symptoms that appeared must be analyzed in a complex, taking into account the relationship and focusing on cardiac manifestations.
Problems with diagnosing heart pathologies cannot always be solved by patients who do not have at least a general idea of how real heart pain manifests and what discomfort in osteochondrosis looks like, so doctors advise in a critical situation not to delay the pathology and always call an ambulance. "
Osteochondrosis as a cause of heart pain
Pain behind the sternum can be a manifestation of pure osteochondrosis, true heart pain, but do not lose sight of what osteochondrosis affects the heart itself. Doctors have been talking for a long time about the connection between this disease and heart pain, but now there are scientific studies that confirm the mechanism of heart pain, whose etiology is problems with the musculoskeletal system, ie osteochondrosis of the thoracic region.
There are nerve connections between the spine and the heart that affect the work of the heart and cause disorders in the work of organs. The stellate ganglion actively participates in the innervation of the heart, from which the vertebral nerve originates - part of the sympathetic plexus of the spinal artery.
The sympathetic plexus indirectly affects the brainstem and cortex. Therefore, in osteochondrosis, nerve connections can cause a variety of cardiac pain syndromes, metabolic consequences that affect the contractility of the heart muscle and the occurrence of arrhythmias.
Few people know that both diseases develop as early as the age of 40-50, and late diagnosis leads to combined symptoms, which causes errors.
Difficulties in diagnosis are that patients with osteochondrosis become ill between the ages of forty and fifty, and the first heart disorders begin to appear at this age. Therefore, the diagnosis of osteochondrosis and coronary heart disease leads to frequent mistakes - it is difficult to determine the etiology of pain. This happens for the following reasons:
- insufficient diagnosis of the cause of heart pain;
- limited cardiologist knowledge of whether the heart can ache in osteochondrosis;
- re-evaluation of ECG results, according to which the patient is diagnosed almost immediately;
- the absence of an X-ray, which shows a pronounced sign of osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine.
Also, the diagnosis does not always take into account the nature of the projection pain, their localization and the feelings of the patients. Therefore, such shortcomings in the diagnosis lead to the fact that about 80% of patients with osteochondrosis at the initial examination receive an incorrect diagnosis - coronary heart disease. Even an ECG with a high T wave confirms this diagnosis, but doctors, not understanding whether it is heart or osteochondrosis, prefer the first factor.
Only with additional examination and X-ray can it be determined that the pain in the heart with osteochondrosis is of neurodystrophic, and not ischemic nature. It was she who influenced cardialgia, causing characteristic manifestations and, as a result, errors in diagnosis. Studies also note that heart pain is most common in those patients who already have organ pathologies, especially atherosclerotic changes in blood vessels.
Bitan!The main threat in the diagnosis of such pain is the ratio of coronary and non-coronary components as a cause of discomfort behind the sternum. This aspect, which is the effect of osteochondrosis on the heart, is extremely difficult to single out.
There were studies that looked at a patient with coronary insufficiency, a severe angiotic condition, who did not get a myocardial infarction within a week of cardiospasm, although ECG data were quite dangerous. However, the degree of severity spoke more in favor of the non-coronary component.
The main role of the doctor in this case is to correctly diagnose the disease, assess the patient's health, especially heart rate indicators, and predict possible dangers to the patient's life, because with the associated genesis - coronary and non-coronary - it is extremely difficult to separate the ratio of each. According to statistics, patients come to the ambulance in one hundred percent of cases with a diagnosis of pre-infarction or myocardial infarction.
Pain relief
Once the causes are clarified and the diagnosis is made, the doctor will prescribe treatment - a detailed treatment regimen will help the patient control pain and prevent the development of complications. Therapy includes drugs, physiotherapeutic methods of treatment, homeopathy. The main methods of therapy are:
- it is recommended to rest in bed until the pain is completely gone;
- to relieve heart pain, it is necessary to take analgesics, antispasmodics, patients will be recommended steroidal or nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs when osteochondrosis is detected, but they should not be abused due to their harmful effects on the gastrointestinal tract;
- in addition to drugs for oral administration, you can use a variety of anesthetic creams, gels, oils. Effective drugs with safe components are drugs based on bee venom, turpentine, tea tree oil;
- nootropic drugs, chondroprotectors, vasodilators and diuretics will be useful to activate blood circulation;
- a great effect on the body of a sick person will be to undergo a course of physiotherapy. Prescribed methods will help you cope with the manifestations of osteochondrosis, and will strengthen the body with heart pain;
- acupressure in the spine with a special focus on damaged tissues will help relieve back pain, muscle stiffness. All areas that are subject to cramps are relaxed, pain is relieved. At the same time, acupressure will help correct posture;
- in the subacute period, physiotherapeutic exercises aimed at strengthening the muscles in projection on the thoracic spine are allowed. You can visit the pool, attend special fitness trainings;
- diet will help get rid of pain - the doctor will especially recommend products for pathology of the musculoskeletal system, as well as correct the nutrition of the nucleus, enrich it with substances necessary for the normal functioning of the heart muscle. Traditionally, for all patients, you must pay attention to the use of fatty, sweet, salty, if necessary, you must reduce excess weight.
The most important
Osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine refers to degenerative-dystrophic lesions of cartilage tissue, due to which a person experiences severe pain and discomfort. The disease develops mainly in patients older than forty years, its appearance is affected by joint pathologies, traumatic injuries, hereditary factors, stress, metabolic disorders, imperfect working conditions, hormonal disorders. Osteochondrosis itself can cause pain similar to heart pain, and also indirectly affect the development of cardiac pathology.
In order to differentiate the pathology, a special diagnostic test is performed - novocaine blockade of the stellar node, which helps to detect the patient's diagnosis and correctly assess his condition. In addition, it is worth considering the radiation of pain, the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of cardio drugs, the presence of changes in the ECG made at different times.
Treatment is prescribed depending on the cause of the disease, which can be identified after a detailed examination. Cardiac drugs are recommended for the treatment of coronary heart disease, while osteochondrosis can be cured with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, chondroprotectors, and in some cases surgery is required.