Symptoms of cervical spondylosis

This article discusses the corresponding knowledge points of symptoms of cervical spondylosis and hopes to be helpful to everyone. Don't forget to bookmark this site. What are the symptoms of myelopathic cervical spondylosis? Myelopathic cervical spondylosis is a relatively severe type of cervical spondylosis. The main symptoms are neck pain, numbness, weakness in the limbs, especially a feeling of walking on cotton in the legs. Most patients initially experience upper limb symptoms, such as numb fingertips and clumsiness in the hands. Then lower limb symptoms appear, such as unsteady walking and spasmodic gait, and in severe cases, urinary and fecal incontinence may occur.

Myelopathic cervical spondylosis is caused by cervical vertebrae hypertrophy and intervertebral disc protrusion compressing the cervical spinal cord. This compression affects the brachial plexus nerves, leading to neck pain and discomfort in neck movement. Compression of the brachial plexus nerves can cause numbness, pain, and weakness in the upper limbs. However, generally speaking, compression of the cervical region is needed to affect the sensory pathway below the neck, resulting in sensory disorders and numbness. Similarly, compression of the descending motor pathway can cause weakness in the lower limbs, increased muscle tension, or the appearance of pathological signs.

What does myelopathic cervical spondylosis mean? What are the symptoms and signs of myelopathic cervical spondylosis? 1. What does myelopathic cervical spondylosis mean? Myelopathic cervical spondylosis refers to a series of pathological changes caused by compression of the spinal cord by cervical intervertebral discs, vertebral bodies, and associated tissues, leading to spinal cord ischemia. This mainly causes sensory and motor disorders. Specifically, myelopathic cervical spondylosis can be classified into central type, upper limb type, lower limb type, and peripheral type.

Symptoms and signs of myelopathic cervical spondylosis The main symptoms of myelopathic cervical spondylosis are abnormalities in sensation and movement, including central and peripheral types: The central type mainly affects the upper limbs. It can first appear on one side or both sides, causing numbness and weakness in the upper limbs, loss of hand strength, lack of flexibility, and inability to perform fine movements. Another characteristic symptom is instability when holding objects.

Peripheral type is mainly affected, it mainly presents with numbness and heaviness in one or both lower limbs, followed by muscle tension and difficulty walking, especially when climbing or going up and down stairs. If it is severe, unsteadiness in walking and feeling like stepping on cotton with both feet may occur. Some patients also experience abnormal sensations in the trunk, as if the body is being constricted by a band, clinically referred to as a girdle sensation. Some patients may feel that their lower limbs are not functioning properly, either feeling hot or cold. Another group of patients experience bladder and rectal dysfunction, including abnormal urination, urinary weakness, frequent urination, urgent urination, incomplete urination, urinary incontinence, and urinary retention. Some people mistakenly believe it is due to benign prostatic hyperplasia, although treatment for the prostate has had little or limited effect. Additionally, there may be constipation and some patients may experience decreased sexual function.

How to treat spinal cord cervical spondylosis? Spinal cord cervical spondylosis requires surgery because the essence of spinal cord cervical spondylosis is the compression of the spinal cord, resulting in sensory and motor dysfunction. Whether it is central or peripheral, upper limb or lower limb, once the spinal cord is compressed, abnormal sensations and movements occur, causing unsteadiness when walking and dropping objects. Therefore, once diagnosed with spinal cord cervical spondylosis, conservative treatment can be attempted, but not for too long. If conservative treatment fails, there is no choice but to undergo surgery in the shortest possible time to relieve the compression and allow for better recovery of the spinal cord.

Can conservative treatment cure myelopathic cervical spondylosis? Can conservative treatment cure myelopathic cervical spondylosis? Myelopathic cervical spondylosis is classified as mild, moderate, or severe. Mild cases may potentially improve with conservative treatment, but moderate and severe cases should be treated surgically. This is because only moderate and severe myelopathic cervical spondylosis present with clear symptoms of spinal cord ischemia. If timely and effective treatment is not administered at this stage, it can lead to serious consequences. Even in cases of mild cervical spondylosis, if any of the following three conditions occur during conservative treatment, surgery may also be necessary.

First, after conservative treatment, there is no improvement or the effects are not obvious, and the symptoms may even worsen, and the patient cannot tolerate it. Second, during conservative treatment, the neck is injured, and after the injury, symptoms and signs of spinal cord compression appear, and these symptoms and signs are progressively worsening.

Third, symptoms and signs of spinal cord compression have appeared, and these symptoms and signs are gradually worsening or suddenly occurring. Clinical manifestations of spinal cord type cervical spondylosis include cervical disc protrusion, osteophyte formation on the posterior edge of the vertebral body, ligament hypertrophy due to vertebral displacement, and spinal cord compression and ischemia caused by spinal cord injury. It can be divided into central and peripheral types. The onset of the central type begins in the upper limbs and progresses to the lower limbs, while the onset of the peripheral type begins in the lower limbs and progresses to the upper limbs. Both types can be classified into mild, moderate, and severe degrees. The clinical symptoms of spinal cord type cervical spondylosis mainly include myelopathic abnormal sensation, motor and reflex disorders, such as weakness in the lower limbs, heaviness when lifting the legs, limping, hyperreflexia, and even spasmodic paralysis and urinary and fecal incontinence.

Specific manifestations include: (1) Head symptoms: manifested as headaches and dizziness. (2) Upper limb symptoms: occur on one side or both sides of the upper limbs, presenting as isolated motor disorders, isolated sensory disorders, or a combination of both. Typical symptoms include numbness, soreness, burning, pain, tremors, and weakness. It can occur in one or multiple fingers, fingertips, the ulnar side or back of the hand; it can also occur in the scapula, shoulder, upper arm, or forearm; or simultaneously involve the proximal and distal parts of the upper limbs, such as simultaneous pain in both shoulders and wrists; or radiate along the direction of the nerve root. For example, if cervical osteophytes only compress the motor nerve root within the dura mater but not the sensory nerve root, the symptom will manifest as isolated motor disorders in the upper limbs.

(3) Lateralization symptoms: sensory and motor disorders occur on the same side of the upper and lower limbs, such as swelling of the right arm accompanied by pain in the right waist, right lower limb, and muscle tremors. (4) Lower limb symptoms: nerve and muscle functional disorders occur in one or both lower limbs. It can manifest as isolated lower limb motor disorders (such as weakness, tremors, leg weakness, or easy falls); isolated lower limb sensory disorders (such as abnormal sensation in both feet, numbness in both lower limbs); or simultaneous sensory and motor functional disorders.

(5) Crossed symptoms: sensory or motor disorders occur on one side and the opposite side of the lower limbs, such as numbness in one upper limb and pain in the opposite lower limb. (6) Limb symptoms: nerve functional disorders occur in all four limbs, presenting as isolated sensory disorders (such as numbness in the little toes and ulnar side of both hands); or sequential onset of sensory and motor disorders in all four limbs within a short period of time. For example, a patient who works with their head down for a long time may experience numbness in the 4th and 5th fingers of the left hand, numbness in the 4th and 5th fingers of the right hand on the third day, and numbness, weakness, difficulty lifting their legs, and unstable gait in both lower limbs on the fourth and fifth days.

The above is the explanation of the symptoms related to cervical spondylosis provided by the editor. If you want to learn more about the symptoms of cervical spondylosis and other information, please follow and bookmark this website.