The technical progress improved the life of modern man. Where before there were factories, now, for the most part, there are the shopping centres, theatres and beauty salons. The process of the production of goods is almost completely mechanized and computerized. And the same capacity gradually replaced the services sector. The man in the meantime to spend hours in front of the office, trying to find a way to effectively sell, a marketing move or the other option is to get money from the wallets of others. And then he sits in the car and with comfort, in a driving seat going home. Of course, we have designed the perfect image, not to mention traffic, offices stifling, the vehicle, which has a good part of the population, etc., But those who do not want to live comfortably?
However, many of them use to be such a comfort? Our century has already announced a century of inactivity, which involves a lot of unpleasant consequences. Cardiovascular diseases, mass obesity, hypertension, sciatica and other disorders that are included in the bundle with the staff of the machine, a soft office chair and study. But the most common disease, that we're paying for a sedentary lifestyle, is low back pain. To him is dedicated this article.
Low back pain
What is back pain? Consider the mechanism of development and types of illness When we hear of osteochondrosis, in the first place, we think that the back pain and muscles. But in and of itself the disease directly the muscular does not care. Pathological changes occur in the cartilage, which are available in all the joints of our body.
Cartilage performs protective and cushioning functions. Moreover, special secret, which lubricates the joint surfaces, reducing friction during the movement of the bones. But in some cases, the cartilage is consumed (degenerative). In addition, when metabolic disorders, lack of one or other vitamins and minerals, and even when hereditary metabolic errors broken the nutrition of the cartilage tissue, and loses its strength and elasticity. This condition bears the name of muscular dystrophy.
Then, the low back pain is degenerative-degenerative changes of the cartilage. Theoretically pathological can affect any joint. But, in practice, the low back pain affects most often the spinal column. And depending on which part of the spine is localized to the process, to distinguish between lumbar, thoracic and cervical back pain.
Imagine our spinal column. Is composed of the individual formations in the bone of the vertebrae. Each vertebra has a body and a pair of appendages. Between the body and spikes there is a hole, through which passes gloster of the spinal cord. The vertebrae are arranged in such a way that the holes form a hollow tube – the spinal canal. The body of the vertebrae are located one above the other, and between them are the layer of cartilage – the intervertebral discs cartilage. They function as shock absorbers, mitigating the impacts and reducing the load on the spine when walking or other movements of a person. The vertebrae have similar structure, and of different sizes. The exception of a couple of vertebrae fused. sacro-coccygeal department, and of the seven elements of the cervical spine,which differ in their structure.
The spine is represented in four departments:
- cervical (from the 1st to the 7th vertebrae);
- chest (from 8 ° to 12°);
- lumbar (from 13 ° to 18°);
- the sacrum and the coccyx (this department consists of the building were the bones, and because it is not involved in the pathological process).
Therefore, osteochondrosis of the vertebral column is divided into three main types, which we have indicated above.
The types of degenerative disc disease
The most frequent back pain of the cervical spine, as well as the cervical vertebrae have a different structure and muscle, supports the spine, this part developed a rather weak one. In the course of time at the level of cervical or any other spinal disc of hyaline cartilage starts to harden, losing its elasticity, and the vertebrae closer to one another. The result of this can be injury to the nerve fibres or vascular. As a result, is broken by the innervation and vascularization of the competent organs, which leads to disorders in their work, the reduction of motor activity, the onset of pain. In addition, in the case of displacement of the vertebrae, its flowering can irritate the muscle tissue in this field, which leads to muscle spasm. But in the background of the disease, muscle to the machine and so must perform a double work, compensating for the decline in the shock absorbing function of the spine and the change of position of the vertebral bodies.
Together with shoulder strap, very often with lumbo-sacral backache, which develops on the background of regular high loads on your back, lifting weights, and so on.
Thoracic low back pain develops more frequently than the first two varieties of diseases. Moreover, its diagnosis is difficult, however, the disease has a variety of non-specific symptoms, similar to symptoms of angina. To underline the fact, that in and of itself, the body of the vertebrae, cartilage, nerve fibers, brain and spinal cord are not applied to the receptors of the pain and then the pain in osteochondrosis is wearing an indirect nature. Osteochondrosis also considered some variety Osteochondropathy, which have a slightly different etiology. About them we still talk about in our article.
The causes of the disease
The main reason for the development of degenerative disc disease – inactivity – we started her story. As the saying goes, the movement – life! As the lack of proper physical activity can affect the state of our joints and spine? The fact is that our back is the natural muscle that supports the spine and helps to properly carry out its functions. However, in the absence of physical exercise and the muscle decreases, the spine loses support, the main load falls on the intervertebral discs, cartilage, and with the time exposed to the degenerative changes.
However, excessive physical activity, for example, professional athletes, can also lead to degeneration and degeneration of the cartilage, and thus trigger the development of osteoarthritis and other Osteochondropathy. Therefore, in this sense, it is necessary to respect the medium, in order to avoid health problems.
An important role in the development of degenerative disc disease plays a style of life of modern man. In addition to the lack of adequate physical activity, this can be attributed to an unbalanced diet, lack of vitamins and minerals in the diet, tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, use in everyday life and in the work place irregular furniture, sleep on a mattress of soft, wrong postures, vehicle driving, working conditions and cosìvia
Overall, all this inevitably leads to the rupture of the nutrition of the cartilage, loss of quality characteristics (resistance, elasticity, flexibility) and the development of degenerative disc disease. Flat feet – another fairly frequent cause of degenerative disc disease. It would seem that the relationship between the deformation of the arch of the foot can have back pain, and even more so in the neck? It turns out, is more direct. Arrest of a person is organized in a way that is able to allocate correctly the weight of your body when you walk. In the process of evolution in the bones of the foot have formed two of the longitudinal arch and a transverse. Thanks to this structure, together with the advent of the physiological curves of the spinal column, it was possible to the biped position human. If the arch of the foot for one reason or another flattens, and all the moved load on the spine. And this and back pain, and limit the amount of movements, and also migraine.
In recent years, many scholars in large part the development of osteoarthritis affects inheritance.
The symptoms of degenerative disc disease
How to recognize low back pain? The symptoms of degenerative disc disease is very varied. Even if most of us only know about the main symptoms of this disease: muscle pain and difficulty in movement. However, we are not in enough detail talked about the mechanism of development of degenerative disc disease. After all, the signs of this disease are directly linked to the processes that occur during the development of malocclusion.
Then, as we already know, all of the symptoms of osteoarthritis are associated with compressed blood vessels and nerve fibers, with the consequent violation of the stimulation and nutrition to the muscles, organs and tissues. And then the pathological changes will concern not only of the muscular system. So, the symptoms of cervical osteoarthritis is and frequent headaches, and also dizziness, together with muscular pain of the neck and of the shoulder girdle.
Headache with osteochondrosis of the cervical has vascular origin: the flow of blood in the tissues of the brain and the nerve cells experience hypoxia. This is due to and dizziness, which sometimes can be up to syncope. Circulatory disorders associated with neck osteochondrosis, in rare cases, can also cause hearing loss of the patient, infringement of coordination of movement (the precariousness of gait), hoarseness of the voice. Snoring can also indicate the development of osteoarthritis.
If dystrophic changes affect the intervertebral discs of the department of spine , the back pain manifests itself on the sore back, its localization, the adhesion component of asthma, cardiac pains. Sometimes the patient can be shortness of breath and arrhythmia. Patients often confused appearance, heart with coronary artery disease (chest (from toad). But this type of pain is of the heart, there are a number of distinguishing features. Subjectively they can be perceived as a "pole" in the chest. Intake of nitrates and other medications antianginosi't relieve the pain. Angina a person increases the anxiety and also the fear of death. Thoracic back pain has no such symptoms. Sometimes kardialgija, called osteochondrosis of the spine can last a couple of days, but is not in danger of life of a person. Ischemic pain in the heart of short duration, but their abandonment may lead to myocardial infarction, and promptly provided medical care during an attack of angina can be a cause of death.
Low back pain lumbosacral spine is characterized by pain in the lower back. The pain may radiate to the lower limbs. The patient may also experience difficulty walking, which is associated with a reduction of the tone that inspired the segment of the spinal cord muscle. Pain have a lot of character. Sometimes the patient is difficult to straighten the back, get up from the bed or change the position of the body. Reflexes in the lower limbs, osteochondrosis lumbosacral reduced.
Osteochondropathy
We have already discussed in this article such a problem, as children's low back pain. The symptoms and treatment of this malocclusion are slightly different from those of the adults. This is due, in the main, with this, the concept of the child's degenerative disc disease involves several Osteochondropathy. The most common are:
- disease Keller,
- the disease of Osgood–Schlatter's disease,
- the disease the President-May,
- the disease Legg-Calve-Peters.
The disease of Keller common in children in the age group of 8 to 12 years of age, but may also evolve, and in adulthood, which happens a lot less often. This malocclusion affects the spongy substance of the bones of the foot. In addition, there are two main types of this disease. Disease Keller the first type hits the scaphoid. If the disease is the second type, the pathological concern metatarsals.
Alzheimer's disease Schlatter's disease affecting tibial bone in the area under the places of interest such as the patella and develops in an age group from 11 to 14 years. Predisposing factors are sports activities (football, basketball, running, jumping, etc). Also the appearance of the disease may be due to the discrepancy between the rate of growth of the bones of the adolescent and the development of cartilage tissue.
The disease the President-May or curvature of the spine, is one of the varieties of breastfeeding degenerative disc disease. The development of this malocclusion, usually in children and adolescents aged 8 to 14 years, however, for a long time, neither the child nor the parents may not notice any abnormalities serious. The visible symptom is the posture of the child.
The disease of Legg-Calvör-Bonne – is a malocclusion that affects the thigh, and more precisely its head, in the area where there is cartilage. The disease affects most often the children of 4-x, 14 years old, and manifests itself in their lameness. In this malocclusion occur in necrotic changes in the tissues of the head of the femur, which have non-communicable diseases (aseptic) predictions. Often, the cause of the disease is a hereditary predisposition. In the early stages the child begins to lame by. Later the child appear pain in the area of the hip and of the knee, especially when driving.
Prevention of degenerative disc disease in the pediatric age group is that of moderate physical activity, wear comfortable shoes, and correction to maintain the correct posture, for which there is a special exercise program. Low back pain and pregnancy without a Doubt, if a woman suffering from osteochondrosis, what planning a pregnancy, must do in advance the treatment of this disease. Even if you finally cure this disease is impossible, as well as fully restore the cartilage is not possible.
Together with adequate physical activity, moderation and balance in food will help you to normalize weight and next keep it under control. Normal weight – a commitment to your well-being and the health of your back. And back a healthy and robust rejuvenating sleep, and the lack of headaches, and the prevention of other diseases of the musculoskeletal system. Loving yourself, pay more attention and take care of your health!