What are the hazards and complications of cervical spondylosis?

Cervical spondylosis is an extremely serious disease with great harmful effects. In the early stages of the disease, it can cause symptoms such as neck discomfort, dizziness, headache, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and irritability. In the late stages, patients will experience symptoms such as cataplexy, arm numbness, hemiplegia, and paralysis. In addition, this disease has many complications, mainly manifested in difficulty swallowing, visual impairment, cervical heart syndrome, etc.

1. Complications of cervical spondylosis

1. Swallowing disorder: There is a feeling of obstruction when swallowing and a foreign body sensation in the esophagus. A few people have symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, hoarseness, dry cough, and chest tightness. This is due to the direct compression of the posterior wall of the esophagus by the front edge of the cervical spine, causing esophageal stenosis. It may also be caused by the rapid formation of bone spurs, which causes irritation of the soft tissue around the esophagus.

2. Visual impairment: manifested as decreased vision, eye pain, photophobia, tearing, unequal pupil sizes, and even narrowing of the visual field and sharp decrease in vision. Some patients may even go blind. This is related to the ischemic lesions in the visual center of the occipital lobe of the brain caused by the autonomic nervous system disorder and insufficient blood supply to the vertebral basilar artery caused by the harm of cervical spondylosis.

3. Cervical syndrome: manifested by precordial pain, chest tightness, arrhythmia (such as cardiac arrest, etc.) and ST segment changes on the electrocardiogram, which can be easily misdiagnosed as coronary heart disease. This is caused by the stimulation and compression of the cervical nerve roots by cervical bone spurs.

2. How serious is the harm of cervical spondylosis

Mild (early stage)

1. Headache, dizziness, neck discomfort and pain, and crackling noises during activities.

2. Frequent dreams, easy to be excited, upset, pain in the forehead and behind the head, and a feeling of "a lid being added" to the head.

3. Chest tightness, shortness of breath, and pain in the precordial area are easily misdiagnosed as "angina pectoris"; loss of appetite, upper abdominal distension and pain are easily misdiagnosed as "gastric ulcer"; pain in both shoulders is easily misdiagnosed as "periarthritis of the shoulder".

4. Both lower limbs are weak and heavy as if filled with lead, and there is a "band-like feeling" in the chest and waist.

5. Pain in the limbs, sweating, increased sensitivity of the finger nerves, facial muscle twitching, eye twitching, and palpitations.

6. My hands are cold and numb, my upper limbs, shoulders, and neck are numb and painful, I feel restless, and I don’t know where to put my head and neck.

Severe (late stage)

1. Cataplexy: suddenly fainting on the ground during daily activities and recovering on its own after about 3 minutes; and this happens multiple times. Such patients should avoid dangerous work, as the consequences of an attack are dangerous. The cause is compression of the second segment of the vertebral artery.

2. Numbness and pain in one or both fingers, weakness and atrophy of hand and upper limb muscles.

3. The neck is stiff, and the slightest movement causes an "electric shock-like sensation" and stars in the head.

4. Migraine that is difficult to diagnose and treat.

5. Upper limb pain, paresthesia, unclear radial artery pulse, pale and swollen limbs.

6. Some people may suffer from cerebral infarction, cerebral atrophy, etc. due to vertebral artery spasm and embolism.