Pain in the liver with osteochondrosis

Osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine is not often manifested as osteochondrosis in other departments, but it is just as rejuvenated as other types of this disease. To date, it is diagnosed already in young people in their 20s, which is associated with both lifestyle and diet.

Thoracic osteochondrosis is the most uncommon, but most dangerous form of pathology of all types of osteochondrosis. The symptoms of thoracic osteochondrosis are so atypical that they can be associated with other diseases, such as myocardial infarction or angina pectoris.

The disease really poses a threat, because after a while, if there is no proper treatment, osteochondrosis can trigger heart damage, and the line between these conditions is very thin.

Symptoms of osteochondrosis

The thoracic spine is less mobile due to its anatomical features. Because of this, it is less loaded, and therefore osteochondrosis appears less frequently here. When the first pathological changes appear in the thoracic region, the patient does not feel any signs of the disease for a long time, as it develops slowly.

The symptoms of osteochondrosis depend on the stage of development of the disease and are entirely associated with it. In the early stages, the symptoms are less obvious, while late osteochondrosis gives rise to serious symptoms, for example, pain in the liver, increased heart rate. The manifestations of the disease are as follows:

• in the first stage of disease development, discomfort in osteochondrosis occurs due to violation of the integrity of the intervertebral disc. Rupture can be provoked by sharp awkward movements or large loads on the thoracic vertebrae area. During these moments, patients experience increased sensitivity in this area of the spine, experiencing severe pain and muscle tension. The patient notes that the sensation is comparable to the electrical discharge that passes through the back;
• the second stage of the disease is characterized by protrusion of the intervertebral disc, which protrudes up to a distance of 5 mm. The spinal column becomes unstable, the diagnosis requires a thorough analysis of the patient's health, because the patient constantly complains of discomfort and pain in the back of the chest, muscle tension, which can be a symptom of various pathologies;
• the third stage of thoracic osteochondrosis has more pronounced manifestations - the pain becomes more frequent, the patient has respiratory problems (sudden shortness of breath, shortness of breath), feels a headache, and there is a disturbance in the liver with osteochondrosis.

Important!The fourth stage of the disease for the patient is the most dangerous. Here, osteophytes appear on the surface of the vertebrae, which compress the spinal cord and nerve endings.

At various stages of the disease, patients are haunted by the following pathological symptoms:

• intercostal neuralgia - sharp pain in the sternum. Initially, the point of appearance of pain can be only in one place, but after a while the pain completely covers the human chest. It becomes difficult for the patient to breathe, changing body position. If you try to bend, move or get up from somewhere, then the painful sensation increases significantly;
• muscle cramps - pain in the back muscles is quite strong, and the pain spreads to the lumbar zone, can radiate even to the abdomen and shoulders. Spasms are reflex, i. e. they themselves do not respond to pain, but respond to spastic contractions of other muscles;
• discomfort that arises before - it can have a different strength and manifest itself long before the deterioration. Unpleasant sensations haunt the patient for days or even weeks before the manifestation of more severe signs of osteochondrosis. Usually, the discomfort appears solely in the back and sternum and may either disappear or worsen;
• with osteochondrosis, pathological symptoms are usually more pronounced at night. By morning, the patient feels satisfactory, even in winter or with sudden movements, osteochondrosis reappears.

Atypical symptoms

Chondrosis is dangerous because its symptoms may not at all resemble back pain. And sometimes patients don’t suspect that the problem of the disorder lies right in the spine - they’re taking painkillers or heart medications, which have absolutely nothing to do with the cause of the pain.

With a variety of symptoms, you should contact the clinic for professional advice from a doctor - only after a thorough examination can osteochondrosis or cardiac pathology be detected

To suspect osteochondrosis, you need to know which manifestations may indicate the disease:

• the occurrence of pain in the heart area, more similar to the symptoms of angina pectoris or even myocardial infarction. Such colic can last for weeks, and medications used to dilate the coronary arteries have no positive effect on the condition at all;
• exacerbation of the disease can trigger pain in the mammary glands and an exciting sensation in women, such as during pregnancy. Therefore, when such a sensation appears, it is necessary to consult a mammologist;
• spastic pain in the upper abdomen, which some patients consider to be a symptom of gastritis, cholecystitis or pancreatitis. The pain usually worsens with increased physical activity. Such pathological signs can seriously affect the function of the gastrointestinal tract;
• problems with the function of the bladder and genital organs;
• pain in the pharynx and esophagus, foreign body sensation and pain when swallowing.

With osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine, Dorsago syndrome is indicated, which is characterized by the occurrence of very severe pain in the sternum that occurs when getting up from a certain position - sitting or lying down. The unpleasant sensation in the back of the sternum is so strong that it becomes difficult for the patient to breathe, there is muscle stiffness, pain when twisting the neck, in the lower back.

Dorsalgia develops slowly. In the early stages, discomfort occurs only with active movement, and after a while it is felt continuously. At the height of the disease, even long breaths can trigger painful dorsalgia.

Signs of heart disease

Patients often confuse heart pain with manifestations of osteochondrosis, and this is not surprising, because with vertebral disease, the discomfort in the sternum is so strong that patients, under fear, suspect the worst - heart problems. To distinguish heart disease from osteochondrosis, you need to know the main characteristics of heart disease:

• localization - the correct definition of localization will allow to partially dispel doubts about chondrosis. Pain in the heart mainly occurs clearly behind the sternum or localized in the left half of the sternum. It radiates between the shoulder blades, can give to the lower jaw, is felt in the left hand;
• characteristic of pain - heart pain is distinguished by an enviable firmness, it is compressive, pressing, it burns behind the sternum, and due to the sharp nature of its occurrence, such pain is called "dagger";
• provoking factors - usually pain in the heart has a clear factor, under the influence of increased stress and discomfort occurs. It can be both physical activity and emotional stress factor, stress. During rest, when a person is relaxed and not nervous, pain in the heart area usually does not occur, but even with minimal load causing vessel narrowing, angina pectoris develops;
• time factor - heart disease does not last long, you can always set its beginning and end. As a rule, an attack of angina pectoris is embedded in a few minutes. The liver is not pricked in advance, is not painful and is not attractive. Usually, it is the period of previous discomfort that makes it possible to distinguish osteochondrosis from actual heart pain, the duration of the attack being limited mainly to 15-20 minutes;
• the nature of chest pain cessation is an important factor that is also taken into account by physicians when distinguishing osteochondrosis from heart disease. Usually, a heart attack is pumped quickly, while the patient needs to stop the provoking factor - stop exercising or calm down in the presence of stress. You can take nitroglycerin tablets, which in most cases help relieve discomfort and even stop the pain completely in minutes. With myocardial infarction, nitroglycerin does not relieve pain and patients need emergency help.

Advice!These features are typical for heart disease, however, angina pectoris can also trigger shortness of breath, giving pain in the abdomen. Therefore, the symptoms that arise must be analyzed in a complex, taking into account the relationship and focusing on the manifestations of the heart.

Problems with diagnosing cardiac pathology can not always be solved by patients who do not have at least a general idea of how the actual heart disease manifests itself, and discomfort that looks like osteochondrosis, so doctors advise in critical situations not to delay pathological manifestations and always call for help. ambulance ".

Osteochondrosis as a cause of heart disease

Pain in the back of the sternum can be a manifestation of osteochondrosis alone, true heart pain, but do not forget about what osteochondrosis affects the heart in and of itself. Physicians have long talked about the association of this disease with heart disease, but now there are scientific studies that confirm the mechanism of occurrence of heart disease, the etiology of which is a problem of the musculoskeletal system, namely osteochondrosis. thoracic region.

There are neural connections between the spine and the heart that affect the work of the heart and trigger damage to organs. The stellate ganglion takes an active part in the preservation of the heart, from which the vertebral nerves depart - part of the sympathetic plexus of the spinal arteries.

The sympathetic plexus indirectly affects the brainstem and cortex. Thus, in osteochondrosis, nerve connections can trigger a variety of heart disease syndromes, metabolic consequences that affect the contraction of the heart muscle, and the occurrence of arrhythmias.

A small number of people know that both diseases develop already at the age of 40-50 years, and late diagnosis leads to combined symptoms, which lead to errors.

The difficulty in diagnosis is that patients suffering from osteochondrosis acquire the disease at the age of more than forty to fifty years, and already at this age the first heart disorders begin to appear. Therefore, the diagnosis of osteochondrosis and coronary heart disease leads to frequent errors - it is difficult to determine the etiology of pain. This happens for the following reasons:

• inadequate diagnosis of the cause of heart disease;
• limited knowledge of cardiologists about whether the heart can ache with osteochondrosis;
• reassessment of ECG results, according to which the patient is almost immediately labeled with one or another diagnosis;
• absence of x-rays, which show obvious signs of thoracic spine osteochondrosis.

Also, during diagnosis, the nature of the projected pain, their localization and the sensations of the patient are not always taken into account. Thus, the shortcomings in the diagnosis lead to the fact that about 80% of patients with osteochondrosis at the initial examination received a wrong diagnosis - coronary heart disease. Although an ECG with a high peak T wave confirms this diagnosis, doctors, without understanding whether it is heart or osteochondrosis, prefer the first factor.

Only with additional examination and x-rays is it possible to determine that the pain in the liver with osteochondrosis is neurodystrophic, and not ischemic. He is the one who affects cardialgia, provokes characteristic manifestations and, consequently, errors in diagnosis. The study also noted that pain in the heart most often occurs in patients who already have organ pathology, in particular, atherosclerotic changes in the vessels.

Important!The main threat in the diagnosis of such pain is the ratio of coronary and non -coronary components as a cause of discomfort in the back of the sternum. This aspect, which is the effect of osteochondrosis on the heart, is very difficult to distinguish.

There are studies that have observed patients with coronary insufficiency, a severe angiotic condition, who do not experience a myocardial infarction within a week after a heart attack, although ECG data are somewhat threatening. However, the severity level is 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 state of health, especially indicators of cardiac function, and predict possible threats to the patient's life, because with the associated genesis - coronary and non -coronary - it is very difficult to choose each part. . According to statistics, patients in one hundred percent of cases come to the clinic to seek immediate treatment accurately with a diagnosis of pre-infarction condition or myocardial infarction.

Elimination of pain

After the cause is explained and a diagnosis is made, the doctor will prescribe treatment - a detailed treatment regimen will help the patient control the pain and prevent the development of complications. Therapy includes medicines, physiotherapeutic treatment methods, homeopathy. The main methods of therapy are:

• bed rest is recommended until the pain is completely gone;
• to eliminate heart pain, should take analgesics, antispasmodics, patients will be recommended steroidal or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs when osteochondrosis is detected, but they should not be abused because of its adverse effects on the gastrointestinal tract;
• in addition to drugs for oral use, 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;
• to activate blood circulation, nootropic drugs, chondroprotectors, vasodilators and diuretics will be useful;
• an excellent effect on the body of the sick person will be the course of a course of physiotherapy. The prescribed method will help to cope both with the manifestations of osteochondrosis, and will strengthen the body with heart disease;
• acupressure in the spine with a special focus on damaged tissue will help to overcome back pain, muscle spasms. All areas experiencing cramps are relaxed, pain is eliminated. At the same time, acupressure will help correct posture;
• in the subacute period, physiotherapy exercises are allowed, aimed at strengthening the muscles in projection to the thoracic spine. You can visit the pool, take special fitness exercises;
• diet will help relieve pain - the doctor will separately recommend products for pathology of the musculoskeletal system, as well as correct the core nutrition, enriching it with substances necessary for normal functioning of the heart muscle. Traditionally, for all patients, you need to pay attention to the consumption of fat, sweet, salty, if necessary, you need to lose excess weight.

Most important

Osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine refers to degenerative-dystrophic lesions of cartilage tissue, as a result of which a person experiences severe pain and discomfort. The disease develops mainly in patients over forty years of age, its appearance is influenced by joint pathology, traumatic injuries, hereditary factors, stress, metabolic disorders, imperfect working conditions, hormonal disorders. Osteochondrosis itself can cause pain similar to heart disease, and also indirectly affect the development of cardiac pathology.

To distinguish pathology, special diagnostic tests are carried out - novocaine blockade of stellate nodes, which helps to know the diagnosis of the patient and assess his condition correctly. In addition, it is also worth considering the irradiation of pain, the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of cardio medications, the presence of changes in the ECG made at different times.

Treatment is prescribed depending on the cause of the disease, which can be recognized after a thorough examination. Cardiac medications are recommended for the treatment of coronary heart disease, while osteochondrosis can be cured with NSAIDs, steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, chondroprotectors, and in some cases surgery is required.