What to do if your cervical spine is stiff and painful

Cervical spondylosis can cause symptoms such as stiffness and pain in our neck. At this time, we can use hot compresses to relieve cervical stiffness, and do some cervical massage to relieve it. For neck stiffness and pain caused by cervical spondylosis, we recommend that patients stop and rest to allow the cervical vertebrae in the neck to relax. Let us now introduce to you how to treat cervical stiffness and pain.

1. What is the best way to treat neck stiffness and pain?

The health care for cervical spondylosis is actually very simple. Most of them are some small matters that we need to pay attention to in our lives. Let me explain to you below. Pillows and sleep are one of the health care for cervical spondylosis. The center of the pillow should be slightly concave, with a height of 12~16cm. The neck should be resting on the pillow, not hanging in the air, so that the head remains slightly tilted back.

For those who are accustomed to side sleeping, the pillow should be placed at the same height as the shoulder. When sleeping, do not lie down and read, and do not put your hands above your head for a long time. Use 2 kg of soybeans as a headrest when sleeping. After drying, put them into a thin cloth bag. Make a pillow that is one foot long and half a foot wide. Before going to bed at night, use your hands to make a depression in the middle of the soybean pillow, with the height lower than your fist. When sleeping on your back, use your shoulders to support the bulging soybeans on both sides of the pillow. This can relieve the uncomfortable symptoms of cervical spondylosis. The symptoms of cervical spondylosis will improve in 7-15 days. To maintain cervical spondylosis, you need to avoid hyperextension and hyperflexion of the neck. Patients with spinal cervical spondylosis should avoid hyperextension and hyperflexion of the neck when washing their face, brushing their teeth, drinking water, and writing.

Patients with cervical spondylosis should stop some activities, which is also the health care common sense of cervical spondylosis. During the illness of cervical spondylosis, they should stop doing certain activities that over-activate the cervical spine, such as wiping high glass. The above is the health care work for cervical spondylosis. I hope everyone can understand the health care knowledge of cervical spondylosis clearly, cure cervical spondylosis in time, and do effective care to prevent cervical spondylosis at home.

2. Long-term harm of stiff neck pain

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 vertebrae, 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, fear of light, tearing, unequal pupil size, and even narrowing of the visual field and sharp decrease in vision. Some patients may even go blind. This is related to ischemic lesions in the occipital lobe visual center of the brain caused by autonomic nervous system disorders and insufficient blood supply to the vertebral-basilar artery due to cervical spondylosis.

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

4. Hypertension and cervical spondylosis: It can cause high or low blood pressure, among which high blood pressure is more common, which is called "cervical hypertension". Since cervical spondylosis and hypertension are common diseases among middle-aged and elderly people, the two often coexist.

5. Chest pain: It manifests as slow-onset, persistent unilateral pectoralis major and breast pain. There is tenderness in the pectoralis major muscle during examination. This is related to compression of the C6 and C7 nerve roots by cervical bone spurs.