Can cervical spondylosis cause rib pain?

Cervical spondylosis is a disease that is not unfamiliar to everyone, and it is also a health problem that troubles many people. For patients with cervical spondylosis, they need to endure great pain during the illness. Because cervical spondylosis not only causes cervical pain in patients, but also causes many complications such as rib pain, chest pain, swallowing difficulties and visual impairment. Below, we will introduce in detail some of the more common complications of cervical spondylosis.

1. Swallowing disorders

There is a feeling of obstruction when swallowing and a foreign body sensation in the esophagus. A few people experience 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

Symptoms include decreased vision, eye pain, photophobia, tearing, unequal pupil sizes, and even a narrowing of the visual field and a 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 autonomic nervous system disorders and insufficient blood supply to the vertebral-basilar artery due to cervical spondylosis.

3. Cervical heart syndrome

Symptoms include precordial pain, chest tightness, arrhythmia (such as premature beats) and ST segment changes on the electrocardiogram, and it is easily misdiagnosed as coronary heart disease. This is caused by the stimulation and compression of the cervical 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 both common diseases among middle-aged and elderly people, the two often coexist.

5. Chest pain

It presents with slow onset of persistent unilateral pectoralis major and breast pain, with pectoralis major tenderness on examination. This is related to the compression of the C6 and C7 nerve roots by cervical bone spurs.

6. Paralysis of lower limbs

The early symptoms are numbness, pain, and lameness in the lower limbs. Some patients feel like they are walking on cotton when walking. Some patients may also have bowel and urination disorders, such as frequent urination, urgency, difficulty urinating, or incontinence. This is because the lateral vertebral bundle is stimulated or compressed by the cervical bone spurs, resulting in movement and sensory disorders in the lower limbs.

7. Cataplexy

People often collapse suddenly when standing or walking due to a sudden turn of the head, which causes the body to lose support. They wake up quickly after falling to the ground, without any disturbance of consciousness or sequelae. Such patients may experience symptoms of autonomic dysfunction such as dizziness, nausea, vomiting, and sweating. This is because the proliferative changes of the cervical vertebrae compress the vertebral artery, causing obstruction of blood supply to the basilar artery, resulting in temporary cerebral ischemia.