Lumbar degeneration

As we age, our body functions also age, and intervertebral disc problems continue to emerge, becoming a common problem for most elderly people. The original low back pain and soreness gradually evolve into leg numbness, soreness and even affect walking. In addition to the basic lumbar disc herniation problem, the elderly will also have lumbar degenerative lesions. This article introduces the problem of lumbar degenerative lesions. Let's take a look.

The clinical symptoms caused by lumbar degenerative changes are mainly low back pain and pain in the waist and legs. However, when taking lumbar spine X-rays, degenerative changes of the vertebrae are not always visible. On the contrary, not all patients with degenerative changes in the lumbar vertebrae and joints shown on X-rays have symptoms of low back pain and leg numbness. It can be said that there is not necessarily a connection between the two.

Lumbar degenerative disease

Once lumbar degeneration occurs, it is progressive and irreversible, and a considerable number of people may experience clinical symptoms mainly characterized by low back pain. It can be roughly divided into four stages:

1. Clinical asymptomatic period

The patient does not have symptoms of low back pain, but sometimes only feels that the waist muscles are easily fatigued. Especially after sitting or standing for a long time, you will feel obvious discomfort in your waist. There are no positive findings on X-rays, or only mild degenerative changes are seen.

2. Pain reaction period

During this stage, the patient's low back pain symptoms gradually increase. Sometimes, even after treatment, the pain is only slightly relieved. A small number of patients will also experience pain in one lower limb, and muscle spasms will occur due to the pain. Forced postures may occur (in addition to standing or lying, people must sit or have special postures or forced postures required for work and life. For example, accountants, typists, and people who continue to work in front of computers are prone to soft tissue injuries in the neck, shoulders, waist, and back due to sitting and lowering their heads for long periods of time). Low back pain is often limited to the lower back or involves the buttocks, which is often called "lumbar dysfunction." Treatment must be started as early as possible. Patients with lumbar spondylosis who already have obvious symptoms can directly contact the author of this article, Mr. Ma, who can recommend a special plaster for the treatment of lumbar disc herniation.

3. Unstable period

When the lumbar disc degeneration reaches a certain extent, the elasticity of the annulus fibrosus and the nucleus pulposus are destroyed, and the "linkage device" that enables the upper and lower cartilage plates to move against each other is also damaged, causing normal activities to lose balance. The lesions often start with a few stages and gradually expand to multiple stages.

If there are AP and lateral X-rays of the lumbar spine at this time, you can see the displacement of the lumbar spine, obvious degenerative changes, proliferation, hypertrophy, and intramembranous ossification of the upper and lower perichondrium of the vertebral body, which is also objective evidence of stage instability.

4. Stable period

When the degenerative changes reach a certain extent, the intervertebral disc atrophies or becomes completely fibrotic, resulting in stiffness. X-rays show bone hyperplasia and osteophyte formation in the lumbar vertebrae. Among the clinical symptoms: the pain in the waist and legs tends to ease, but some patients have neurological localization symptoms, which gradually become obvious.

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