What is the problem of spondylitis

The occurrence of spondylitis can easily cause many functional disorders. Patients may not be able to complete movements such as bending over and expanding their chest in daily life. Therefore, they should pay attention to self-care and maintenance. When pain or discomfort symptoms are found, timely examination and treatment should be carried out.

The functional impairment caused by spinal deformity and ankylosing spondylosis will cause great pain and difficulty for patients to perform movements such as bending, expanding the chest and flexing the neck. In order to reduce or prevent these adverse consequences, in addition to receiving various examinations and treatments from doctors, patients should learn self-care, such as careful and long-term posture exercises (initially under the guidance of a physical therapist), with the aim of achieving and maintaining the best position of the spine, strengthening the paraspinal muscles and increasing lung capacity. The first thing to do when resting is to maintain a proper posture. You should sleep on a hard bed, lie on your back, and avoid positions that promote flexion deformity.

1. Chronic inflammatory low back pain is usually the earliest manifestation, characterized by insidious onset, pain lasting more than three months, worsening after rest, and improvement after exercise. Patients often have morning stiffness and even wake up in the middle of the night due to stiffness and pain.

2. Usually the earliest site of disease is the sacroiliac joint. The pain can radiate to the buttocks and the back of the thigh, and sometimes to the outside or front of the thigh. It usually does not reach below the knee. As the disease progresses, the inflammation gradually spreads to the lumbar spine and thoracic spine, and finally affects the cervical spine. The range of motion of the spine deteriorates. In the early stage, the backward and lateral bending are limited, and in the late stage, the forward bending is also limited.

3. Patients often experience pain near the sternocostal joints or costovertebral joints, which is mainly caused by inflammation at the attachment of the tendons. The pain feels similar to pleural pain. The pain increases when inhaling, and there is local tenderness. It needs to be differentiated from pleurisy. This inflammation can eventually lead to a decrease in the ability of the chest cavity to expand, making the patient's breathing mainly dependent on the rise and fall of the diaphragm.

4. Some patients will have peripheral arthritis, most commonly in the hip joint, and other common joints are the shoulder joint, knee joint, ankle joint, etc. About a quarter of patients have hip arthritis, which can cause limited joint movement, difficulty squatting, lameness, and unequal length of the feet in severe cases.

5. Pathologies at the attachment points of tendons and ligaments to bones, such as Achilles tendonitis in the heel and plantar fasciitis in the sole of the foot, can cause redness, swelling, heat and pain, and may even affect walking. The tendon attachment points near the pelvis are also often inflamed, with local tenderness.