Pain in the heart with osteochondrosis.

Osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine does not manifest itself as often as osteochondrosis in other departments, but it is just as rejuvenated as other types of this disease. To date, it is already diagnosed in 20-year-olds, which is associated with both lifestyle and diet.

Thoracic osteochondrosis is the least common form of pathology, but the most dangerous of all types of osteochondrosis. The symptoms of thoracic osteochondrosis are so atypical that they can be attributed to 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 lead to heart failure, and the line between these conditions is very thin.

Symptoms of osteochondrosis

The thoracic spine is less mobile due to its anatomical features. Due to this, it is less loaded, and therefore osteochondrosis appears here much less often. When the first pathological changes appear in the thoracic region, patients do not feel any signs of the disease for a long time, since it develops slowly.

The symptoms of osteochondrosis depend on the stage of development of the disease and are completely related to it. At an early stage, the symptoms are less pronounced, while late osteochondrosis provokes severe signs, for example, a feeling of pain in the heart, increased heart rate. The manifestations of the disease are as follows:

• in the first degree of the development of the disease, discomfort occurs in osteochondrosis due to a violation of the integrity of the intervertebral disc. The rupture can be provoked by a sudden clumsy movement or a large load in the region of the thoracic vertebrae. At this time, patients experience increased sensitivity in this area of the spine, experiencing severe pain and muscle tension. Patients note that the sensations are comparable to an electric shock passing through the back;
• the second degree of the disease is characterized by protrusion of the intervertebral discs, protruding up to a distance of 5 mm. The spine becomes unstable, the diagnosis requires a thorough analysis of the patient's health, since patients constantly complain of discomfort and pain behind the chest, muscle tension, which can be a symptom of various pathologies;
• the third degree of thoracic osteochondrosis has more significant manifestations: pain is more and more frequent, patients suffer from respiratory problems (sudden shortness of breath, a feeling of shortness of breath), headaches, and there are interruptions in the heart 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 symptoms of pathology:

• intercostal neuralgia - a sensation of sharp pain in the sternum. At first, the point of occurrence of pain may be only in one place, but after a while, the pain completely covers the human chest. It becomes difficult for patients to breathe, change the position of the body. If you try to bend over, move or get up from one place, the painful sensations increase significantly;
• muscle spasms - the pain in the back muscles is quite strong, and the pain spreads to the lower back, it can even radiate to the abdomen and shoulders. Spasms are reflex in nature, that is, they themselves do not respond to pain, but respond to spastic contractions of other muscles;
• a feeling of discomfort that arises earlier - it can have a different strength and manifest itself long before the exacerbation. Unpleasant sensations haunt patients for several days or even several weeks before more serious signs of osteochondrosis manifest themselves. The discomfort usually appears only in the back and breastbone and may go away or get worse again;
• with osteochondrosis, the symptoms of the pathology are usually more pronounced at night. In the morning the patient feels satisfied, although in cold weather or with sudden movements the osteochondrosis reappears.

Atypical symptoms

Chondrosis is insidious because its symptoms may not resemble back pain at all. And sometimes patients do not even suspect that the problem of disorders lies precisely in the spine - they drink painkillers or heart drugs, which have absolutely nothing to do with the cause of pain.

With multiple symptoms, you should contact the clinic for professional advice from a doctor; only after a thorough examination can osteochondrosis or heart pathology be detected.

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

• the appearance of pain in the region of the heart, more similar to the symptoms of angina pectoris or even myocardial infarction. Such colic can last for weeks, and the drugs used to expand the coronary vessels have no positive effect on the situation;
• an exacerbation of the disease can lead to pain in the mammary glands and pulling sensations in women, as during pregnancy. Therefore, when such sensations appear, it is necessary to consult a mammologist;
• spastic pains in the upper abdomen, which some patients consider symptoms of gastritis, cholecystitis or pancreatitis. The pain usually worsens with increased physical activity. Such signs of pathology can seriously affect the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract;
• problems with the functioning 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 manifested, which is characterized by the appearance of very severe pain in the sternum that occurs when getting up from certain positions, sitting or lying down. Unpleasant sensations behind the sternum are so strong that patients find it difficult to breathe, there is muscle stiffness, pain when turning the neck, in the lower back.

Back pain develops slowly. At the initial stage, discomfort occurs only with active movements, and after a while it is constantly felt. At the peak of the disease, even a deep breath can cause painful back pain.

Signs of heart pain

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

• localization - the correct definition of localization will allow to partially dispel doubts about chondrosis. Pain in the heart occurs mainly clearly behind the sternum or is 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 enviable constancy, it is compressive, pressing in nature, it bakes behind the sternum, and due to the sharp nature of its appearance, such pain was called "dagger";
• provoking factors - usually pain in the heart has a clear factor, under the influence of which pressure increases and discomfort occurs. It can be both physical activity and a factor of emotional distress, stress. At rest, when a person is relaxed and not nervous, pain in the heart region usually does not occur, but even with a minimal load that caused a narrowing of the vessel, angina develops;
• the time factor: heartache does not last long, you can always set its beginning and end. As a general rule, an attack of angina pectoris sets in within a few minutes. The heart does not prick in advance, does not hurt and does not pull. Usually it is the period of previous discomfort that makes it possible to distinguish osteochondrosis from true heart pain, the duration of an attack of which is mainly limited to 15-20 minutes;
• the nature of the cessation of chest pain is an important factor that doctors also take into account when differentiating osteochondrosis from heart disease. Usually, a heart attack is pumped out quickly, while the patient needs to stop the provoking factor - stop exercising or calm down in the presence of stress. You can take a nitroglycerin tablet, which in most cases helps to eliminate discomfort and even completely stop the pain in a couple of minutes. With myocardial infarction, nitroglycerin does not cope with pain, and patients need emergency help.

Advice!These characteristics are typical of heart pain, however, angina can also cause shortness of breath, giving pain in the stomach. Therefore, the symptoms that have arisen should be analyzed in a complex, taking into account the relationship and focusing on cardiac manifestations.

Problems with the diagnosis of cardiac pathologies can not always be solved by patients who do not have at least a general idea of how true heart pain manifests itself and what discomfort with osteochondrosis looks like, so doctors advise in a situation criticism. not delay the manifestations of the pathology and always call an ambulance to help".

Osteochondrosis as a cause of heart pain

Pain behind the sternum can be a purely manifestation of osteochondrosis, a real heartache, but do not lose sight of the fact that osteochondrosis affects the heart itself. Doctors have long been talking about the connection of this disease with heart pain, but now there are scientific studies confirming the mechanism of the occurrence of heart pain, the etiology of which is problems of the musculoskeletal system, namely osteochondrosis of the thoracic region.

There are nerve connections between the spine and the heart that affect the work of the heart and lead to malfunctions in the organ. The stellate ganglion is actively involved in the innervation of the heart, from which the vertebral nerve, part of the sympathetic plexus of the spinal column, departs.

The sympathetic plexus indirectly affects the brain stem and cortex. Thus, in osteochondrosis, nerve connections can provoke a variety of cardiac pain syndromes, metabolic consequences that affect the contractility of the heart muscle, and the appearance of arrhythmias.

Few people know that both diseases develop already at the age of 40-50 years, and late diagnosis leads to combined symptoms, which leads to mistakes.

Difficulties in diagnosis are that patients suffering from osteochondrosis acquire the disease at the age of over forty to fifty years, and already at this age the first cardiac 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 occurs for the following reasons:

• insufficient diagnosis of the cause of heart pain;
• limited knowledge of cardiologists about whether the heart can hurt with osteochondrosis;
• reassessment of ECG results, according to which the patient is almost immediately labeled with one or another diagnosis;
• the absence of an x-ray, showing a pronounced sign of osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine.

Also, during diagnosis, the nature of projection pains, their localization and the sensations of patients are not always taken into account. Therefore, such shortcomings in diagnosis lead to the fact that about 80% of patients with osteochondrosis at the initial examination receive an incorrect diagnosis - coronary heart disease. Even an ECG with a high peak T wave confirms this diagnosis, but doctors, not understanding whether the heart or osteochondrosis, prefer the first factor.

Only with additional examination and radiographs it is possible to establish that the pain in the heart with osteochondrosis is neurodystrophic, and not ischemic in nature. It was she who influenced cardialgia, provoking characteristic manifestations and, as a result, errors in diagnosis. Studies also note that pain in the heart occurs more often in those patients who already have pathologies of the organ, in particular, atherosclerotic changes in the vessels.

Important!The main threat in the diagnosis of such pain is the proportion of the coronary and non-coronary component as the cause of the discomfort behind the sternum. This facet, which is the effect of osteochondrosis on the heart, is extremely difficult to highlight.

There were studies that looked at a patient with coronary insufficiency, a severe angiotic condition, who did not develop myocardial infarction within a week of cardiospasm, even though the ECG data was quite threatening. However, the degree of severity spoke 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 the indicators of the work of the heart, and predict possible threats to the patient's life, because with a linked genesis - coronary and non-coronary : it is extremely difficult to point out the proportion of each. According to statistics, patients in one hundred percent of cases come to the clinic for urgent care precisely with a diagnosis of pre-infarction or myocardial infarction.

Elimination of pain

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

• bed rest is recommended until the pain is completely gone;
• to eliminate heart pain, it is necessary to take analgesics, antispasmodics, patients will be recommended steroidal or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs when osteochondrosis is detected, but they should not be abused due to their adverse effects on the gastrointestinal tract;
• In addition to medicines for oral use, you can use various anesthetic creams, gels and oils. Effective remedies with safe components are drugs based on bee venom, turpentine, tea tree oil;
• to activate blood circulation, nootropics, chondroprotectors, vasodilators and diuretics will be useful;
• an excellent effect on the body of a sick person will be the passage of a course of physiotherapy. The prescribed methods will help to cope with the manifestations of osteochondrosis and strengthen the body with heart pain;
• Spinal acupressure with a specific focus on damaged tissues will help deal with back pain and muscle stiffness. All areas subject to spasm relax, 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 the projection to the thoracic spine. You can visit the pool, take a special physical training;
• the diet will help get rid of pain - the doctor will separately recommend products for the pathology of the musculoskeletal system, as well as correct the nutrition of the nuclei and enrich them with the substances necessary for the normal functioning of the heart muscle. Traditionally, for all patients, you need to pay attention to the use of fat, sweet, salty, if necessary, you need to reduce excess weight.

The 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 pathologies, traumatic injuries, hereditary factors, stress, metabolic disorders, imperfect working conditions, hormonal disturbances. Osteochondrosis itself can cause pain similar to heart pain, and also indirectly affect the development of heart pathology.

To differentiate the pathology, a special diagnostic test is carried out - novocaine blockade of the stellate node, which helps to find out the patient's diagnosis and correctly assess the condition of her. In addition, it is also worth considering the irradiation of pain, the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of cardiovascular drugs, the presence of ECG changes made at different times.

Treatment is prescribed depending on the cause of the disease, which can be recognized after a thorough examination. Cardiac drugs 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.