What is Cervical Spondylosis?

Author: Ambika Nayak

Neck pain is very common. Cervical spondylosis is a degenerative disease that affects the spinal disks in the neck. It is a very common condition affecting more than 80% of the population over the age of 60 years. Cervical Spondylosis can manage by Ayurveda medicine and panchakarma treatment.

It is often caused by many things, and is most frequently associated with getting older.

Like the remainder of the body, the bones within the neck (cervical spine) slowly degenerate as we age. This frequently leads to arthritis. Arthritis of the neck is named cervical spondylosis.

Cervical spondylosis is that the degeneration of the joints within the neck. Although it's a sort of arthritis, cervical spondylosis rarely becomes a crippling or disabling type.

Understanding your spine and the way it works can assist you better understand cervical spondylosis.

Causes

In the spine, arthritis may result because the disk degenerates and loses water content. In children and young adults, disks have high water content. As we grow old, our disks begin to dry out and weaken. This problem causes settling, or collapse, of the disc space s and loss of disk space height.

As the facet joints experience increased pressure, they also begin to degenerate and develop arthritis, almost like the hip or knee. The cartilage that covers and protects the joints wears away.

If the cartilage wears away completely, it may result in bone rubbing on bone. To form up for the lost cartilage, your body may respond by growing new bone in your facet joints to assist support the vertebrae. Over time, this bone overgrowth called spurs may narrow the space for the nerves to undergo (stenosis).

(Left) view of a healthy neck bone and disk.

(Right) A disk that has degenerated and collapsed.

Symptoms

Pains from cervical spondylosis are often mild to severe. It’s sometimes worsened by looking up or down for an extended time, or with activities like driving or reading a book. It also feels better with rest or lying down.

Additional symptoms include:

  • Neck pain and stiffness (may be worse with activity)
  • Numbness and weakness in arms, hands, and fingers
  • Trouble walking, loss of balance, or weakness in hands or legs
  • Muscle spasms in neck and shoulders
  • Headaches
  • Grinding and popping sound/feeling in neck with movement

Spondylosis Ayurvedic treatment is at Astang Ayurveda by the specialist expert Ayurveda doctor in spondylitis.