Pain in the heart with osteochondrosis

Osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine is not as often manifested as osteochondrosis in other departments, but it is just as rejuvenated as other types of this disease. To date, it is diagnosed already in 20-year-old young people, 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. 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 provoke a malfunction of the heart, and the line between these conditions is very thin.

Symptoms of osteochondrosis

The thoracic spine is less mobile due to its anatomical features. Because of this, it is less loaded, and therefore osteochondrosis appears much less frequently here. 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.

Symptoms of osteochondrosis depend on the stage of development of the disease and are entirely correlated with it. At an early stage, the symptoms are less pronounced, while late osteochondrosis provokes serious 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 in osteochondrosis occurs due to a violation of the integrity of the intervertebral disc. The rupture can be provoked by a sharp awkward movement or a large load in the region of the thoracic vertebrae. At these moments, patients suffer from increased sensitivity in this area of the spine, experience severe pain and muscle tension. Patients note that the sensations are comparable to an electrical discharge passed through the back;
• the second degree of the disease is characterized by protrusion of the intervertebral discs, which protrude up to a distance of 5 mm. The spinal column becomes unstable, diagnosis requires a thorough analysis of the patient's health, as 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 becoming more frequent, patients suffer from breathing problems (sudden shortness of breath, a feeling of lack of air), feel 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 feeling of sharp pain in the sternum. At first, the point of appearance of pain can 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 down, move or rise from a place, then the painful sensations increase significantly;
• muscle spasms - pain in the muscles of the back is quite strong, and the pain spreads to the lumbar zone, can radiate even to the abdomen and shoulders. Spasms are reflex in nature, i. e. they themselves do not respond to pain, but respond to spastic contractions of other muscles;
• a pre-arising feeling of discomfort - 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 the manifestation of more severe signs of osteochondrosis. Usually, discomfort appears purely in the back and sternum and may either disappear or worsen again;
• with osteochondrosis, the symptoms of pathology are usually more pronounced at night. By morning, the patient feels satisfactory, although in the cold season or with sudden movements, osteochondrosis reappears.

Atypical symptoms

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

With multiple symptoms, you need to contact the clinic for professional advice from a doctor - only after a comprehensive examination can osteochondrosis or cardiac pathology be detected

In order to suspect osteochondrosis, you need to know which manifestations may indicate the disease:

• the occurrence 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 do not have a positive effect on the situation at all;
• an exacerbation of the disease can provoke soreness 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 regard as symptoms of gastritis, cholecystitis or pancreatitis. 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, sensation of a foreign body and pain when swallowing.

With osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine, Dorsago syndrome is manifested, which is characterized by the occurrence 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 it becomes difficult for patients to breathe, there is muscle stiffness, pain when turning the neck, in the lower back.

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

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. In order to distinguish heart pain from osteochondrosis, you need to know the main characteristics of heart pain:

• localization - the correct definition of localization will make it possible to partially dispel doubts about chondrosis. Pain in the heart mainly occurs 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 occurrence, such pain was called "dagger";
• provoking factors - usually pain in the heart has a clear factor, under the influence of which pressure rises 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 region of the heart usually does not occur, but even with a minimal load that caused a narrowing of the vessel, angina pectoris develops;
• the time factor - heart pain does not last long, you can always establish its beginning and end. As a rule, an attack of angina pectoris is embedded in a few minutes. The heart does not prick in advance, does not ache 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 limited mainly 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 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 within a couple of minutes. With myocardial infarction, nitroglycerin does not cope with pain and patients need emergency help.

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

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

Osteochondrosis as a cause of heart pain

Soreness behind the sternum can be a manifestation of purely osteochondrosis, true heart pain, but do not lose sight of what osteochondrosis affects the heart in and of itself. Doctors have been talking about the connection of this disease with heart pain for a long time, 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 provoke malfunctions in the organ. The stellate ganglion takes an active part in the innervation of the heart, from which the vertebral nerve departs - part of the sympathetic plexus of the artery of the spine.

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

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

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 the results of the ECG, according to which the patient is almost immediately labeled with one or another diagnosis;
• the absence of an x-ray, which shows a pronounced sign of osteochondrosis of the thoracic spine.

Also, during the diagnosis, the nature of the projection pains, their localization and the sensations of patients are not always taken into account. Therefore, such shortcomings in the 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 taken with a high peaked T wave confirms this diagnosis, but doctors, without understanding whether the heart or osteochondrosis, prefer the first factor.

Only with additional examination and x-rays it is possible to establish that the pains in the heart with osteochondrosis are 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 soreness in the heart most often occurs 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 ratio of the coronary and non-coronary component as the cause of discomfort behind the sternum. This facet, which is the effect of osteochondrosis on the heart, is extremely difficult to single out.

There were studies that observed a patient with coronary insufficiency, a severe angiotic condition, who did not develop myocardial infarction within a week of cardiospasm, although the ECG data were 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 single 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 a pre-infarction condition or myocardial infarction.

Elimination of pain

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

• bed rest is recommended until the pain subsides completely;
• to eliminate heart pain, it is necessary to take analgesics, antispasmodics, patients will be recommended steroid 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 drugs for oral use, you can use various anesthetic creams, gels, oils. Effective remedies with safe components are medicines based on bee venom, turpentine, tea tree oil;
• to activate blood circulation, nootropic drugs, 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 both with the manifestations of osteochondrosis, and will strengthen the body with heart pain;
• acupressure in the spine with a specific focus on damaged tissues will help to cope with back pain, muscle stiffness. All areas subject to spasms are relaxed, soreness is eliminated. At the same time, acupressure will help to 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 special fitness training;
• dieting will help get rid of soreness - the doctor will separately recommend products for the pathology of the musculoskeletal system, as well as correct the nutrition of the cores, enrich it with substances necessary for the normal functioning of the heart muscle. Traditionally, for all patients, you need to pay attention to the use of fatty, 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 disruptions. Osteochondrosis itself can cause pain similar to heart pain, and also indirectly affect the development of cardiac pathology.

To differentiate the pathology, a special diagnostic test is carried out - novocaine blockade of the stellate node, which helps to find out the diagnosis of the patient and correctly assess his condition. Additionally, it is also worth considering the irradiation of pain, the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of cardio drugs, the presence of changes in the ECG 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.