What accompanying symptoms occur?
Spinal osteoarthritis manifests itself mainly through pain in the spine. In the early stages, one speaks of so-called “tarnishing pain“. These occur in the morning after getting up.
When the spinal column suddenly has to carry the body weight again, the individual vertebral bodies are pressed together more strongly. When they move, they shift against each other, which can lead to pain. Apart from these initial pains, affected persons are normally free of complaints when at rest.
The pain typically occurs during movement and loading, as the vertebral joints are particularly stressed. If the entire spine is affected by osteoarthritis, the pain usually first manifests itself in the lumbar region, since this is where the greatest weight must be carried. Over time, the degenerative changes move further and further upwards until the entire spine is affected.
In addition, the back pain usually leads to increased tension of the back muscles, which in turn spreads to the entire back. In addition to cartilage and bone damage, spinal arthrosis can also affect the nerve fibers. Therefore, additional symptoms such as shooting nerve pain can occur.
From the lumbar spine, they typically radiate into the buttocks and thigh. From the cervical spine, the arms, shoulders, neck and back of the head are more likely to be affected. Back pain in spinal osteoarthritis can initially be explained by the degenerative changes.
Due to the wear and tear of intervertebral discs and cartilage, the vertebral bone is not sufficiently protected, the sensitive periosteum is irritated and causes stress-related back pain. In addition, the vertebrae rub directly against each other, causing small bone splinters to come off. These remain in the joint space and intensify the bone abrasion there, which accelerates the formation of arthrosis.
However, back pain is not only due to the bone damage. The initial pain causes tension in the back muscles.After a certain time, these tensions affect the entire back, regardless of where exactly the arthrosis is located in the spine. This creates a vicious circle, since a tense back musculature in turn offers less protection against new impacts that further intensify the arthrosis.
In spinal osteoarthritis, back pain is thus composed of two components: localized pain at the arthrotically altered vertebral joints and generalized back pain due to the reflexively tense back muscles. In many cases, the intervertebral discs or the loss of discs are the cause of spinal osteoarthritis. A herniated disc, for example, can cause the vertebrae to collide directly with each other and form arthrosis.
At the same time, the intervertebral disc presses on the spinal cord and causes nerve pain. Due to the arthrotic changes themselves, the joint space between the vertebral bodies becomes smaller. The nerves at their exit points may become trapped or irritated. Nerve pain is typically a pulling pain that radiates into the supplying areas (leg, buttocks or arm and shoulder).
