Medical ozone injection therapy in cervical spondylosis
Cervical spondylosis is a disease caused by arthritic changes in the cartilage of the cervical spine, which further progresses to compression by the spinal cord or nerve roots, and is characterized by neck pain, nerve root lesions and spinal cord lesions. Some studies have shown that neck pain is the second ranked painful disease. If cervical spondylosis is not treated reasonably, neck pain will accompany the development of cervical spondylosis, and severe neuropathic pain may appear at a later stage, which not only leads to the reduction of the patient’s function in daily life activities, but in serious cases can also lead to disability.
With the change of smart office, study, entertainment and lifestyle, the prevalence of cervical spondylosis is increasing year by year and showing a trend of youthfulness and popularization, and the pain caused by it has become an important issue of increasing concern in today’s society. Cervical spondylosis is a chronic disease, and the treatment is based on relieving pain, improving the function of the cervical spine and relieving nerve compression. In recent years, the methods to improve the pain of cervical spondylosis have become more and more diversified, such as acupuncture, Chinese medicine, cervical spine surgery, traction, physical therapy, and so on. Among them, medical ozone injection therapy is simple, low cost, less traumatic, less complications, and can play an anti-inflammatory and analgesic role in both conservative therapy and minimally invasive surgical therapy for cervical spondylosis, which is widely recognized by orthopedic surgeons and patients.
Medical ozone injection therapy has achieved good results in the application of cervical spondylosis, which is closely related to its mechanism of action in the treatment of cervical spondylosis, mainly in the following aspects.
1) Analgesic mechanism. The development of cervical spondylosis is closely related to inflammatory factors. Studies have shown that medical ozone injection has anti-inflammatory and pain-reducing effects in the treatment of neurogenic cervical spondylosis. In addition, The analgesic mechanism of medical ozone is related to its stimulation of nerve endings to induce activation of endorphins in the nervous system, which inhibits the transmission of peripheral injurious stimulus signals to higher centers, thus producing analgesia.
2) Antioxidant mechanism. Another important reason for medical ozone treatment of cervical spondylosis is related to its strong oxidative properties. Medical ozone has a strong antioxidant capacity, which can oxidize proteoglycans in the nucleus pulposus, reduce the osmotic pressure in the nucleus pulposus, make the disc degenerate, dry up and crumple, release the spinal cord and nerve root pressure, and achieve the effect of solving the patient’s pain.
3) Other mechanisms. Medical ozone can improve local blood circulation in damaged tissues such as ligaments, tendons, and articular cartilage as well as increase oxygen loading for the purpose of repairing healing tissues. Outside the intervertebral disc, medical ozone injection therapy exerts its inflammatory analgesic effects by increasing oxygen supply, inhibiting the release of inflammatory factors and inducing the production of antioxidant enzymes. Thus, patients with vertebral artery cervical spondylosis can improve their cerebral blood supply through the oxygen supply provided by medical ozone, thereby relieving dizziness. In addition, medical ozone injection therapy can suppress the abnormal autoimmune state of the body and down-regulate the excessive immune response to the nucleus pulposus autoantigen. In turn, it relieves nerve root edema and reduces pathological damage.
Neck pain imposes a heavy burden on individuals, families and society, and also affects medical health and the national economic system. Medical ozone has a clear mechanism to improve pain symptoms, inhibit inflammatory stimulation, improve peripheral blood flow, and thus effectively relieve neck pain. It used for the treatment of nerve root type or vertebral artery type cervical spondylosis, which has the characteristics of high safety, fast onset of action and simple operation, especially the acupoint injection method. Medical ozone injection therapy can be used both for conservative treatment of cervical spondylosis and as a complementary therapy to holmium laser disc decompression or radiofrequency ablation for cervical disc herniation, for example, as an anti-inflammatory, nerve root edema relief and prevention of intervertebral infection in patients with cervical disc compression and poor results of conservative treatment who opt for surgical treatment.
