How osteochondrosis can affect the brain

Hello (this is important!) Dear reader - this is a continuation of the story of my acquaintance with osteochondrosis.



From the last article you could conclude that the entire spine will necessarily react to the displacement of any vertebra - from the heel to the skull. The most terrible problems begin when the reaction begins - the neck.



In this article, you will learn: - where scoliosis / hyperlordosis ends, from which a piece of brain can die, where muscle atrophy can start on one side, what is the relationship between hysteria and heels, how can you save 10-20 heartbeats per minute and why pain eliminates depressed.



So, by that time about a year had passed, for the reasons described in the last article, the front of the uppermost vertebra of my chest was several centimeters higher than the back. This significantly changed the angle at which the neck began (slightly more than in the first picture). To understand what this leads to, let's see what the most balanced combination of muscles looks like to hold the head.







Muscles with green arrows evenly pull the skull to the front and back of the chest, which causes the neck to bend forward, which regulate the stair muscles with the blue arrow, pressing any vertebra to the scapula, they pull it back a little.



Now look what happens to these muscles when the neck is bent.







The distance between the back of the head and the back of the shoulders will decrease (red arrow), the back muscle will lose tension and begin to atrophy.



The anterior sternoclavicular muscle, on the contrary, will begin to counteract the stretching (purple arrow). Those who are familiar with the laws of physics know that energy is consumed only during acceleration (in this case, contraction), so a muscle in a tense state can remain forever, but there are also laws of biology, a muscle in a tense state cannot multiply and not be pumped work out. In the long run (several months), the adaptation will completely transform the muscle into a tendon.



In this case, only the scalene muscle (blue arrow) will hardly change its functionality, but it will take on the additional load. The head of a person weighs about 5 kg., Which is not a large load for muscles (some people can hang on their finger tips, and there are much smaller muscles in size), and increasing the load on the neck muscles is even 3–4 times a problem ... for muscles is not problem.



In the last picture, I curved my neck along with the ribcage, i.e. there is already a pathology in the upper thoracic vertebra, can neck bending cause pathology in this vertebra? - yes, but it is a longer process and in it a large role is played by long-term adaptations, which mitigate the accompanying “injuries”.



In my case, the problem came from below, the hyperlordosis of the lower back relaxed the back muscles (under tension they would increase the hyperlordosis), the entire load passed to the front muscles, which in turn pulled the front of the chest down and turned the upper vertebra of the chest on the ribs, the head went forward. The aforementioned scalene muscle is attached to the posterior part (spinous process) of the upper thoracic vertebra and during tension, it additionally rotated the thoracic vertebra forward (which was already standing on the ribs, degrees 10-15 on each side), all this happened in 2-3 weeks ( from the time when the thoracic vertebra got on the ribs), there was no time for long adaptations and the anterior muscle from the skull to the chest did not come up with anything better than stupidly entering the hypertonus, which meant that a part of the chest hung on the skull. It is easy by the way, but it’s dangerous to check in yourself, straighten your neck to the maximum straight line, if you feel how your spinal cord starts to pull down your brain, then I warned you that it is dangerous and never do what you are advised on the Internet. . If you have become fearless and you have nothing to lose, then from a straight position, begin to bend the neck (so that the lower part of the skull approaches the shoulders), remember the moment when your shoulders stop falling along with your head, if your usual position of the head is lower, you have an energy-efficient walking skill, otherwise you have to move your shoulders with your head - which hang on it and you can save a couple of heartbeats per minute.



Instead of short / effective scalene muscles (more than I’ve shown), other muscles can hold the neck.







Naturally, all these muscles also squeeze the skull by squeezing the intervertebral discs and can increase the weight of the head several times, moreover, all these muscles are located behind the neck and grow from the back of the skull (in front of the throat, if there were muscles - they would squeeze it) . The most serious problems begin when the uppermost vertebra moves, which holds the skull. If you are a believer, then in such a situation you need to pray to the mighty ancient Greek Titan Atlanta / Atlas, who holds the firmament on his shoulders (In the photo - right under the skull).





If it seemed to you that the artery goes straight through the vertebra, then it did not seem to you.



What began to happen in my case, first the fifth vertebra cracked and began to squeeze the throat, then the vertebrae began to crackle higher, and finally the atlas began to move - and with it the brain stem also began to move, strange nausea began to appear and saliva. Then my knowledge of the brain was based on the only book of AG Nevzorov - The origin of the person and the intellect of man. In short, the book describes the history of neurophysiology, how the brain looked tens of millions of years ago, what theories of consciousness existed 50 years ago and what experiments they refuted. And all this is 30% diluted with the branded Nevzorovsky pathos. Aleksandr Glebovich’s own hypothesis is approximately the following: Millions of years ago, animals, like now breeding (choosing sexual partners, may have fallen in love), fed (they were afraid of large predators), but their brain was hundreds of times smaller than today and naturally neither bark, neither the hemispheres nor the mass of other modern bells and whistles they had. The most ancient structure of the brain is the brain stem, therefore, all instincts are located in it, and it has a decisive influence on the personality of animals.



Such knowledge did not add optimism, but at that time I was advised by a chiropractor with 20 years of experience. In the first session, he vowed to cure all my problems in three minutes 4 sessions. In general, his strategy was the following - to rub / heat muscles in 30-40 minutes using oil as a heat carrier, and then with relaxed muscles - he began to reduce vertebrae, starting from the chest. Sitting on my back, he pressed his hand to the vertebra, something crunched and felt like muscles begin to relax. From the crunch in his working hand, it became approximately clear how many times he did it. Then he did some exercises on the neck - pulling it out, and lastly, he did 1 exercise on the lower back.



By session 5, I began to suspect that he stole my chest and put a new one in its place. It turned out that there are combinations of vertebrae, when, when standing / walking, the muscles in the shoulders are not needed at all - everything “hangs” on the bones, neither the neck nor the rib cage bend even with relaxed muscles. After the sessions, on the way home, I just learned to walk again. The breathing has also changed, if earlier I breathed with the whole chest, now I began to breathe mainly the lower part, i.e. to take a breath you need to raise all the ribs and move them in different directions, in my case, the shoulders were rigidly fixed and the chest hung on them (the need to raise the ribs disappeared), mostly the lower part was removed, I also found that I had a diaphragm which began by raising / lowering to ventilate the lungs from below.







The combination was extremely energy efficient, at that time, I began to measure the pulse and pressure, before and after the sessions, the only thing I understood when observing the pressure was that it was different, but the pulse after the sessions always decreased, at most from 100 to 70 only 10-15 strokes. Now I understand that at that time the spine was most likely in the most upright position and energy efficiency also had to be paid for, naturally the chest was in front and with a straight spine outweighed, only the knees could be bent to shift the center of gravity parts of the chest and remain upright.









As elsewhere, you have to pay capital for energy efficiency. For 5-10 years, such a combination is unlikely to lead to serious consequences (if you came to it slowly and without injury / treatment - when the bones are displaced - the eggs will immediately and completely end up in hypertonia). The Achilles tendon grows into the heel (if you believe the Wikipedia gossip, it can withstand a tensile load of 300 kg), then it turns into calf muscles (the strongest muscles in a person), then the thigh muscles (which are more than 10) will evenly distribute the load on the pelvis, and then the gluteal muscles begin to put pressure on the sacrum (4 fused vertebrae) from behind; in fact, a lever is obtained, pressure on the 4 fused vertebra from below, keeps 26 upper vertebrae from rotating. As you know, the more complex the mechanism, the more likely it is to break, so the feet end before everyone else.







The calf pulls the heel up, the bone pushes down - thereby rotating it and making the foot flat, the short flexor of the fingers can counteract the flatfoot. Naturally, the muscle designed to flex the toes cannot boast of a 300 kg tensile tendon. and calves, which sometimes tear the Achilles tendon in runners at the start. With long-term adaptation, the heel will acquire a bone outgrowth (heel spur), thereby increasing the depth of the tendons, and the muscle will turn into a bundle.





It looks more like the tendon is “pulled out” slowly along with the bone.



How much time the finger flexor can balance the calves is a difficult question, in the period of 10-20 years the injury factor appears. For example, when knees are bent, the calf tension cannot be less than your body weight, moreover, calves can additionally be used to flatten the pelvis / spine (the knees just bent like that), therefore, tuck the foot while pulling the calf in 80-100 kg. extremely dangerous event. In my case, from the loin to the feet, the changes came in ~ 2 years, they sometimes began to crunch, the lower “arc” of the foot periodically changes - these are of course not problems.



On my 7th trip to the manual therapist, the loin also became smoother, and the connection between the calves and the loin surprised me the most. Calves are not just relaxed - they turned into a "liquid". Previously, when I slept on my back, I had 2 pillows under my feet, and after relaxing them, my foot came down 2 centimeters, my heel was the fulcrum and sometimes because of this little thing I could not sleep for hours.



At the same time, other unexpected problems began to appear. It turned out that the personal qualities of the doctor also play a big role. I was advised by the drivers - who have spinal problems starting from the neck - apparently this was his main client base and he treated them mainly in the neck (50 minutes and 5 minutes of the back), to my statements that there are more muscles in the lower back, bones there thicker and it is treated probably more slowly than the neck, he replied: - "I am a doctor, and you are a patient, but when you finish the medical, then you will cripple people as you like."



He showed exercises for home for 50 seconds while I was putting on shoes, during which time he could show 8-10 exercises 1 time, most of the exercises were not directed ala - “but it will help”, the only directional exercise was “lamb”, you need It was necessary to bend the head forward, so that 2 long extensors of the neck would be strained and holding the forehead with hands, to push the head forward. How detailed and long (2 minutes, instead of 10 seconds on average) he described this exercise alerted me, naturally - neither how many times to do it, nor what should happen, nor when to stop doing it, nor what side effects could it have did not report.



One day, the manual therapist still spent 30 minutes on the lower back, before that he told me about one wonderful device Somebody bought back in the USSR, he was a cube ~ 1x1x1 cm, and inside 30-40 needles (needles are shorter than the side walls) , almost a quote: - right now they make such rubbish, I go to the store, and there are only 3 needles and the probability of getting into the biologically active tissues is extremely small. The procedure is quite predictable, he took this device and pressed on the sacrum and lower vertebrae of the lower back, the first 20 seconds were a little painful, then the lower back was taken away and no longer painful, by the end of the procedure I did not feel the hips. The numbness of the muscles, of course, had a positive effect, and the lower back in subsequent exercises began to crunch in new places. But there was more harm, the next day it seemed to me that I was close to a nervous breakdown (I didn’t have a real one, so I don’t know before or after), all my muscles were strangely tense, my hands were shaking, most of all I was surprised by hot temper. A good analogy is “the cup of patience,” any little thing could instantly drive into a state of rage (if the muscles were relaxed, you probably would have been hysterical), that day the saleswoman in front of me closed the cashier, and you can’t imagine what I kept myself from. Hot temper faded away for 3 days, and I stopped noticing the other side effects after 3 weeks. Subsequently, I noticed several times a decrease in the “cup of patience” after exercises related to the load on the sacrum. The load on the sacrum by the way can occur when walking on heels (have you ever noticed the connection between heels and hysterics?). For those who are interested in the influence of the foot on the entire spine, you can watch a video of a qualified doctor.







But the main problem was that the store where I worked closed and the treatment had to be urgently finished. By that time, I had money for a maximum of 5 sessions, the loin was “shaken” and I began to get “crunch” with independent exercises on the bar, then it seemed to me that I had to straighten 3 vertebrae (2 joints) in the lower back (before chiropractor was 4-5). In the end, I decided to leave the money in case of emergency and treated on my own. I was looking for work for about a week, it turned out that the chest was, though new, but Chinese. After each session, the neck began to move forward, as I described in the last article, thanks to the ribs, the rib cage has a huge potential to compensate for “pathologies” in the lower back. During treatment, the doctor straightened these compensations and although the loins eventually became “straighter”, the neck began to take a greater part in shifting the center (line) of severity and eventually found itself in a position worse than before the treatment. To the “before treatment” state the neck returned after 3 days, another 2 days later the vertebra began to press on the throat so that it became difficult to swallow solid food, by the end of the week the upper cervical vertebra shifted again (the chiropractor put it in place for ~ 8 session) .



To straighten the waist, I crossed my legs over the horizontal bar (the bar was between the legs) and hung for 10-20 seconds, most of the load was on that leg, which was at the bottom. At the same time, asymmetry began to appear, the left side crunched with a smaller load and more often, after 10-15 days the exercise stopped working, and the left side stretched more than the right. From this, the loins began to whine with a new force, the aching pain creates and the whining mood, in fact, you become a whiner, you want to sleep, cry, and I have watched at least 3 different emotional effects with problems at different levels of the spine. Also, when walking, a non-local breaking pain appeared on the entire right leg, which was clearly associated with a nerve clamping.



In general, an extreme case came and I had to go to a manual therapist, it turned out he went on vacation and would be only a week later, I did not want to risk and go to another, nevertheless, he straightened my neck perfectly. I decided to wait for him and go to the regional hospital for a rheumatologist. Again, these watch lines, the neck "rolled" forward, my head ached terribly and I held it with my hands. Reaching the doctor, she interviewed me, looked at my posture, prescribed 6 tests and prescribed 8 types of pills. By how enthusiastically she told, some kind of rubbish that is sexually transmitted can gnaw through the spine and begin to eat the spinal cord, it became clear that she did not possess the technique of therapeutic massage. The analyzes included an MRI of the sacro-lumbar region, by that time about 16 months had passed after the first severe pains, and I thought that protrusions of intervertebral discs could appear (volume reduction and, as a result, vertebrae convergence) and / or hernia (convergence of vertebrae to one on the other hand, the most dangerous case is when the fibrous ring of the intervertebral disk breaks and the fluid flows out).







I decided to do MRI in the same regional hospital, the poster indicated the duration of the procedure 40-60 minutes, I spent 15 minutes in the device and after 10 minutes I was given a conclusion - there were no pathologies and no anomalies and the disk with the MRI was given.I was still surprised then, the last time a radiologist looked at my X-ray picture for 20 minutes and wrote 5 lines in prison, and then 50 shots in 10 minutes. Before that, I looked at the MRI images on the Internet and the hernia is the most noticeable, they would have definitely found it, but I wouldn’t have found the smaller hernia itself, I haven't had a CD-rom for 5 years, and I decided to MRI myself Do not look and continue to do exercises on the back without fear.



The last 4 days of waiting for the manual, I slept 18 hours a day, my head was spinning, I didn’t want to eat, my condition was sleepy and I had a feeling of some kind of dullness, it was impossible to read about anatomy. When he reached the manual, he straightened his neck a little, his throat became less squeezed, but his waist did not crack at all that day. Once he told about his friend, a fellow student, also a manual therapist, I asked for his number and went to him.



By that time I had already gone for 12-15 sessions, all the exercises were aimed at stretching the neck and it seemed to me that the neck was too stretched. When he came to the first session at the new doctor, he showed me all the 4 large vessels reaching my head (2 entrances, 2 exits), and they all ached, the method of muscle relaxation became clear through the crunch in his fingers - pinching. Instead of heating oil, he used ointments, which only created a feeling of heating and in general his movements seemed less accurate, but he did not have a diagnosis of “It’s my fault” and at my request to work with the loins he kindly picked it for 40 minutes. In the second session, the loins began to crunch and eventually the penultimate joint crunched, it is noteworthy that he did the exercise to me only on the right side. Even during the massage, he once said,that problems in the neck can provoke feelings of anxiety (for example, it seems that the door forgot to close). A year ago, I really went out to the store for 22 minutes and did not close the door, and during those 22 minutes 3 drug addicts carried a telephone and speakers from my computer from my apartment, I concluded that I didn’t have any extra alarm. According to the results of 2 sessions, the neck more or less kept, and the waist began to crunch again on the horizontal bar. Unfortunately, this was my last visit to the doctor.and the loin began to crunch again on the horizontal bar. Unfortunately, this was my last visit to the doctor.and the loin began to crunch again on the horizontal bar. Unfortunately, this was my last visit to the doctor.



Over the next month, the loins slowly crunched, the neck recombined sometimes in poor condition, sometimes in terrible, there was no help to wait for, my stepfather didn’t really get into what was happening, and my mother after 20,000 rubles diagnosed Schizophrenia and occasionally mixes me with prescription sedatives in food . Then I began to think about how to repeat the manipulations of doctors, I decided to start with one dimension up / down and basically continued the strategy of pulling, most of all I was frightened by the rotation of the vertebrae, so I avoided the exercise with head turns. Basically, I held my head and strained different muscles of the neck or pressed my hand on 3-4 vertebrae and tried to stretch the vertebrae from the opposite side. By the end of the month, problems with the direct spine in the chest began to manifest.







As can be seen in the picture, the heart is located in the chest kyphosis, and the straight back began to press it to the chest, the heart itself did not hurt (there were rare, very short pains once a week / month), the right lung and vessels suffered the most.







The captain of evidence suggests that there are a huge number of vessels near the heart, and they can be compressed during the reformation of the chest, the main problem is bone squeezing of the vessel in that turbulent vortices will form, which will reduce the effective diameter of the vessel and create asymmetric pressure on its walls (purely hypothetical , the vessel may begin to vibrate), all this naturally increases the load on the heart by tens of percent. It is especially unpleasant if such a vortex enters the heart and apparently it is provided by the construction, as you can see, between the spine and the heart - there is an artery and when it is pressed, the vortices move from the heart, blood comes to the heart from below almost in a straight line and when viewed from the front, there are not even ribs in front of it. What can be said about the vessels going to the hands and head.







The probability that they are not compressed anywhere is close to 0. Then I was just beginning to study anatomy and I didn’t have time for the chest, and the problems with the neck are much more serious. The upper vertebra under the skull slowly shifted; naturally, even then (not even now), I did not even dream of manipulating fingers with them. Once, on the right side, somewhere in the waist crunched, and then after a few hours, the upper thoracic vertebra on the left side cracked, for some 30 seconds there was some relief, and then a headache began to ache terribly, again a state of dullness and drowsiness appeared. A few days later I noticed a vertical squint when I woke up, my eyes were directed almost to my legs, when raising my eyes above 10-15 degrees from a straight look, the upper muscles of my eyes started to ache, when turning the eyes down,there was a feeling that under the left eye more space than under the right. Cold tingling sensations appeared over the left hemisphere of the brain, then I thought that the left hemisphere would “stick out” from the skull and move downwards. At that time, I walked a maximum of 20 minutes a day. When the head was thrown back, the lower cervical vertebra moved forward, and I had 1.5 fingers in this recess. Over the course of 2 or 3 weeks, I with varying success influenced the width of this depression, with a slight pressure and forward movement of the cervical vertebra, after 20-30 seconds (already after manipulation) a state of some aggressive panic always occurred.When the head was thrown back, the lower cervical vertebra moved forward, and I had 1.5 fingers in this recess. Over the course of 2 or 3 weeks, I with varying success influenced the width of this depression, with a slight pressure and forward movement of the cervical vertebra, after 20-30 seconds (already after manipulation) a state of some aggressive panic always occurred.When the head was thrown back, the lower cervical vertebra moved forward, and I had 1.5 fingers in this recess. Over the course of 2 or 3 weeks, I with varying success influenced the width of this depression, with a slight pressure and forward movement of the cervical vertebra, after 20-30 seconds (already after manipulation) a state of some aggressive panic always occurred.



The last time after which I almost never returned to the lower cervical vertebra. I don’t remember from which position everything started, I tried to move the back of the thoracic vertebra down, slightly pressing it with a finger from above from this indentation, I tried to press the cervical vertebra with my throat from the front and pulled the neck down with my muscles. Naturally, he moved back and forth, after 5 minutes of such manipulations everything swam before his eyes, the state was alarmingly aggressive, coordination of hand movements did not worsen, but it seemed that the concentration on movements increased, the most difficult thing in that state was to stop these manipulations. Fortunately, then I still shifted the thoracic vertebra and when straightening the neck lying, all the vertebrae began to touch the floor, but to keep the neck in a straight state, efforts were needed,the back of the head was down and apparently the hypertonized sternoclavicular muscle had already passed into the tendon state. I kept my neck in a straight position for about 30 minutes. After 1-2 days, this muscle began to click, and it felt good as it stretches after each click, fortunately the tendon can turn back into a muscle.



Much later, trying to check the version of scoliosis of the brain and see how it looks, I began to search for an MRI of the head on the Internet. Having found a website where people with a disease are posting their MRI, after 3-4 hours of MRI scans, I found someone with something similar. Basically, the man complained of numbness of the limbs on one side and staggering when walking, described blurry vision in the periphery and this is what his MRI looks like.







It is not known whether he had head injuries and such a rotation is connected precisely with the displacement of the upper cervical vertebra, the only thing that can be excluded is that such a distortion is related to the location of the object relative to the device, the line between the hemispheres should be straight at any viewing angles.



Here are the pictures in front and behind, but here there is already an influence not from the direct angle of observation (the right eye appears 2 pictures earlier and a similar situation with the ears).







In theory, the displacement of the upper cervical vertebra primarily affects the cerebellum and when shifting to the left / right one side will begin to compress, which can lead to a drop in muscle tone on one side, which in turn will begin to form scoliosis / hyperlordosis and all that I described, only in the direction from top to bottom. Personally, in my case, I sometimes noticed left / right asymmetry of muscle tone, but it is more likely to be connected to other causes, but in the forward / back direction I definitely observed the inclusion of the posterior serratus when tilting my head back. In general, there are many factors that can disrupt muscle control. For example, here the doctor clearly demonstrates the shutdown of muscle groups.







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