2015-07-19 [20:14:13] | Edit 2015-07-19 [23:08:24] | Post 2015-07-20 (23 page)
▲ Dr.Hoyoungo-Gang in Dongnae Wooridul Hospital is treating a patient who has thoracic disc prolapse with endoscope. Dongnae Wooridul Hospital provided.
When we think about disc prolapse, usually the waist and neck come to our mind first.
There are lots of patients who have problems and pain on the lumber and cervical spine.
There is a disc on the thoracic spine but it is not common so that not well known.
It has similar symptoms as heart disease, but it cannot be found with MRI, CT check.
The patients who have thoracic discs are not common compared to the patients who have discs on the lumber or cervical spine. It only takes around 1% of the whole disc patients.
It comes with numbness on the arms or legs. Keep away from slouch.
Thoracic disc prolapse has similar symptoms on the back and the chest as the symptoms of heart disease or the other diseases, so it’s not easy to make an accurate diagnosis.
■If you feel any pain on the back and the chest, it has to be suspected.
A has a pain on the left rib at some point. She’s always felt kind of tightening on the rib and the chest. It gets worse when she was sitting for a while, and it gets better while she was lying.
She has seen a doctor saying that it is because of stress, so she considered it not that seriously. However, the numbness has been spreading out to the chest, even arms and legs as well. A had MRI, CT, ultrasound, endoscopy, and heart disease check, but there are no problems.
She visited lots of hospital with an unknown pain, and she ended up identifying the disease that she has. She had tiny disc prolapses on between 3 and 4, 6 and 7 in the back.
Patients who have a thoracic disc prolapse are not common compared to the patients who have a cervical disc and a herniated disc.
Dr.Hoyang-Gang in Dongnae Wooridul Hospital in Busan said “a thoracic vertebra which consists of 12 bones has a stable structure with ribs, and there are not much of movements so the disc prolapse is not common.” “According to the research result, it only takes around 1% of the whole disc patients rate.” Recently, they are doing MRI check for whole of spine so a thoracic disc prolapse has founded sometimes, but normally, there is no symptoms.
The most common symptom of a thoracic disc prolapse is a pain on the back and the chest.
If you have a thoracic disc prolapse on the top part, near the neck, some numbness on the arms and pain on the shoulders and neck may be happened. If there is a problem on the thoracic disc near the waist, you will feel pain on the waist and your sides, even numbness of legs may be included.
Before and after the endoscopy treatment for a thoracic disc prolapse. The disc which was out toward to the nerve is removed after the treatment.
■Straight posture is the best way
Disc prolapse is strongly related with the bending forward posture.
If you keep your posture bending forward side for a while, it leads spine regression. Bad posture makes the muscle and ligament tense, it makes not to spread power to the discs properly. That’s why the thoracic disc prolapse is coming with discs on the lumber or cervical spine.
If you have a good posture that doesn’t damage on the spine, you don’t have to worry about the thoracic disc prolapse.
If you have thoracic disc prolapse caused by the bad posture maintained for a while, proper treatment is important.
In case of not much serious level of the disc prolapse, it may be better with the simple injection treatment. However, it needs detailed treatment because there are important organs such as heart, lung, liver on the chest which thoracic is located, and there is a central nerve between the thoracic. It need to be seen with CT video, check the way for needle earlier, and then deliver the drug on the exact part.
If the injection treatment doesn’t work, percutaneous endoscopy disc remove treatment which is preferred method for disc prolapse could be used. It is a treatment using laser and high frequency with endoscopy to remove the disc which is pushing the nerve. It is preferred method because it needs only local anesthetic, leads to recover quickly, and it doesn’t make any scars.
Dr.Gang mentioned that “Thoracic is connected with ribs and the distance between discs is narrow so it’s not easy to access”, and “It makes the nerve and lung damage when the treated area missed slightly, it is needed to be seen the treated area and the progress with CT in real time, so it has to be ended up without any error.”
The remedy of thoracic disc prolapse is not totally different with the prolapse of lumber or cervical spine. It has to be kept with principle of the treatment.
Hynwoo Lee/ hooree@busan.com
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