Treatment of Cervical Spondylosis with Degenerative cervical myelopathy: Cervical spondylotic myelopathy

Ross Hauser, MD

Treatment of Cervical Spondylosis

It can be said that Cervical Spondylosis is an umbrella term used to describe degenerative changes in the cervical spine when there is no clear answer as to why you or a particular patient continues to suffer from any one of a long list of symptoms that your doctor has attributed to a problem in your neck.
In the many patients we have seen, there is confusion, there is frustration, there is seemingly no plan that these people can see that will help them.

Many patients who visit us have stories of a long medical history. They will tell us about their decades-long battle managing their “health problems.”

Patients will tell us about their dizziness and their diagnosis of Cervical Vertigo and Cervicogenic Dizziness
Patients will tell us about their neck pain and vision problems
Patients will tell us about their headaches
Patients will tell us about a numbness or pins and needles sensation on one side of their face. Some will even have a diagnosis of Trigeminal neuralgia
Patients will tell us about fainting or nearly passing out from turning their head one way or another and problems we attribute to Vertebrobasilar insufficiency
Of course, there will be long medical histories and treatments and possibly surgeries for continued neck pain that radiates into their shoulder, back, arms and for some even into their feet.

The reasons for spinal arthrodesis or fusion of the cervical spine include:

(1) to support the spine when its structural integrity has been severely compromised (to reestablish clinical stability),

(2) to maintain correction following mechanical straightening of the spine in scoliosis or kyphosis following osteotomy/laminectomy of the spine,

(3) to alleviate or eliminate pain by stiffening a region of the spine (i.e., diminishing movement between various segments of the spine), and

(4) to prevent progression of deformity of the spine as in scoliosis, kyphosis, and spondylolisthesis. The risks of spinal surgery include infection; excessive bleeding; adverse reaction to anesthesia; chronic neck or arm pain; inadequate symptom relief; damage to the nerves, nerve roots or spinal cord; spinal instability; damage to the esophagus, trachea or vocal cords; injury to the carotid or vertebral arteries; and subsequent stroke and non-healing of the fusion.

In the almost 30 years I have been a physician, there is not one body part where the surgical technique is the same today as it was when I started. Unfortunately, most of the surgeries that I assisted on in my training are basically not even done any more because they were such dismal failures.

Degenerative cervical myelopathy – a lack of understanding – diagnostic confusion and surgery recommendations

These people are in our examination rooms because they are looking for answers that they have not found in years of searching and they are fighting the feeling of abandonment from doctors who they believe have a lack of understanding of how to help them.

The patients will describe diagnosis after diagnosis, medical test after medical test, medication after medication, all with no or short-term help for them. When all these treatments have failed, the patients tell us they get recommended for psychological counseling because they are depressed nothing has helped them. Some will tell us that even their family and friends have started to doubt that their symptoms are real. Especially when stomach problems and nausea become common.

This article will present evidence that cervical neck instability from weakened and damaged cervical ligaments is the cause of Cervical Spondylosis related symptoms and that this problem can be helped with Prolotherapy injections by way of repair of the damaged ligaments.

Degenerative cervical myelopathy – a lack of understanding discussed in the medical literature

Cervical spondylosis is a non-specific degenerative process of the cervical spine, which can cause varying degrees of stenosis of both the central spinal canal and intervertebral neural foramina. Factors contributing to this narrowing include degenerative disc, osteophytes, and hypertrophy of the lamina, articular facets, ligamentum flavum, and posterior longitudinal ligament. Unfortunately patients and many surgeons do not consider factors such as the loss of the cervical lordosis, vertebral body subluxation and most importantly cervical instability in the mix, as all of these are treatable. Many are left with the belief that it is just osteoarthritis and nothing can be done about it or that the bone spurring has to be taken out by surgery.

Let’s look at an April 2021 study in the Journal of neurosurgery. Spine, (1) lead by researchers at the University of Toronto. What the researchers said was that while “Degenerative cervical myelopathy is among the most common pathologies affecting the spinal cord but its natural history is poorly characterized.” To help with this understanding the researchers then, “investigating functional outcomes in patients with Degenerative cervical myelopathy who were managed nonoperatively (after they had cervical spine surgery that did not alleviate many of their symptoms or conditions) as well as the utility of quantitative clinical measures and MRI to detect deterioration.”

Looking at patients after they had surgery

In this study, the doctors looked at patients who were newly diagnosed with Degenerative cervical myelopathy or recurrent myelopathic symptoms after having a previous surgery. They were now being managed non-surgically.

Symptoms

The researchers then reviewed these patient’s charts and MRI scans for worsening compression or increased signal change (The MRI’s determination that increasing or worsening spinal cord compression is occurring).

Neurological Functional Assessments

The patients were then assessed using standard scoring systems for:
- Motor function
- Upper extremity function.
- Grip Strength
- Sensation
- Dexterity
- Balance
- Gait stability and variance

These researchers discovered that progressive deterioration was best detected with grip strength, hand dexterity, and gait stability. Using an MRI to assess symptoms was considered a poor diagnostic choice.

So what does this mean? It’s an understanding.

Patients who had cervical spine surgery to address functional symptoms of degenerative cervical myelopathy following the surgery can have the severity of their degenerative condition better understood by loss of grip strength and gait instability. MRIs, for the most part will not help diagnosis or treatment for this patient group. Okay, we have this information. What do we do with it?

Static spinal stenosis and dynamic spinal stenosis

In my opinion, it is of great importance for the patient contemplating cervical surgery, including fusion, to know the difference between static spinal stenosis and dynamic spinal stenosis.

Dynamic spinal canal or neural foramina stenosis means symptomatic narrowing of the space is occurring with motion. The reason for this is an inability of the primary stabilizing structures, the spinal ligaments, from keeping the adjacent vertebrae from moving. This can only be objectively documented by motion x-rays, MRI or CT scans. With these scans it is easy to tell the difference between static and dynamic spinal canal and neural foraminal stenosis.

Dynamic or motion spinal canal and neural foraminal stenosis can treated by Prolotherapy injections which are described below, whereas static cervical spinal and foraminal stenosis may require surgery, especially if nervous system injury is imminent. The difference is the fact that symptoms of dynamic stenosis occur with movement, whereas static stenosis symptoms occur 24/7 and there is no real position that gives relief.

Treatment for degenerative changes in the cervical spine

It typically begins with repetitive actions “overuse injury,” that results in sprains (ligament damage) and rotational strains or compressive forces to the spine. This causes injury to the cervical facet joints which in turn can jeopardize the natural function of the cervical ligaments and cause cervical facet joint pain. Further degeneration can lead to abnormal motion in the cervical spine and cartilage breakdown.

In our own published research, we documented that the use of conventional modalities for chronic neck pain remains debatable, most treatments have had limited success and despite providing temporary relief of symptoms, these treatments do not address the specific problems of healing and are not likely to offer long-term cures.(2)

In this research, our team led by Danielle Steilen-Matias, MMS, PA-C, noted that the capsular ligaments are the main stabilizing structures of the facet joints in the cervical spine and have been implicated as a major source of chronic neck pain. Such pain often reflects a state of instability in the cervical spine and is a symptom common to a number of conditions such as:

disc herniation,
cervical spondylosis,
whiplash injury and whiplash associated disorder,
post-concussion syndrome,
vertebrobasilar insufficiency,
and Barré-Liéou syndrome.

In the lower cervical spine (C3-C7), this can cause muscle spasms, crepitation, and/or paresthesia in addition to chronic neck pain. In either case, the presence of excessive motion between two adjacent cervical vertebrae and these associated symptoms is described as cervical instability.

Surgery

Many people with cervical conditions, including cervical spondylosis, choose neck surgery as a treatment option. When a single nerve root is involved from a herniated disc, a posterior microdiscectomy is performed. When nerve roots (whether single or multiple) are involved because of cervical spondylotic osteophytes, a posterior decompression with a laminectomy and foraminotomy can be performed. There are various different operations to take out the bone, disc, and even ligaments to give the nerves more space. These include anterior cervical discectomy or corpectomy, posterior microdiscectomy, posterior cervical laminectomy and of course, if the surgeon feels that so much tissue had to be taken out that the spine is now unstable, then a fusion also has to be performed. When compression of the spinal cord occurs because of severe cervical instability, an anterior cervical decompression and fusion is often the operation of choice, though artificial disc replacements are gaining in popularity. The reasons for spinal arthrodesis or fusion of the cervical spine include (1) to support the spine when its structural integrity has been severely compromised (to reestablish clinical stability), (2) to maintain correction following mechanical straightening of the spine in scoliosis or kyphosis following osteotomy/laminectomy of the spine, (3) to alleviate or eliminate pain by stiffening a region of the spine (i.e., diminishing movement between various segments of the spine), and (4) to prevent progression of deformity of the spine as in scoliosis, kyphosis, and spondylolisthesis. The risks of spinal surgery include infection; excessive bleeding; adverse reaction to anesthesia; chronic neck or arm pain; inadequate symptom relief; damage to the nerves, nerve roots or spinal cord; spinal instability; damage to the esophagus, trachea or vocal cords; injury to the carotid or vertebral arteries; and subsequent stroke and non-healing of the fusion.

Understanding Prolotherapy treatment is understanding that we are treating Cervical Spondylosis by treating cervical instability

In the our research study cited above we looked at how Cervical Spondylosis was described in the medical literature:

Cervical Spondylosis has previously been described as occurring in three stages:
- The dysfunctional stage: The dysfunctional phase is characterized by cervical capsular ligament injuries and subsequent cartilage degeneration and synovitis, ultimately leading to abnormal motion in the cervical spine. Over time, facet joint dysfunction intensifies as ligament weakness and laxity occurs. This stretching response can cause cervical instability, marking the unstable stage.
- The unstable stage: During the degenerative progression occurring in the intervertebral discs, along with other parts of the cervical spine, ankylosis (stiffening of the joints) can also occur at the unstable cervical spine segment.
- The stabilization stage: The stabilization phase occurs with the formation of marginal osteophytes (bone spurs) as the body tries to heal the spine. These bridging bony deposits can lead to a natural fusion of the affected vertebrae.

The degenerative cascade that causes Cervical Spondylosis, however, begins long before symptoms become evident.

In its beginning stages, spondylosis develops silently and is asymptomatic. When symptoms of cervical spondylosis do develop, they are generally nonspecific and include neck pain and stiffness. Only rarely do neurologic symptoms develop (ie, radiculopathy or myelopathy), and most often they occur in people with congenitally narrowed spinal canals.
Physical exam findings are often limited to a restricted range of neck motion and poorly localized tenderness.
Clinical symptoms commonly manifest when a new cervical ligament injury is superimposed on the underlying degeneration.
In patients with spondylosis and underlying capsular ligament laxity, cervical radiculopathy is more likely to occur because the neural foramina may already be narrowed from facet joint hypertrophy and disc degeneration, enabling any new injury to more readily pinch on an exiting nerve root.

When the ligaments aren’t strong enough to support the cervical spine – Doctors do not expect recovery with conventional treatments

Korean doctors writing in the medical publication the Asian spine journal give a good summary of the problem Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament.

Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament is a condition of abnormal calcification of the posterior longitudinal ligament. The most common location is at the cervical spine region. Compression of spinal cord caused by ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament may lead to neurologic symptoms and in the cases with severe neurologic deficit, surgical treatments are required.

However, the exact pathogenesis (origins) and natural history (progression) of ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament remain unclear, there is no standard treatment for patients with asymptomatic ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament, and there is disagreement about the best surgical approach for cervical fusion surgery.(3)

The same research team also gives us a good idea of the progression of treatments that lead to unsure surgery recommendation

As symptomatic treatments, pain medication, topical agents, anti-inflammatory drugs, antidepressants, anticonvulsants, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and opioid can be applied, and bed rest and assist devices, such as a brace, are recommended for local stabilization. However, once the symptoms of myelopathy, such as gait disturbance and disorders of fine motor movement in the hand develop, appropriate recovery is not expected with conservative treatments. The patient moves onto surgery.

The research cited above comes from 2011, in a new study from August 2017, doctors at the Fujian Medical University in China published research in the medical journal Medicine that evaluated the effectiveness of various surgical interventions for the management of cervical spondylosis due to the ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament.(4)

What is interesting in this study is that the doctors found success in treating patients surgically in a manner similar to the concepts of Prolotherapy. Let’s look at this fascinating comparison in bullet points:

The Chinese doctors found that cervical fusion for cervical spondylosis due to the ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament worked better if it was performed early in the patient’s diagnosis.
- Clearly we find comprehensive Prolotherapy works better when treatment occurs earlier in the diagnosis rather than later.
The researchers found that patients in more significant pain improved the most. Patients with less significant pain did not improve that much.
- We also find that in many patients with significant pain, even the smallest relief is greatly magnified. In patients with less pain, there is obviously less significant pain improvement. For instance a patient with a 2 out of 10 pain who jumps to 0 – has moved 2 levels. A patient with level 9 pain that improves to level 5 pain has jumped 4 levels. The pain relief is then much more significant. HOWEVER, our argument is why go through the high risk of cervical fusion for relief of lower level pain. See below.
The researchers found that addressing the problem of neck pain by creating stability were the posterior longitudinal ligament had become stiff and painful significantly helped patients.
- We find that Prolotherapy addresses the problem of neck pain by creating stability were the posterior longitudinal ligament had become stiff and painful significantly helped patients in a non-surgical way.

Let’s finish up this comparison with conclusion notes from surgeons:

There can be limited (successful) surgical outcomes after laminoplasty (the creation of more space for the nerves by removal of bone) with risk of kyphotic cervical alignment (the cervical spine curves forward after failed cervical surgery), the spinal canal occupation, (bone growth filling in the cervical spinal canals causing cervical stenosis) reossification, (calcium and bone buildup return to the soft tissue to assist in cervical neck stability). And hypermobility of the cervical spine (Cervical instability)
Laminoplasty has been advocated because of its preservation of neck range of motion compared with laminectomy with fusion. However, ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament is different from other etiological factors of myelopathy with respect to neck range of motion that may incite further progression of ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament.
- (This is extraordinary. Laminoplasty is prefered because the neck maintains its natural range of motion. However, this may lead to bone and calcium formation in the posterior longitudinal ligament. The range of motion after laminoplasty is unstable. Successful surgery did not correct the problem.)

In our clinical and research observations, we have documented that Prolotherapy can offer answers for sufferers of cervical instability, as it treats the problem at its source. Prolotherapy to the various structures of the neck eliminates the instability and the sympathetic symptoms without many of the short-term and long-term risks of cervical fusion. We concluded that in many cases of chronic neck pain, the cause may be underlying joint instability and capsular ligament laxity. Furthermore, we contend that the use of comprehensive Prolotherapy appears to be an effective treatment for chronic neck pain and cervical instability, especially when due to ligament laxity. The technique is safe and relatively non-invasive as well as efficacious in relieving chronic neck pain and its associated symptoms.

Medical research validating the use of Comprehensive Prolotherapy, from simple dextrose injections to stem cell prolotherapy injections is not new. There are 55 years of research supporting the use of Prolotherapy for problems of the neck and head.(5)

If you have questions about Cervical Spondylosis, you can get help and information from our Caring Medical Staff

References for this article:

1 Martin AR, Kalsi-Ryan S, Akbar MA, Rienmueller AC, Badhiwala JH, Wilson JR, Tetreault LA, Nouri A, Massicotte EM, Fehlings MG. Clinical outcomes of nonoperatively managed degenerative cervical myelopathy: an ambispective longitudinal cohort study in 117 patients. Journal of Neurosurgery: Spine. 2021 Apr 9;1(aop):1-9. [Google Scholar]
2. Steilen D, Hauser R, Woldin B, Sawyer S. Chronic neck pain: making the connection between capsular ligament laxity and cervical instability. Open Orthop J. 2014 Oct 1;8:326-45. doi: 10.2174/1874325001408010326. eCollection 2014. [Google Scholar]
3. Choi BW, Song KJ, Chang H. Ossification of the posterior longitudinal ligament: a review of literature. Asian spine journal. 2011 Dec 1;5(4):267-76. [Google Scholar]
4. Wu D, Liu CZ, Yang H, Li H, Chen N. Surgical interventions for cervical spondylosis due to ossification of posterior longitudinal ligament: A meta-analysis. Medicine. 2017 Aug 1;96(33):e7590. [Pubmed] [Google Scholar]
5. HACKETT GS, Huang TC, RAFTERY A. Prolotherapy for headache. Headache: The Journal of Head and Face Pain. 1962 Apr 1;2(1):20-8. [Google Scholar]

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