Vertebro-basilar insufficiency is characterized by a deterioration in the functioning of the brain due to a weakening of blood flow in the vertebral and basilar arteries. The main artery of the brain is the basilar one, into which the rest of the arteries fit as they approach this organ. When vascular insufficiency occurs, its cells do not receive the necessary nutrition, which leads to a variety of functional disorders of the nervous system.
Vertebro-basilar insufficiency on the background of cervical osteochondrosis
Most of all this pathology is affected by those people who suffer from osteochondrosis. In this condition, dyscirculation (impaired blood flow) of blood develops in the main arteries of the spine. Virtually every third patient with osteochondrosis has vertebro-basilar insufficiency. A similar pathological condition can occur in all people, regardless of age, but it is successfully treated and completely reversible. Nevertheless, if such a diagnosis is not determined in time and treatment is not started, there is a high probability that the patient will develop a stroke.
Causes of pathology
Medical science knows a great many factors that can provoke vertebro-basilar insufficiency. The most common ones include:
- Congenital predisposition to the disease. These can be all kinds of pathologies in the structure of blood vessels and hereditary characteristics of the body. For example, Kimmerley anomaly, fibro-muscular dysplasia, hypoplasia of spinal arteries, etc.
- A variety of injuries in the cervical spine received as a result of playing sports, at home, etc.
- Inflammatory processes in the vessels. For example, Takayasu's disease.
- Stenosing lesions of the main vessels, including impaired patency of blood vessels due to atherosclerotic changes.
- Diabetes. With this disease, damage to the small arteries of the brain is observed.
- Increased blood pressure in the form of chronic forms of arterial hypertension.
- Antiphospholipid syndrome, which develops most often in young people. With this disease, the risk of thrombosis increases and there is a violation of patency of the arteries.
- Dissection (stratification) of the vertebro-basilar vessels, when the walls of the arteries are damaged and blood seeps between their tissues.
- Thrombosis of the basilar or vertebral arteries.
- Squeezing these arteries with all kinds of hernias, as well as due to spondylosis, spondylolisthesis or hypertrophic scalene muscle.
Symptoms of the disease
All signs of vertebro-basilar insufficiency can be temporary and permanent. Temporary occur, as a rule, during a transient ischemic attack and do not last long - up to two days. In such cases, patients complain of pressing pain in the neck, severe dizziness and discomfort in the cervical region.
Persistent symptoms accompany the patient all the time. They can gradually increase due to the development of pathology. Often exacerbations occur in which ischemic attacks occur. And they, in turn, can lead to vertebro-basilar stroke.
So, the symptoms of vertebro-basilar insufficiency are:
- The occurrence of frequent occipital headaches, which may be throbbing or dull and oppressive.
- Tinnitus, hearing impairment. Noise can be of a different timbre, but if the disease is in a neglected state, this phenomenon becomes permanent.
- Weakening of memory, distraction, impaired concentration of attention. Symptoms of vertebro-basilar insufficiency are quite unpleasant.
- Various changes in vision in the form of flies or fog before the eyes. In some cases, diplopia (bifurcation) and blurring of their contours of objects may occur.
- Significant imbalance.
- Weakness, fatigue.
- Frequent bouts of dizziness, sometimes reaching fainting in acute vertebro-basilar insufficiency. Typically, these conditions occur when the neck is in an uncomfortable position. For example, after sleep or from working at a computer. Dizziness is often accompanied by a feeling of nausea.
- Mood swings and irritability.
- Increased sweating, sudden attacks of tachycardia.
- Perspiration and syndrome "coma" in the throat, hoarse voice.
Later, the development of speech and swallowing disorders, sudden fainting and ischemic strokes is possible.
Manifestations in childhood
Recently, it was believed that such a violation can occur only in middle-aged and elderly people. However, it turned out that pathology is often observed in children. In such cases, the disease develops due to a congenital anomaly of the vertebral or basilar arteries. In addition, a risk factor may be damage to the spine of the child during exercise.
In children, failure in most cases is very easily corrected, and drug therapy is practically not used. In some complicated cases, surgical interventions are possible.
Symptoms and prerequisites for the development of vascular vertebro-basilar insufficiency in children:
- Violation of posture.
- After spinal injuries.
- The baby is crying, he has rapid fatigue and drowsiness.
- He does not tolerate stuffiness, with frequent fainting, dizziness and nausea.
- Improper body position during homework.
Some diagnoses made in early childhood may explain the appearance of this pathology. For example, perinatal encephalopathy, when the baby was injured during childbirth.
Diagnosis of the disease
Vertebro-basilar insufficiency with osteochondrosis is very difficult to detect. Firstly, because its symptoms can be different, and secondly, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish them from the subjective experiences of a particular patient. Thirdly, manifestations of pathology can be symptoms of many other diseases.
In order to diagnose chronic vertebro-basilar insufficiency, there are many different diagnostic measures. These include:
- Doppler ultrasound, in which the features of the blood flow of the vertebro-basilar arterial system are evaluated. The presence or absence of occlusions and the speed of blood movement are determined.
- Angiography, in which a special contrast agent is introduced into the artery, allowing you to consider the condition of their walls and diameter.
- X-ray of the spine.
- Computed or magnetic resonance imaging. Using these studies, it is possible to determine not only the condition of arteries, bone tissue, but also the presence of intervertebral hernias.
- Hyperventilation tests, which allow studying functional disorders of the heart and blood vessels.
- Infrared thermography to assess the state of thermal fields.
- Rheoencephalography, with which the blood supply to the brain is examined.
- Functional tests for spondylolisthesis.
- MR angiography, which is used to study the bloodstream.
- Blood biochemistry .
Differential diagnostic methods
As already mentioned, this violation is very easy to confuse with many other pathologies. A similar clinical picture can be observed with the following diseases:
- Meniere's disease;
- multiple sclerosis;
- acute labyrinthitis;
- auditory nerve neurinoma;
- vestibular neuronitis;
- mental disorders.
With positional dizziness, a similar symptom can be observed if a person wants to dramatically change the position of the body and quickly tilt his head. This usually happens with older people due to the instability of blood pressure.
With depressive disorders or other emotional problems, patients experience lightheadedness, nausea, dizziness, and motion sickness. Such phenomena are not symptoms of vertebro-basilar insufficiency.
Methods of treating this disease
What does it consist of? After making the necessary diagnostics, the specialist prescribes therapeutic procedures and certain medications that help normalize the patient's condition. If the pathology is at the initial stage, and the symptoms do not fully manifest, treatment is carried out on an outpatient basis. When the patient has an acute form of insufficiency, then he is placed in a hospital.
Specialists, as a rule, prescribe a comprehensive treatment for this disease - drug therapy in combination with physiotherapy. Some forms of the disease cannot be treated with medication at all. Therefore, therapy is selected in each case individually.
In combination with drugs, physiotherapy and physiotherapy are usually prescribed.
Below are the most effective exercises for vertebro-basilar insufficiency, which can alleviate a person’s condition and significantly improve the quality of life:
- Torso tilts forward from a standing position. With the chin you need to try to reach your knees. Repeat ten times.
- Slowly stretches his head forward. Then it also slowly returns to its original position.
- Get up straight. Raise your hands up and connect your palms above your head. Hold for a few seconds. Give up. Do the exercise ten times.
- Turns the housing left and right. Perform ten times.
- Tilts the head to the right and left. Ear you need to touch the shoulder. We do the exercise ten times.
- Slow rotation of the head clockwise and counterclockwise. Ten times.
- Raising legs with a delay of 5 seconds. Repeat ten times for each leg.
- Standing on one leg, you can gradually complicate the exercise - stand with your eyes closed. After changing the leg.
No need to make sudden movements. Exercises are performed without much effort. Therapeutic gymnastics is done regularly, without interruptions. Better in the morning. Regular exercises help to remove muscle spasms, improve posture and strengthen the spine muscle corset.
Also, therapeutic measures include:
- Massage, which significantly improves blood circulation in the brain.
- Therapeutic gymnastics, in which muscle cramps are well removed and the spine is strengthened. Patients should regularly perform a certain set of physiotherapy exercises, most often use the Shoshin technique.
- Manual therapy.
- Magnetotherapy.
- Hirudotherapy. Leech therapy has a proven pronounced effect in all vascular pathologies.
- The use of neck corsets that fix the head in the correct position. In order to reduce muscle tone and cure osteochondrosis, they use the Shants collar.
- Vitamin complexes and visits to physiotherapeutic procedures are effective, a special role belongs to magnetotherapy and electromyostimulation.
- Reflexology, for example, acupuncture, which is used to reduce muscle cramps.
Medicines for the treatment of this pathology
In the treatment of vertebro-basilar insufficiency, as a rule, the following categories of medications are used:
- Vasodilating drugs, which are used mainly to prevent occlusion. First, small doses are prescribed, which gradually increase. Perhaps a comprehensive treatment with such agents, in the absence of effect during therapy with one of them.
- Antiplatelet agents are drugs that reduce blood coagulation. They are used, as a rule, in order to prevent the formation of blood clots. The most popular drug in this case is acetylsalicylic acid. However, this substance should be used with caution in cases where the patient suffers from diseases of the stomach. Aspirin is sometimes replaced with drugs such as ticlopidine or dipyridamole.
- Nootropic and metabolic drugs that can improve brain function. These include Piracetam, Actovegin, Glycine, Cerebrolysin, Seamax and others.
- Antihypertensive drugs that are designed to regulate blood pressure.
In addition, medications are prescribed to relieve the symptoms of the underlying disease, for example, painkillers, sleeping pills, antidepressants, antiemetics, etc.
Treatment for vertebro-basilar insufficiency syndrome is not limited to this.
Surgical treatments for the disease
If with complex treatment, including physiotherapy and drug treatment, the effect of alleviating the patient's condition is not achieved, surgical treatment is usually prescribed.
Surgery is performed to normalize blood circulation in the vertebral or basilar arteries. Such a method of surgery as angioplasty is very common, which allows you to place a stent in the lumen of the vertebral artery that prevents it from occluding and supports blood circulation in this vessel.
In the presence of atherosclerosis, endarterectomy is often used, when atherosclerotic plaque is removed from the artery by surgical procedures.
Surgery such as microdisectomy can stabilize the spine. We examined the symptoms and treatment of vertebro-basilar insufficiency.
The prognosis for this disease
A favorable prognosis takes place only in cases of correct treatment, which should be carried out immediately after diagnosis. In this case, the patient should carefully monitor the implementation of all the therapeutic procedures recommended by the specialist and the administration of medications. In this case, it is possible to mitigate the symptoms of this disease and eliminate pathological disorders.
In the absence of therapy, the prognosis of an extremely pathology is very disappointing, because due to such changes in the brain, vertebro-basilar insufficiency can turn into a chronic form. In this case, there is a gradual deterioration in well-being, ischemic attacks, and subsequently the onset of a stroke or discirculatory encephalopathy, which over time will inevitably lead to irreversible complications. The treatment of such conditions can take quite a long time - sometimes even up to several years, nevertheless it is necessary.
Reviews of vertebro-basilar insufficiency
Reviews about this pathology are contradictory. The disease is difficult to treat, it is successful only if started in a timely manner. All doctor's recommendations should be strictly observed. Symptoms will become less pronounced, violations will be eliminated. Otherwise, the consequences will be very serious.