Cervical Radiculopathy

What is Cervical Radiculopathy?

Cervical radiculopathy is a condition that results from compression of the nerves near the cervical vertebrae. Cervical vertebrae comprises of seven vertebral columns, which all together form upper part of spine. The nerves affected by this condition are sensory nerves and therefore damage to any one of the nerve roots near the vertebral columns can result in pain, weakness and loss of sensation in your arm, wrist, hand or shoulder.

What are the Causes of Cervical Radiculopathy?

Cervical radiculopathy can be caused by anything that puts pressure on the nerves roots in the spine.

In young people, cervical radiculopathy may be caused due to a pressure from the material from ruptured disc. It may also be caused due to a pressure from herniated disk.

In older people, cervical radiculopathy may be caused due to degenerative changes in bones or discs, which can put pressure on the nerves. Degenerative disk diseases like arthritis may also cause the nerves to compress.

What are the Symptoms of Cervical Radiculopathy?

Even if cervical radiculopathy is caused due to damage in the spine, the symptoms can be felt away from the spine. The symptoms of cervical radiculopathy can be experienced in the areas where the damaged nerve travels.

Some of the symptoms of cervical radiculopathy include pain, numbness, and weakness in the arm, hand or shoulder. You may also experience neck pain or headaches in the back part of your head and tingling of fingers and hands.

How is Cervical Radiculopathy Diagnosed?

The diagnosis of cervical radiculopathy is done by understanding a patient’s complete history and by performing certain physical examinations. To know the cause of pain, your doctor will firstly ask your complete medical history. He will then ask you to perform certain neck and arm movements to reproduce symptoms.

He may remove X-ray to see whether any degenerative disk problem has occurred. X-ray may give him an idea regarding the amount of degeneration occurred. He may also ask you to have MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) and CT (Computed Tomography) scan to evaluate the spine.

How is Cervical Radiculopathy Treated?

The main aim of the cervical radiculopathy treatment is to reduce pain and prevent the risk of re-injury. The treatment of cervical radiculopathy depends upon the medical history and the symptoms of a person. Treatment of cervical radiculopathy is divided into two main categories namely conservative treatment and surgical treatment.

Conservative Treatment

Your doctor will first begin with the conservative treatment, which helps in relieving the pain by easing the pressure on the nerves. This treatment option is further divided into two sub-parts that include:

• Medications: Doctor may prescribe a combination of anti-inflammatory drugs (cortisteroids) and non-steroidal painkillers. Medications can be taken either orally or injected through epidural injections. Epidural injections are more effective as they are injected directly into the affected areas.
• Physical Therapy: your doctor may prescribe you certain physical exercises like stretching, electrical stimulation and gentle cervical traction and mobilization. These exercises will help in reducing the pain caused by cervical radiculopathy.

Surgical Treatment

When all other treatments fail to show their effect, surgery is the only option left. One of the most common surgical procedures to treat cervical radiculopathy, which is caused by herniated disc, is the anterior cervical discectomy.

In this procedure, the disc that is causing the pressure that is herniated disc is removed. In procedure is often used in combination with another procedure called anterior cervical fusion in which two vertebrae present on either side of the removed disc are fused together.