Ayurveda has remedies for spondylitis: Dr Kiran

Neck pain and spondylitis are conditions that are on the rise among IT professionals. Ayurveda has remedies for such patients that not only offer them long-term relief  but also help them keep off the operating table.

Staff writer, GDCS

Cervical Spondylosis among the young is becoming a pain in the neck for those concerned about employee health in the IT sector.

Cervical spondylosis is a spinal deformity that occurs in the region where the neck meets the skull, explains Dr.Kiran B, an Ayurveda specialist, and the man behind the Sreeragam healthcare centre in Cochin, Kerala. He says, bad sitting posture and the unforgiving hour spent behind the computer screen is driving up its cases among the IT professionals.

Anatomically speaking, the spine isn’t as straight as they say a gentlemen’s backbone should be. Rather, the spine snakes downward from the tip of the skull to the tail point – an S -shape that lends balance and stability to the body while a person sits, stands, walks, twists, and bends.  

The trouble erupts when the spine is subject to irregular pressure when the person, say, hunches over a laptop or looks down at the mobile for inordinately long hours everyday. “It imposes a new kind of demand on the body structure”, says Dr. Kiran.“To meet it, the spine makes adjustments and structural changes.” 

If the spine shifts even by a millimeter, all the muscles, the ligaments and the nerves falling along the spinal length come under duress. At that point, depending on where the  impingements are triggered,  the person concerned begins to experience distress.

Symptoms of cervical spondylitis:

If the stress is near the neck, the person concerned has pain in the neck. Often he experiences bouts of headaches. Sometimes he feels pain and numbness run in his arms.

In some cases, especially if the initial symptoms are ignored, paralysis too can follow.

Care and correction at Sreeragam

It is a 7 to 8 day course to treat cervical spondylitis at the Sreeragam centre in Cochin. Apart from traditional Ayurvedic massages and oral herbal medications, the treatment also entails some special physiotherapy and yoga routines.

 The aim is to reduce the inflammation at site, release nerve impingement if any, and restore the spinal and postural integrity. 

Thereafter, the patient is free to go back to work, subject, of course, to the condition he does nothing that aggravates or re-triggers the situation.