In the light of our present knowledge, pain caused by nerve root compression should be deemed a symptom of multifactorial origin in which the neural and perineural inflammatory reaction and its biohumoral mediators play a major role, flanked by venous stasis due to mass effect on the perineural circulation. Nerve compression appears to play an adjuvant role by generating nerve conduction abnormalities due to fibre demyelination with a direct or indirect anoxic-ischaemic mechanism.
As pain is multifactorial, ozone may also have a multifactorial pharmacological effect alleviating disc compression by shrinkage and triggering pro-fibrosing mechanisms in the herniated disc thereby counteracting the inflammatory cascade of biohumoral and cell-mediated components and improving the hypoxic status linked to arterial compression and venous stasis. Lastly, ozone may have a reflex therapy effect (“chemical acupuncture”) breaking the chain of chronic pain stimulating anti-nociceptor analgesic mechanisms.
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