Muscle pain: causes and prevention. Muscle pain after exercise. Pain in muscles and joints

Table of contents:

Muscle pain: causes and prevention. Muscle pain after exercise. Pain in muscles and joints
Muscle pain: causes and prevention. Muscle pain after exercise. Pain in muscles and joints
Anonim

In medicine, there are many different diseases and problems that people can face. In this article, I want to talk about why muscle pain occurs and how to deal with this problem.

muscle pain
muscle pain

What is this?

At the very beginning, I want to understand the concepts. So, in medical practice, muscle pain, or muscle pain, is called myalgia. If you look at the nature of this disease, then pain in this case can occur spontaneously. During probing, a tingling sensation may also occur in the muscle. Most often, muscle pain occurs in the neck and shoulders. However, discomfort in the legs is also quite common (in most cases this applies to athletes and people involved in physical activity).

Reasons

Why can a person have muscle pain? The reasons for this are as follows:

  1. Infectious or colds. Muscle pain can be during the flu or SARS.
  2. Muscles hurt in those people who have joint problems. These can be diseases such as arthritis, sciatica, various pathologies of the spine.
  3. Pain sensations arise as a result of injuries, muscle strains, their overstrain.
  4. Stressful situations can also cause severe muscle pain.
  5. Load: excessive, intense, wrong. It can also cause muscle pain.
  6. Pain can be caused by bad posture.
  7. The use of certain medications can also cause muscle pain.

Types of pain

Muscle pain is divided into several types:

  1. Traumatic. It could be a sprain or muscle injury. It can be caused not only by physical activity and sports, but also by intramuscular injections. The nature of the pain: occurs immediately, increases gradually. After rest, such pain sensations most often disappear, however, during exercise, they can again appear and increase.
  2. Myofascial pain syndrome. These are local pains, however, having trigger points (very painful foci). The nature of the pain: constant, dull, cutting, aching. These points can form as a result of injuries, overwork, overload, as well as certain diseases (for example, arthritis).
  3. Muscle cramps. These are painful muscle contractions that occur involuntarily, regardless of the will of the person and at any time of the day, regardless of the load on the body at the moment. Seizures occur in people of all ages. They can depend not only on physical overload, but also on the nervous state of a person and even low temperature (therefore, convulsions often occur among those who like to swim in open water).
causes muscle pain
causes muscle pain

Pain groups

Pain in muscles and joints can be divided into several fairly broad groups:

  1. Fibromyalgia. Pain here occurs most often in the main group of muscles, ligaments and tendons. The lumbar and occipital regions, as well as the neck and shoulders, are most often affected. Very strong pain manifests itself during palpation.
  2. Myositis. With this disease, pain in the muscles is caused by inflammatory processes. In this case, the pain can be very strong, occur regardless of physical activity. You will definitely have to resort to medical help, because advanced forms of this disease can even cause disability.
  3. Polymyositis. The most striking manifestation of this disease is dystrophy, muscle weakness, as well as quite strong pain.

Workouts

A separate issue is muscle pain after a workout. The causes of their occurrence can be different, most often - physiological, less often - pathological. The condition, when some time after physical exertion, pain occurs in the muscles, is called krepatura. Previously, it was mistakenly believed that the cause of this was lactic acid. Today, scientists say that pain is caused by microtrauma and inflammation in muscle tissue. Pain occurs most often 8-48 hours after training, if the amount of stress on the body has been increased by at least 10%. Should there be muscle pain after a workout? Today, experts say that muscle growth is possible without pain. However, bodybuilders are sure of the opposite. They are proponents of the so-called "good pain", which occurs as a result of natural muscle fatigue. It is important to say that krepatura is a normal phenomenon and does not require medical treatment. However, you will definitely have to seek medical advice if a person during or after a workout is worried about the following pains:

  • pain comes on abruptly, suddenly;
  • appears redness, swelling;
  • pain accompanied by a click or pop;
  • pain that is associated with the spine;
  • if the pain continues for more than 1 week and is constantly getting worse;
  • pain felt inside the joint;
  • the so-called “shoots” are tapped.

Pain can be a symptom of overtraining, when a person has so-called phantom pains (wandering). They occur after training, irregularly and when they please. In this case, it is necessary to reduce the intensity of stress on the body. If after that the pain has not gone away, it is necessary to abandon training altogether for several weeks and spend this time in rest mode.

Legs

Pain in the muscles of the legs at least once in a lifetime felt every person. There may be several reasons for this, and the most important of them is simple overwork.

  1. In adolescents and children, pain in the legs can occur as a result of body growth. There is a difference in loads on the venous and arterial vessels, which can be explained by too intense blood circulation in the legs during the movement of the baby and a sharp decrease in the load during rest (night sleep).
  2. The cause of pain in the legs can also be a disease such as atherosclerosis. It is associated with the accumulation of cholesterol and the formation of cholesterol plaques on the inner lining of the arteries. At the same time, painful compressive sensations in the muscles are observed during walking.
  3. Varicose veins can also cause pain in the leg muscles. The nature of the pain in this case: burning, pulling and breaking pain.
leg muscle pain
leg muscle pain

Caviar

It is not uncommon for a person to experience pain in the calf muscle as well. The reasons for this can be very diverse. Most often, such pain occurs as a result of muscle overload or injury. They can also occur as a result of a sedentary lifestyle. Indeed, in this case, the blood flow is disturbed, oxygen starvation of the muscles may occur. And hence the pain. Pain in the calf muscle will completely disappear if a person changes his lifestyle. We need to move more, to be in the air. If the job involves a long stay in one place, every half hour you need to do a short trip: you can make yourself a coffee, go outside for a couple of minutes, or just walk to the table of another employee. If this does not help, you need to seek medical advice in order to avoid pathologies.

Thigh

If a person is worried about pain in the muscles of the thigh, you should immediately try to find out its cause. After all, the hip joint itself is very important, because it takes the maximum load during the movement of a person. Pain in the thigh muscles can occur for the following reasons:

  1. Injuries and physical activity.
  2. Herniated disc.
  3. Varicose.
  4. Inflammation of the sciatic nerve.
  5. Osteochondrosis.
  6. Spondylolysis.

It is important to say that during the appearance of the very first symptoms, it is necessary to consult a doctor and correctly diagnose the cause of the pain. After all, a neglected state of the disease can lead to irreversible degenerative changes. Symptoms of what diseases can be pain in the muscles of the legs?

  1. Arthrosis of the hip joint. Pain will occur in the thigh when you try to sit down or, for example, tie your shoelaces.
  2. Aseptic necrosis of the head of the hip joint. The pain is similar to that of arthrosis. They can spread not only to the muscles of the thigh, but also localized in the groin.
  3. Piriformis Syndrome. The pain comes on suddenly, builds up quickly, and after about three days makes the patient go for medical help.
back muscle pain
back muscle pain

Back

Often, a person may also experience pain in the back muscles. What are the reasons for their appearance?

  1. Diseases of the spine (scoliosis, osteochondrosis).
  2. Diseases of the internal organs. For example, if a sick stomach or pancreas, pain can be observed in the lumbar region. If there are problems with the genitourinary system, pain can be localized in the lower back.
  3. Inflammatory processes. Back pain can appear even after a person, after a warm, well-heated room, goes out into a cool street. Or, if desired, cool the hot summer air with a draft. In this case, you can easily catch a disease such as myositis, which is not so easy to deal with.
  4. Mechanical damage.
  5. Overload or muscle strain.
  6. Congenital pathologies

If the pain is one-time, there is no reason to see a doctor. But if the pain does not go away for several days or grows, you need to seek advice from a medical institution.

Hands

It is not uncommon to have problems such as pain in the muscles of the arms. Why can there be pain in the upper limbs in a person? There may be several reasons:

  1. Sprains and injuries.
  2. Infectious diseases.
  3. Diseases of peripheral nerves. In this case, pain occurs along the nerve fibers in the muscle.
  4. Pain in the muscles of the hands can be the result of carbon monoxide poisoning, alcohol, lead.
  5. Convulsions.

Also, arm muscles can hurt due to heavy physical exertion and overstrain. In this case, medical assistance is not needed. In other cases, you should consult a doctor.

muscle pain treatment
muscle pain treatment

Treatment

So, the topic of muscle pain has been sufficiently considered. Treatment - that's what else is worth a few words. How to get rid of unpleasant pain? First of all, I would like to say that we must first determine the cause of this symptom and eliminate it. Self-medication in this case is quite dangerous, because you can miss the onset of a serious inflammatory process and start the disease to irreversible consequences.

Inflammation

If pain in muscles and joints is caused by inflammation, then the doctor may prescribe the following treatment:

  1. Topically: use various pain-relieving ointments (if the pain is too strong), dry heat.
  2. Taking analgesics.
  3. You will also need to take anti-inflammatory drugs.
  4. Rehabilitation measures: massage.

It is also worth mentioning that inflammation can be parasitic or even purulent in nature. In this case, hospitalization and treatment of the patient within the walls of a medical institution may be necessary.

Convulsions

If a person has pain in the muscles of the legs caused by the most common cramps, in this case, drug treatment is not needed. To alleviate the condition during the cramp itself, you can apply a simple massage of the focus, which will gradually relax the tissues. However, the most effective means of dealing with this problem is its prevention. In this case, you must adhere to the following rules:

  1. The diet should consist of food rich in proteins. Limit your intake of s alt.
  2. You should drink a lot.
  3. In order not to disrupt blood circulation, it is best to sleep on your left side.
  4. Don't cross your legs while sitting.
  5. It's good to harden the body.
  6. If cramps "grab" the legs, then contrast baths are an excellent prophylactic.
severe muscle pain
severe muscle pain

Physical activity

After physical exertion and training, muscle pain may also occur. How to get rid of discomfort in this case?

  1. Ointments can be applied locally (eg Nise).
  2. You can also use anti-inflammatory non-steroidal ointments before training, but their effectiveness is rather low.
  3. Topical muscle relaxants based on botulinum toxin can be used to treat muscle spasms.

Pain relief

If a person is worried about severe muscle pain, you can try to alleviate the pain yourself. What should be done in this case?

  1. Peace is definitely needed. In the next few days, you need to completely abandon physical activity.
  2. Cope with pain will help ice. It should be applied to the sore spot for about 7-10 minutes every couple of hours. Cold burns must be avoided.
  3. If there is swelling, you can use an elastic bandage or tight clothing. This will keep the swelling from spreading further.
  4. In order for the swelling not to increase, the area affected by pain must be held in an elevated position.
  5. It is also good to apply topical anesthetic ointment.
  6. You can also take an anesthetic inside. It could be a drug like Ibuprofen. Intramuscularly, you can administer the drug "Diclofenac".

Preventive measures

If you don't want to deal with a problem, it's best to try to prevent it. In this case, it is necessary to constantly apply measures to prevent muscle pain.

  1. Proper nutrition. The intake of coffee, alcohol, preservatives leads to the fact that a deficiency of collagen and glucosamine is formed in the body. And this becomes the cause of various kinds of destruction that occur in the connective tissue.
  2. Prophylactic intake of calcium and vitamins. It is also important not only for the condition of a person's muscles, but also for his entire body.
  3. Active lifestyle. This is especially important for those people who lead a sedentary lifestyle. Exercising, walking outdoors, walking can all help prevent problems like myalgia.
  4. Massage. Preventive massage is also great to help prevent muscle pain.
  5. Hardening.
arm muscle pain
arm muscle pain

Traditional medicine

Traditional medicine can also help to cope with muscle pain. To get rid of the unpleasant symptoms of myositis, you can use the following recipes:

  1. Salo. Four parts of bacon (pork, but better than interior) should be mixed with one part of the powder prepared from dried horsetail. All ingredients are mixed well and rubbed into the sore spot like an ointment.
  2. You can also make a healing compress. To do this, you need to lather two leaves of white cabbage with laundry soap, and sprinkle with baking soda on top. All this is applied to the sore spot and tied with a scarf.
  3. You can also make an old-fashioned home remedy for sore muscles. To do this, it is necessary to drip 10 drops of bay oil into a liter of warm boiled water. Dip a towel into this liquid and then apply to the sore spot. After 15 minutes, the pain will subside.

Recommended: