7 Common Causes of Muscle Pain

Are your muscles aching with an unbearable throbbing pain? When your muscles are hurting, it can seriously affect your movements in everyday life. Doctors often refer to muscle pain as myalgia, which could originate from any part of your body. The typical signs of muscle pain are tenderness, swelling, and redness.

Most muscle pains respond well to simple home treatments. You can usually alleviate the pain by placing ice on the affected areas, or by resting your body for an extended time. If the muscle pains do not go away after a while, you should seek chiropractic or physiotherapy help for long-term treatments.

In order to get the right treatments, you must first understand what is causing your muscles to ache. The causes of muscle pain could include overexertion, common injuries, or possibly even infections. To understand more, below are the seven common causes of muscle pain:

1. Muscle Cramps

Muscle cramps are sudden and involuntary muscle contractions. Extensive exercising, manual labour, and overtly physical activities can lead to muscle cramps, especially when done in hot weather. These cramps often affect the leg muscles and particularly the calf.

Other than the sharp pain that typically accompanies muscle cramps, you might also feel a hard lump of muscle tissue under your skin. While muscle cramps are generally harmless, you may need to attend physiotherapy sessions if it causes severe discomfort for a long time.

2. Dystonia

Dystonia is a movement disorder that causes involuntary muscle contractions, which could result in repetitive twisting movements. There are three significant types of dystonia: focal dystonia (affects one part of the body), segmental dystonia (affects two or more adjacent parts of the body), and general dystonia (affects the whole body).

The muscle pain typically ranges from mild to severe, but its general volatility may interfere with your performance of daily activities. While doctors have yet to establish a cure for this movement disorder, there are medications you can take to improve the symptoms.

3. Claudication

Also known as intermittent claudication, this muscle pain is caused by inadequate blood flow, especially during workouts. It typically affects blood vessels in the legs and arms. The symptoms include cold feet, weakness in the arms and legs, discoloured skin, and muscle pain while resting.

If left untreated, claudication could be a life-threatening condition. However, medication is available to guarantee most people with a healthy, active, and painless life.

4. Lupus

People with lupus may experience muscle pain regularly. Lupus is a long-term autoimmune disease, where the body’s immune system becomes hyperactive and starts to attack normal healthy tissues. Lupus often causes a lot of inflammation that could affect various body systems, including the lungs, kidneys, joints, brain and the heart.

There are several typical symptoms that you can expect with lupus, which include skin lesions, joint pain, and a butterfly-shaped rash across both cheeks. You may also experience fatigue, shortness of breath, and dry eyes. Since these symptoms are not specific to lupus, it can often be difficult to diagnose this condition.

5. Rheumatoid Arthritis

If you experience muscle pain near your joints, you may be suffering from rheumatoid arthritis. This is a chronic inflammatory disorder that affects the joints. Common symptoms include tender joints, fatigue, loss of appetite, and joint stiffness. The symptoms may vary from one case to another, but they usually come and go.

Typically, rheumatoid arthritis affects the lining of your joints, resulting in painful swelling that could eventually ‘eat up’ the bones and cause joint deformity. In recent years, there have been significant breakthroughs that resulted in new, highly promising medications for managing this condition. However, some severe cases could still result in debilitating physical disabilities.

6. Lyme Disease

Lyme disease is a tick-borne disease caused by a black-legged tick, also known as the deer tick, which thrives in grassy and densely wooded areas. This disease is prevalent in the United States, Asia and Europe. This rare disease occurs when a tick attaches itself onto your body for an extended time.

Some of the Lyme disease symptoms include muscle aches and joint pain. However, it is important to note that the symptoms may not occur immediately. After infection, it could take up to 30 days for these symptoms to gradually appear. Prompt medical treatment is strongly advised to combat this disease.

7. Influenza

Commonly known as the flu, influenza is a viral infection that affects the respiratory system. When you are inflicted with the flu, you may experience fatigue, soreness, and pain throughout various parts of your body. Other symptoms include dry recurrent coughs, headaches, and chills and sweats.

Statistics indicate that influenza complications are most likely to affect the elderly, people with weakened immune systems, and chronically obese people. Often, influenza goes away on its own, but it's always good to seek medical attention if the condition lingers for longer than usual. To prevent influenza, getting vaccinated against the disease every year dramatically protects you from its ravages.