What are Muscles?
Muscles are soft tissues or stretchy fibers which are present in our body with more than 600 muscles. They are responsible for making your body move, lift, and sit properly. From delicate tasks to major tasks, muscles also cover many important functions of our body. Also, muscles play a vital role in our bodies like breathing, digesting, and seeing. One such example of a muscle is the heart. It pumps blood to our body and also plays a crucial role in it.
Additionally, it is interesting to know that your muscles beat thousands of times a day and they are hard-working. Injuries, illnesses, or infections can also bring impact our muscles causing us to experience aches, spasms, or any type of weakness.
Basic functions of muscles:
- Breathing
- Speaking
- Swallowing
- Excretion
- Digestion
- Movement
- Pump blood
- Push baby during birth in females
- Seeing
- Hearing
Types of muscles:
- Voluntary muscles- Muscles that move according to the control of the nervous system’s command.
- Involuntary muscles- Muscles that automatically work without the brain’s specific or intentional commands.
Types of muscle tissues present in our bodies:
- Skeletal (eg. muscles that help with posture)
- Cardiac (eg. Muscles of heart walls)
- Smooth (eg. bladder, intestine, stomach)
- Muscles are present in our body in different sizes which largest muscle is known as the gluteus maximus and the smallest is the stapedius in your ears.
Things that can impact your muscle working:
- Cancer
- Underlying medical conditions
- Medicine effect
- Heart problem
- Genetic disorders
- Infections
- Injuries
- Chronic pain disorders
- Exercising
- Lack of physical movement
What are Muscle Aches?
When a body experiences any kind of injury, infection, or illness then it starts to show signs and symptoms of it. Muscle aches are also known as muscle pain and in medical terms, you can term this condition Myalgia. Furthermore, muscle pain is a sign of several other conditions brought on by several medical circumstances.
Muscle pain also ranges from acute to severe muscle pain. Any kind of oversure of muscles can also turn to muscle pain in moderate intensity. If muscle pain persists for a long time then it can occur due to some metabolic myopathy or nutritional deficiencies. It also occurs due to chronic fatigue syndrome. Joint pain or muscle cramps/spasms can occur simultaneously with muscle pain sometimes. Muscle pain occurs in specific or overall regions of muscles with different levels of intensity.
Muscle pain in terms of physical exercise/activity
If you switch to a new schedule, work out and improve your exercise routine then those changes can bring you sore muscles that can pain for some time. The pain in the muscle region may last for more than 12 to 48 hours as a delayed response to physical changes. Your pain heals and comes back stronger. In such cases, muscle pains can be a mere process of muscle growth that can also be essential.
When to seek medical help?
You should seek medical help if you also experience muscle pain where you experience things like:
- Fever
- Losing bladder control
- Also, muscle feels extremely weak
- Chest pain may also occur
- Pain may also get worse with time
- Another pain occurs along with the existing pain
- Numbness in body parts such as limbs
- Feeling a tingling sensation in those muscles too much
- You also experience unbearable pain
- Muscle pain stays for more than 48 hours
- Also, unable to move, see, hear or breathe properly frequently
What are the Causes of Muscle Aches?
Muscle pain mostly occurs because of any kind of injury, illness, overuse of a muscle, or any kind of strain on it. Interestingly, muscle pain also occurs because of vaccine response and dehydration. Here are the following reasons why someone may experience muscle pain or go through the condition of Myalgia as follows:

General reasons include:
- Injury
- Sprain
- Strain
- Repetitive strain injury
- Overuse of muscle
- Exercise
- Weight lifting
- Too much running
- Injury Trauma
- Exercise intolerance
- Imbalance of electrolytes
- Stress
- Back sprain
- Abdominal strain
- Back strain
- Tension
- Broken bones
- Alcohol withdrawal
- Caffeine withdrawal
- Lack of physical movement/activity
Medical reasons:
- Chemotherapy
- Radiation therapy
- Delayed onset muscle soreness
- Chronic tension
- Peripheral neuropathy
- Infarction
- Lyme disease
- HIV/AIDS
- Cancer
- Adrenal insufficiency
- Polyarteritis nodosa
- Morphea
- Stickler Syndrome
- Generalized anxiety disorder
- Barcoo Fever
- Rocky Mountain spotted fever
- Familial Mediterranean fever
- Hypogonadism
- Hypogonadism
- Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
- Multiple sclerosis
- Mastocytosis
- Sarcoidosis
- Hemochromatosis
- Trichinosis
- Hypovitaminosis D
- Leukemia
- Hypokalemia
- Fibromyalgia
- Malaria
- Tumor-induced osteomalacia
- Tendinitis
- Inclusion body myositis
- Colds
- Flu
- Spinal muscular atrophy
- Muscular dystrophy
Medicinal reasons for muscle pain
- Types of cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins
- High blood pressure medications like ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitors
- Withdrawal symptoms of:
- Corticosteroids
- Opioids
- Barbiturates
- Benzodiazepines
What are the signs of Muscle Aches?
There are many major to minor signs and symptoms of muscle pain. Muscle pain itself is a symptom of several medical and medicinal effects. However, here is a list of signs you can look out for in muscle pain as follows:
- Breathing problem
- Dizziness
- Sudden unusual bite marks
- Rashes
- Fever
- Stiffness in that area
- Muscle weakness
- It includes signs of infection
- Redness in that region
- Swelling of that area
- Bruises
- Pain when you rest
- You’re unable to move that muscle
- Chest pain
- Spasms
- Muscle soreness
What are the home remedies to treat Muscle Aches?
Home remedies to treat muscle pain issues are mostly easy to adapt only if you will change with proper dedication and sincerity on it. Furthermore, these home remedies include:
- Discontinue the activity for a while that leads u to muscle pain
- Give rest to that muscle well
- Tape and bandage that area for support
- Apply an ice pack to also relieve pain and swelling
- Use a compression bandage to also minimize swelling
- Go for an Epsom salt bath
- Drink cherry, watermelon, pomegranate, and also beet juice
- You can also give essential oil massage of coconut oil or olive oil
- Use Apple cider vinegar
- Maintain your body hydration
- Keep a proper check on your posture during weightlifting and workout
- Consume dairy and eggs
- Take proper protein
- You can drink chamomile tea
- You can also take an over-the-counter pain reliever
- Gently stretch that muscle region
- Avoid weight lifting from the region of impact for a while
- Take care of your mental health
What are the medical ways to treat Muscle Aches?
Before you get into medicinal treatment from a professional doctor for your muscle pain, you go through a diagnosis.
You might also go through blood tests, MRI, or CT scan to take a look at underlying issues of muscle pain and give you medicinal suggestions accordingly. Here is a list of medicines your doctor may suggest you treat your muscle pain as follows:
- Paracetamol
- Metaxalone
- Carisoprodol
- Gabapentin
- Tapentadol
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs)
- Ibuprofen
- Aspirin
- Naproxen sodium
- Acetaminophen
- Baclofen
- Chlorzoxazone
- Methocarbamol
- Orphenadrine
- Tizanidine
- Cyclobenzaprine
- Baclofen
- Tizanidine
- Dantrolene
- Lorazepam
- Midazolam
- Alprazolam
- Clonazepam
- Diazepam
Conclusion
Muscles are soft tissues or stretchy fibers which are present in our body with more than 600 muscles. They are responsible for making your body move, lift, and sit properly. When a body experiences any kind of injury, infection, or illness then it starts to show signs and symptoms of it. Also, one such sign is muscle pain.
Muscle ache is also known as muscle pain and in medical terms, you can term this condition Myalgia. Muscle pain also ranges from acute to severe muscle pain. Any kind of oversure of muscles can also turn to muscle pain in moderate intensity. Interestingly, muscle pain also occurs because of vaccine response and dehydration. Moreover, there are many major to minor signs and symptoms of muscle pain. Moreover, muscle pain itself is a symptom of several medical and medicinal effects.
Home remedies to treat muscle pain issues are mostly easy to adapt only if you will change with proper dedication and sincerity on it. Before you get into medicinal treatment from a professional doctor for your muscle pain, you go through a diagnosis. Also, the medicines given by doctors are mostly NSAIDs, muscle relaxants, and paracetamol.
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