Muscular Aches and Pains
Muscular strains, tears, pain, or injuries can range widely in severity and occur due to a variety of reasons. Some people experience muscular aches and pains as a symptom of an underlying joint problem.
Muscular Aches and Pains | Osteopath Sutton
Muscular tears or injury are a common cause of sports injuries, especially in the lower legs.
When muscles become fatigued or tired, have excess load placed onto them, or are asked to lengthen further than usual, this can cause excess stress and injury to the muscle.
Muscles can also strain when doing simple tasks such as lifting things around the house, such as furniture, shopping, or your children.
People also often experience muscular pain or ache in the upper back and shoulders, due to long periods sitting or overuse at work.
The tendon is the tough part of muscle that connects the muscle belly to bones. They are strong and able to withstand a lot of tensile force. However, these tendons can become injured either through acute injury or consistent repetitive strain. This can then lead to pain caused by a tendinopathy. Common examples of tendinopathies are golfers/tennis elbow, or patellar tendon tendinopathy.
Causes and symptoms of muscle pain and tendinopathies can include: pain that can be incredibly sharp during acute injury, or a low grade dull ache with more consistent pain, redness or heat, swelling, bruising can occur with more serious muscular tear, tenderness on touch or stretching of the muscle, and local pain in the tendon or muscle belly, depending on which area is affected.
Treatment: Your osteopath will provide treatment for muscle aches and tendinopathies, using soft tissue and sports massage, combined with osteopathic techniques.
As mentioned above, it is important to find out which muscle or muscle groups are injured, as well as whether there is involvement of the ligaments as well. It is then important to determine whether it is the muscle belly, or the muscle tendon that is affected, as management of each is slightly different.
Hands on treatment working through the soft tissues will be carried out, using a variety of techniques utilising different amounts of pressure, rhythm, and speed depending on each presentation. The purpose of this is to increase blood flow to the muscle, stretch or elongate the muscle (safely), and promote tissue healing.
Management is case dependant on the injury. It will usually involve graded exercise rehabilitation, with the purpose of slowly increasing the load a muscle injury is able to handle, while maintaining or increasing the flexibility. Due to their rich blood supply, muscular injuries usually heal faster than other types of injuries, however this is not always the case with tendinopathies. This will be discussed with you at your consultation.
