Myalgia
Causes and symptoms of myalgia
What is myalgia?
Myalgia is pain in the muscle area resulting from hypertonicity of muscle cells both in a calm state and under tension. Almost everyone is regularly faced with muscle pain in their daily life. Recently, not only adults, but even adolescents are prone to myalgia, which appears as a result of excessive physical exertion, stressful situations and trauma. There are three types of myalgia: fibromyalgia, myositis, and polymyositis.
Myalgia causes
As mentioned above, stress, emotional stress, prolonged or too heavy physical exertion, as well as injuries, a sedentary lifestyle, infectious, inflammatory, chronic diseases, etc., can become the causes of myalgia. These factors lead to the development of hypertonicity (excessive muscle tension), which in turn alters metabolic processes in the body. If myalgia is not treated for a long time, it can provoke the development of more serious diseases: polymyositis, osteoartosis, osteochondrosis, herniated intervertebral discs, etc.
Myalgia symptoms
The symptoms of myalgia depend on the type of the disease.
The most common type of myalgia is fibromyalgia. It is characterized by pain in muscles, ligaments and tendons. Most often, pain is localized in the lumbar, cervical, occipital and shoulder regions.
Fibromyalgia, in turn, is also divided into two types: primary and secondary fibromyalgia.
For the first case, musculoskeletal pain is characteristic, acutely expressed on palpation. Fibromyalgia is often associated with asthenia and sleep disturbances. Primary fibromyalgia occurs mainly in women and girls prone to anxiety, stress and depression, it is often observed in adolescent girls. The pain can increase due to overload, injury, changes in the weather (cold, dampness).
Secondary (local) fibromyalgia is most often characteristic of men and can be caused by work or sports overload.
Myositis is the second most common type of myalgia. It is an inflammation of muscle tissue and occurs as a complication of various diseases, including the flu. Myositis can also be caused by injury or excessive exercise. Sometimes myositis is of vascular origin, for example, insufficient blood supply to muscle tissue. The pain with myositis is aching, localized in the muscles of the arms, legs, trunk, arises and intensifies with movement.
Polymyositis is a disease, the first symptom of which is myalgia. It provokes muscle weakness and severe pain in the cervical muscles and muscles of the shoulder girdle, which over time pass to the pelvic girdle and leg muscles. In some cases, polymyositis can lead to muscular dystrophy.
In addition to pain, a person suffering from myalgia may feel nausea, headache; the permeability of cell membranes is disturbed, hyperthermia and tension of the joints occur.
A separate type of myalgia is epidemic myalgia (Bornholm's disease). It develops when the Coxsackie virus enters the body, and its symptoms are acute, paroxysmal pain, high fever, chills and vomiting. The pain is mainly localized in the chest, back, neck, arms. Most often, epidemic myalgia lasts from three to five days, less often a week.
Myalgia treatment
Treatment of myalgia, like any other disease, requires a doctor's consultation. Therapy is symptomatic: first of all, it is necessary to identify and eliminate the causes that caused myalgia. Then pain and muscle inflammation are relieved with anti-inflammatory drugs and analgesics. Among the most popular medicines used to treat myalgia are Diclofenac, Analgin, Pentalgin, Naproxen, Kaffetin, Indomethacin. The use of warming anti-inflammatory gels and ointments ("Finalgon", "Fastum gel"), tincture of red pepper, medicinal solution ("Menovazin") is effective.
Physiotherapy is also a complementary treatment for myalgia. Patients are shown physiotherapy exercises and massages, taking dietary supplements.
Article author: Mochalov Pavel Alexandrovich | d. m. n. therapist
Education: Moscow Medical Institute. IM Sechenov, specialty - "General Medicine" in 1991, in 1993 "Occupational Diseases", in 1996 "Therapy".
