Age And Muscle Pain Relief

Muscle Pain Relief For The Elderly

There is a reason why many of those who seek muscle pain relief are the elderly. The relation between muscle pain and age is believed to boil down to too much tension in muscles caused by too little exercise that contributes to natural loss of muscular fitness. When muscles do not get enough exercise, unstretched muscles become shorter, putting more pressure on nerves that run through them. This is a major cause of muscle aches and pains in older people.

Whenever muscle pain occurs, it sets off a "splinting relax" in the muscle. This causes the muscle to stiffen for protection. The muscle forms a rigid, natural splint. When the shortened muscles set off the splinting relax, however, the contraction of the muscles increases until they are knotted up in a uncontrollable spasm, exactly the kind of spasm people experience with lower back pain.

Muscle Spasm And Muscle Pain Relief

Muscle spasm is the body’s reaction to tissue injury. Once injury cells breakdown & release into the surrounding muscle tissue the chemicals calcium & histamine. Calcium reacts with ATP to produce muscle contraction. Unless, immediately stretched out, contracted muscles release the chemical leukotriens; leukotrienes cause muscles to contract that means more muscle spasms.

Simultaneously the accumulating leuktrienes combine with histamine in another chemical reaction to release substance-p. Substance-p stimulates nerve endings located throughout the muscles. This stimulation or axon to the nerve cell or neuron located in the spinal cord. A normal muscle, completely relaxed, shows no electrical activity, while a muscle in spasm or tensed with pain have electrical activity.

Muscle Pain Relief And Exercise

Spinal cord information is relayed to another nerve tail called a synapse for speedy transmission to a nerve cell located in the pain center of the brain, lastly, the alarm that first went our from distant twisted knotted muscles reaches the cortex the surface where consciousness exists. Then electrical impulses pour into the cortex causing the pain sensation. This is how muscle pain relief and exercise are closely linked.

Therefore, it is important to have a regular exercise regime matter what age you are. Just make sure that your exercises are suited to your age group and that small doses of regular exercise is more beneficial than an exhausting bout of exercise once every few weeks for muscle pain relief.