Often, after strenuous physical labor or athletic training, a person will notice that his arms and legs are injured. If the condition is related to overwork or fatigue, the pain usually goes away after a few days. But it happens that this discomfort often worries a person, and it occurs regardless of physical activity. In this case, the pain may be caused by a serious health problem that needs treatment.
The appearance of joint pain - arthralgia - can be observed in the context of general health. Often, pain sensation occurs after excessive physical exertion and can be observed in pregnant women. Recently, complaints of joint pain in children due to the rapid development of the musculoskeletal system have become more frequent.
In other cases, joint pain is a symptom of some pathology, a signal of an inflammatory or destructive process, an autoimmune disease. For comprehensive treatment of the joint, it is important to determine the underlying cause of the pain attack.
General description of the problem
Leg and arm pain is fairly common. This problem is usually not age-related, and even children and teens often suffer from it. In them, this is usually associated with rapid growth or increased physical exertion. In adults, frequent pain in the extremities can be caused by various diseases.
This soreness can come from any part of the limb. Most of the time, the feet on the legs are injured because they are under the most stress. Knees, calves, and hip joints may also be affected. Hand pain is mainly concentrated in the forearm and shoulder. But this feeling often occurs in the hands and prevents a person from doing normal work.
Bones, joints, and muscles can be injured. Problems usually arise due to impaired blood circulation and tissue nutrition. Sometimes discomfort is also transmitted through nerve fibers in other parts of the body. This radiating pain may occur in spinal disease, myocardial infarction, renal or biliary colic. In this case, pain occurs on the right or left side, depending on the organ affected.
The soreness is usually mild and people describe it as a painful, uncomfortable feeling. The pain only occurs during exercise and subsides with rest or often bothers the person.
Note: If pain is not related to physical activity or is accompanied by other symptoms, a doctor should be consulted.
Without treatment, this pain can become chronic and lead to decreased performance or even disability. It's especially important to see your doctor if pain in your extremities occurs at the same time as other symptoms. May be fever, weakness, chills, nausea. Often this condition presents a serious illness that requires immediate treatment.
reason
The most common cause of sore extremities is general fatigue. In most cases, they appear the day after exercise training. But this could be after working in the country, carrying heavy loads, general cleaning or outdoor activities. This usually happens to untrained people.
This pain is called krepatula. They don't just show up. In most cases, pain is the result of microtrauma to the muscle fibers. If this happens frequently and they don't have time to heal, inflammation develops. As a result, the blood supply to the tissue may be disturbed, resulting in ischemia. Strenuous exercise can also cause muscle or ligament sprains and tears. All of these factors usually cause pain that lasts 3-5 days. But the buildup of lactic acid in the muscles doesn't cause this prolonged pain, it goes away within a few hours.
But there are more serious reasons for this problem. There are several groups of pathologies that can cause pain in the legs and arms. Their formation and localization mechanisms differ. But they have one thing in common: One of the symptoms is pain in the extremities.
Which diseases can cause this symptom:
- Vascular and venous lesions, usually of the lower extremities;
- infectious diseases;
- Poisoning and other conditions that lead to poisoning of the body;
- Inflammation of joints, muscles, and nerve tissue;
- Degenerative diseases of joints and bones;
- autoimmune disease;
- hormonal disorders;
- tumor.
circulatory disorder
Vascular and venous disease is common. They occur in men and women of all ages. In most cases it is varicose veins. At the same time, the leg hurts, feels heavy, and may twitch. Gradually, the dilated veins become visible through the skin. Thrombophlebitis and thrombosis are also common with age, and symptoms may be severe throbbing pain in one leg or arm. Atherosclerosis of the blood vessels can also cause them to block, which is what causes pain sensations, mostly squeezing or squeezing, exacerbated by movement.
Less common vascular lesions include:
- Eliminate endarteritis;
- Embolism of major arteries;
- Raynaud's disease;
- Arteriovenous dysplasia.
In case of circulatory disturbance, in addition to pain in arms and legs, numbness, crawling sensation, cold extremities. Muscles weaken, fingers swell, it becomes difficult to move, and things fall off the hand. If the small blood vessels in the extremities are affected, blue or purple spots may appear on the skin and the nails turn blue.
Note: This is especially dangerous if left arm pain is accompanied by shortness of breath, weakness, and chest tightness. This could be a sign of a myocardial infarction.
Pathologies associated with circulatory disturbances include prolonged immobilization. Also, this doesn't just happen when you're forced to stay still after an injury. Sitting in one position for long periods of time, for example, while traveling or at sedentary work, can impair circulation.
Infect
Many times, the hands and feet are painful due to viral diseases. These feelings are considered typical symptoms of the flu. They are related to the fact that in order to fight infection in the body, special substances - prostaglandins are formed. They can cause increased body temperature and pain. In addition, this pain may be related to the poisoning and fever that accompany infectious diseases.
In most cases, pain in the extremities is associated with influenza, SARS, bronchitis, pneumonia, pyelonephritis, rubella, chickenpox. This feeling can be a symptom of borrelia, botulism, paratyphoid, salmonellosis, cholera, and many parasitic diseases.
revel
Poisoning usually causes muscle pain in the arms and legs. This is due to cell death that occurs when toxins or poisons enter the body, such as large amounts of alcohol, overdose of certain drugs. This often happens with food poisoning. Pain in the extremities is accompanied by nausea, abdominal pain, and intestinal discomfort.
The bites of ticks, some other insects, and snakes can also cause poisoning. In this case, convulsions, allergic manifestations, and respiratory failure may occur. Ticks often carry infectious diseases, the first manifestation of which is pain in the extremities.
joint disease
People over the age of 45 often suffer from joint pain in the arms and legs. Human limbs move all the time, so joints wear out. With age, metabolic processes slow down, which can negatively affect the state of articular cartilage and other tissues. Therefore, arthritis, joint disease, gout and other diseases are often encountered. They can affect any joint in the limbs. With osteochondrosis or spondyloarthropathy, in addition to the spine, the arms or legs may also be injured.
With all of these disorders, it can damage the joints in the arms and legs, and the pain can spread to the muscles and other surrounding tissues. For example, osteoarthritis mainly affects large joints. But pain can be felt in the bones and muscles next to them. Rheumatoid arthritis usually affects the finger joints. Pain doesn't just happen during exercise. It can be felt even at rest and can spread to the palms, wrists, forearms.
Bone lesions
In some diseases, the bones of the arms and legs are affected. At the same time, a person experiences painful feelings that prevent him from living a normal life. This occurs in osteomyelitis, osteomalacia, or osteoporosis. These conditions are associated with infection in bone tissue or a lack of calcium in it.
Muscle pain
This is the most common cause of this feeling. Muscle pain may occur with overwork, after injury, and with myositis. Under the influence of unfavorable external factors, the muscles become inflamed and sometimes ischemia due to circulatory disturbances. In this case, so-called "trigger points" occur, which are areas of increased pain. Pain may be painful and weak or sharp and unbearable. It is confined to one place or can spread to all extremities. This usually results in muscle weakness.
This condition is called myofascial pain syndrome. It can occur after increased physical exertion, and usually the right leg or arm is more painful. Pain can be caused by wearing uncomfortable shoes, abnormal bone development, scoliosis, prolonged inactivity after injury or illness. Furthermore, this condition often accompanies people in certain occupations. For example, office workers, tailors, hairdressers have sore right hands.
If muscle pain occurs due to hypothermia or infection, it's myositis. Pathology is accompanied by rather severe pain. In this case, the temperature may rise and the extremities may swell. Polymyositis is accompanied by painful weakness, increased fatigue.
other illnesses
Similar pain sensations can be a symptom of many other conditions. Limb weakness and pain are often accompanied by elevated blood pressure, sleep disturbance, and vegetative vascular dystonia. The cause of pain may be blood disease, endocrine disease, growth of malignant tumor.
Many times, this pain is caused by damage to nerve tissue. It can be neuroma, neuralgia or neuritis. Pain in the back of the thigh can be caused by sciatica, and the wrist is often affected by carpal tunnel.
fibromyalgia
A patient can be diagnosed with fibromyalgia when, after examination, the doctor cannot find the cause of the pain, and it persists for several months. This pathology is common, but so far scientists have been unable to determine its cause. Diagnosing the disease is also difficult because neither tests nor hardware diagnostics detect it. Only general symptoms allow us to talk about the prevalence of pathology.
Fibromyalgia occurs mainly in women. This is believed to be due to a decrease in pain threshold. The root of the problem lies in the brain. Often, after severe stress, a person notices an injury to his arm or leg. This usually happens the next morning.
Basically, the discomfort is in the shoulder girdle, elbow, hip or knee. In addition to muscle, ligament, and tendon pain, patients experience weakness, decreased performance, increased fatigue, and decreased mood and memory. He had frequent insomnia, depression, inability to relax, and headaches.
Treatment characteristics
If the limbs start to hurt after physical exertion, it can be relieved on its own. For this, it is recommended that you take a bath to relax. After minor injuries, it is recommended to apply a cold compress to the damaged area. It is recommended to avoid stress for a few days and the pain will go away quickly.
But it all happened to no avail, the pain persisted for weeks and the patient didn't know what to do to get rid of the discomfort. Your best bet is to see a doctor and get tested. After all, it is only possible to choose the right treatment if the cause of the pain in the extremities is identified.
Important: Some people with these problems start taking pain relievers or NSAIDs on their own. But aside from the many side effects they cause, they don't always help.
Only a doctor who has been examined can determine how to treat the pathology. It depends on what is causing the pain, where it is located, and how intense the pain is.
Typically, analgesics or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs are used for treatment. For severe pain, your doctor may inject anesthesia or inject corticosteroids into the pain projection.
In addition to these drugs, in mild cases, topical drugs are used alone. These can be ointments or gels based on NSAIDs, capsaicin, bee venom, essential oils. They have analgesic, warming and distracting properties that help relieve muscle spasms and improve circulation.
Other means are also included in the complex treatment of this pathology. Their choice depends on the cause of the pain. For example, in the case of joint disease, chondroprotective agents are used to restore cartilage tissue. Antidepressants help with fibromyalgia.
Muscle relaxants are often used to relieve muscle spasms that can increase or cause pain. To restore blood circulation and nerve conduction, multivitamin preparations are needed, especially those containing B vitamins. Drugs that improve peripheral circulation and accelerate tissue regeneration are also effective.
Often, due to this pain, the mobility of the extremities decreases, the muscles weaken, and the joints lose elasticity. To restore the function of the arms and legs, massage and physiotherapy exercises are used. They help restore normal muscle tone and improve joint mobility. And a muscle-strengthening corset may allow you to avoid such problems in the future.
in conclusion
Pain in the arms and legs is rarely a serious pathology, most commonly overexertion. But this pain may indicate the development of certain diseases, which, if left untreated, can lead to complications. So don't ignore pain that lasts more than a week. It is best to consult a doctor to help determine the cause and prescribe treatment.