When an area of your body is injured or hurt (whether that be minor or major), your muscles surrounding that area of aggravation go into a ‘defence’ mode and tense up in order to protect the area.  Usually, the more severe the injury the more spasm; but this is not always the case. Sometimes lower back muscle spasm can be excessive for a minor injury.  This is all very good and for a short period of time, it serves its purpose to prevent re-injury.

Unfortunately, our body goes overboard sometimes and doesn’t release the spasm.  This can create other problems.

Pain can develop in muscles by any number of causes such as injuries, overuse, surgery, fatigue and stress can cause muscle spasm.  The muscle perceives all these things as an injury and responds by contracting the muscle to protect it; as we said, a good thing………..initially!  BUT, if this is left to continue, it can cause a cycle of problems.

•  Muscle spasm can cause a reduction in circulation in the local area of muscle tissue and surrounding tissues.
• This is obviously not ideal as good nutrients and oxygen are not getting to the injury to repair and heal the area causing the initial pain.
• This reduced circulation in turn leads to a build-up of metabolic waste products (toxins) in the area which leads to further pain.
• A vicious cycle occurs, known as the pain/spasm cycle.

Muscle pain and spasm can develop without an actual injury. There are many circumstances that can lead to pain and dysfunction; poor or habitual posture, long periods of sitting, habitual emotional stress that causes chronic muscle contractions can all function like an injury.  If these habits continue for any prolonged period of time, more serious complications may arise resulting in a weakening of your entire system.

Quite often, the pain from muscle spasm and its associated cycle is much worse than the initial injury that triggered the spasm.

Can we prevent or stop this from happening?

No, but we are able to relieve the symptoms and speed up the recovery from the injury by utilising a number of tools:  ice, heat, soft tissue therapy, stretching.

When and what do we use to ease muscle spasm?

An important question as different methods of easing muscle spasm should be specifically used at different stages of an injury occurring.

Never use heat or deep soft tissue therapy on an acute injury – from onset to up to 5 days following an injury occurring; BUT be aware that even a chronic injury can be re-aggravated thus classing it as an acute injury.  If unsure please contact us and we can advise you.  This will only stir up the highly reactive area and cause more spasm.  Ice actually breaks the pain spasm cycle as the cold temporarily (further) reduces blood flow to the applied area, thus reducing inflammation, but when removed, stimulates the body to flood blood into the area thus providing good nutrients and removal of toxins – breaking the pain/spasm cycle.

From about 5 days of a spasm occurring, a combination therapy of ice and heat can be used to further flush the surrounding area.

Soft tissue therapy and heat should only be used to stimulate circulation to the muscle tissue once it has been established that the initial acute inflammation has begun to subside.

Gentle soft tissue treatment and stretching can be introduced but please consult us at ONE HEALTH as to when this should be done.