Health

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She had worked many years as a secretary, typing reports and messages to people in the company. Now her hands are tingling; periodically going numb, and she sometimes experiences pain shooting up her arms. A couple of days ago, she was carrying the groceries, and she dropped a bag full of fruit.

Her hands cramp periodically. They are not as strong as they used to be. The pain and tingling are even worse at night. In the mornings, as she begins work, she notes that her hands are stiff and need some time before she can get to typing.

Her body is talking to her. It is giving her the warning signs of carpal tunnel syndrome. But her body is also telling her what she needs to know to get better…and it usually does not require surgery.

There are several conditions in our hands, feet, and arms that display similarities:

• carpal tunnel,
• plantar fasciitis,
• tennis elbow and
• golf elbow

Each of these conditions involves joint pain, and there is a common cause for these frustrating, discouraging symptoms.

Most of the time, when I examine patients who have carpal tunnel or one of the other conditions mentioned above, I hear, “They tell me I’m going to have to have surgery.” I always hear some concern expressed with those words. And the good news is: your body usually can heal itself, with the right support and understanding of what is causing the problems in the first place.

It All Starts With Your Muscles

In this section of How Your Body Talks, we will explore how muscle tightness causes stress on the tendon with resulting ‘tendonitis,’ the common denominator in all the above diagnoses.

The purpose of muscles is to contract or tighten to make movement take place. When the contraction is no longer needed, the muscle relaxes into its stretched resting state. A stretched relaxed muscle places no strain on the bony attachments of the tendon to the bone. At the point where the muscle attaches to the tendon, there are sites that assess the tension present in the muscle, called proprioceptive sites or trigger points.

When a muscle contracts, it places a strain on the site where the tendon inserts into the bone. Typically this is no problem because the majority of the time the muscle is in the relaxed state.

However, if the muscle is always tight rather than relaxed, it places a chronic strain on the insertion site of the tendon. Inflammation follows, which is perceived as pain. This is often called ‘tendonitis.’

From Tendonitis to Treatment

So, what causes a muscle to go into a chronic state of contraction or tightness?

• A torn muscle causes the muscle to go into spasm. If it does not heal, it stays tight.
• A muscle which is overused, or used repetitively, will stay contracted. It doesn’t have time to repair between uses.
• A muscle group that is used without the use of the opposite muscle (called the antagonist) permits the used muscle to get tighter and tighter. Without the stretch placed on the used muscle by the antagonist muscles, it never totally relaxes.

(I once had three patients in a week think they were having a heart attack, when they were simply experiencing chest pain from tight muscles, caused by working while leaning forward all the time…but I digress. That’s an article for another time).

Another problem with a tight muscle is that the muscle has less ability to contract for full movement, because it is always in a state of partial contraction. This can contribute to what could be perceived as a weak muscle. When that happens, instead of addressing the cause correctly, we tend to pursue strengthening the muscles even more, never getting to the root (and solution) to the problem.

Steps to Healing

So what is the treatment? First and foremost, I recommend massage therapy to release the tight muscle. This takes the strain off the site where the tendon inserts into the bone (also the site that hurts and is inflamed). Often, once the tight muscle stress is relieved, the pain goes away.

If the pain has been there a long time, the inflammation may persist and could be reduced with a natural anti-inflammatory. MSM is an inexpensive anti-inflammatory, although there are more effective, more expensive herbs such as Boswelia. I’m going to get on my soapbox here and just ask, how much is our health worth? We only get one body. Let’s give it the care it needs.   Does it need surgery? In my experience, seldom, if ever, does carpal tunnel need surgery. Same goes for the other conditions. And by the way, most of the time, if we can identify the cause of the problem, we can figure out a way to solve it that does not involve drugs; does not involve surgery.

Of course, this same treatment applies to more than just carpal tunnel, but to all the conditions where tight muscles are the cause—plantar fasciitis, tennis or golf elbow. I find that about 80% of all joint pain I see is related to tight muscles.

And it happens more frequently when you are a younger, athletic type. Just keep in mind that it can happen to any of us, at any time, when we perpetually have a one-way motion that we do with our muscles.

Dr. Gardner, board certified in Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine and a Certified Nutrition Specialist, works out of his Riverton office, Keys to Healing Medical Center. He can be reached at (801) 302-5397 for appointments.