Super Tight and Painful Muscles- stress related?

For the last week I've been dealing with really really tight muscles. Tight muscles and muscle pain are not new to me- those were my first symptoms before I got diagnosed with lyme and something that pretty much bothers me daily. But this past week it's the worst I've ever felt. I feel like they have turned to stone basically. So my frantic mind goes between- can stress cause something this severe? Or then I remember one doc I went to that said chronic lyme is not usually muscle pain and tightness and maybe to test for MS.

I have had a pretty stressful last few weeks- enough where I even had a few anxiety attacks. And this week I've got the flu. It's been a rough road recently, but the severity of my muscles is just really concerning me.

Yes, Lyme and company can cause that kind of issue. I dealt with that the first time I was infected and I'm dealing with it now that I'm in treatment for Bart. That doc had no clue what they were talking about. Lyme can mimic MS perfectly - as well as many other things that affect the muscles like Parkinson's.

Stress is a big factor, as it lowers the immune function, which in turn allows the Lyme (or whichever infection) to come out more. See what you can do to find ways to de-stress and increase your detoxing and immune support when stress can't be avoided. I'm having to do the same thing - they took my aunt to the ER today, and found out she has a gastro bleed - somewhere. They are still working to find where it is, and I'm on pins and needles since my own husband almost died from that very thing about 8 years ago. Time to help out the body more!

Best of luck - seems like the set backs are hidden everywhere some days, but we can do this!!

I would like to say "oh phooey" about stress causing the muscle pain and tightness. Although stress can exacerbate an already occurring problem... However, at night when Im trying to settle down, I realise how tensed up I am, but due to the pain not stress. I have to meditate in bed each nighr to release the muscular tension so I can sleep.

Pirouette said...


And I THINK Astroman might have some thoughts on muscle ache/pain so I hope he comes along to comment.

-p

Body pain/tension has been my #1 slow to go away issue. When in pain, your life is somewhat planned around it, jobs too, I can't sit, type, or stand 8 hours straight, I need variety. So I really relate to people in pain here..When popping pills ABX, herbs ect, does not lead to quick pain relief alone, its time to help your muscles/tendons the manual way. I am 15 months post ABX now, and I can finally gain muscle strength, and flexibility quicker than before. It is not however, magically doing this on its own as some in the lyme community assume will happen. So I still have pain, but less. Of course, I want it ALL GONE!

Muscles have memory. They can remain stuck after the cause is even fixed. The longer your in pain, the more this is likely. I was in abnormal pain for a couple decades. I had lyme, untreated hashimoto and my body was under immune and physical stress from competitive endurance athletics. I was a functional lymie for years but very stubborn with not letting my mystery illness control me completely. (Well, untill I awoke 80% blind in 2008, then it was obvious something was WAY wrong. Vision came back after two days.)

This below is a repeated comment of mine from another post:

["Reversing your own pain, without shelling out the big bucks is a great feeling, and its ITS SIMPLE once you get the hang of it.

After studying trigger point release, myofacial release and my own version of active release (all three are different), I feel I can now self treat most new and old soft tissue issues I may encounter.

Pain is expected when treating an injured muscle, its completely normal to feel more pain before the healing begins. The old school method of "just let it be", unfortunately does not have good results. Like many things, doing nothing usually results in nothing.

The best way to minimize pain from intense trigger point relief or even an intense deep massage (the best ones) is to use a good oral magnesium that ends in "ate", and even topical magnesium lotion (walmart)..A shower changing the water from warm to cold and back actually increase circulation and reduces inflammation VS a very warm bath (which actually increases inflammation on new irritations).

All about timing: Once tight areas are released, you need to repeat your treatment before the tissue starts to tighten up again. In the beginning this could mean twice a day- another reason to self learn this.

Those big foam rollers are a great maintainance tool for keeping the facia (the netting over all muscles) unrestricted. Trigger point release is done more with smaller diameter objects that will go deeper into muscle like la cross balls and golf balls - and "melt " away the muscle knots in sustained pressure less than a minute at a time.

Just as an example I've spent about 4 grand and ten years of various Drs and chiropractic / orthopedic on my off-and-on frozen shoulder with very minimal results. Minimal, it was / has been very disappointing. So I figured, I might as well give it a shot on my own. Six month of daily self treating all of the various rotator tendons and muscles and I'm 90% BETTER. I also purchased a $100 cheapy muscle ultra sound - it helps after my self treatments.

People learn herbs on their own, they can do this too. Nothing like fixing your own health."]

I will add a link to a longer more detail post on this stuff:

www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=30&m=3589306

This might seem like a lot of info for newbies. I slowly learned this maybe over eight years, greatly expanding on it in the last three. They key is you need to use these methods to loosen up the tight and injured areas so they move right. Then you slowly add strength exercises. Injuries that never healed right have adhesion, meaning muscle is stuck to other muscles and pulls them in ways they are not supposed to. All these release methods I mention un-stick adhesion's too, but you must be very aggressive. With adhesion's, no pain = no gain.

When I'm done with an aggressive session, I take magnessium glycinate, and use several gells /creams, MSN, Arnica, and Morton Epson salt LOTION. As previously I also purchased a $100 ultra sound to go over certain areas.

Due to my past history, I was probably worse off in pain than most here. The less areas of pain you have, the easier it will be.

There is no way I could afford paying others to do all of this. However I still do go to a select few, they know me well, and help with muscle movement questions - and new exercise ideas incorporating functional body movement, as opposed to basic wight lifting/training which have un-natural movements and dont help much on there own.

Time to go roll my upper back/shoulders on my lacross ball and big foam roller............

Post Edited (astroman) : 4/9/2016 12:59:10 PM (GMT-6)

P - I added the link (edited) after your post I think.

Chap - as in the abbreviated CoQ10 (Coenzyme Q10)?

I 've used it for 2 years. Supposed to be good for anyone with Hashimoto, and it supports mitochondria. It does good things for some people. Unfortunately, I can't feel anything from it, but the Dr says to take it anyway.