The doctor listened with stoicism to my ever-increasing list of ailments and referred me to a physiotherapist: he clearly thought there was nothing wrong with me. I did have blood tests for thyroid imbalance and diabetes, but both were pronounced normal. I ate all the high-fat rubbish I could lay hands on, yet every time I stood on the scales, I seemed to have lost another couple of pounds.Ĭoward that I am, I was too frightened to insist on any full-blown invasive testing. More unfathomable symptoms were to follow, however: constant low-level nausea, heart palpitations, buzzing, electric shock-like sensations coursing through my body, fatigue, bleeding gums, back acne, sleep disturbances and, scariest of all, inexplicable weight loss. Not being most people, I hobbled out of the surgery and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed, in pain - but temporarily reassured by his bluster that I wasn't about to keel over from some horrible disease. He then announced, with more than a hint of smug doctorly pride, that this seemed to do the trick for most people. I went to the doctor, who, in true old-school British-trained doctor tradition, informed me that it was nothing more than muscle strain, and had me lie down on his couch while he cracked a few vertebrae. I then spent several droopy-bosomed weeks hoping it would go away of its own accord, which, funnily enough, it didn't. It all began with a weird twinging under my right breast, which moved round to my upper back and shoulder, rendering the whole area so uncomfortable that I stopped wearing a bra. It was the manifestation of other, less explicable symptoms, which started three years ago when I was 38 and living with my family in Asia, that convinced me I was dying. I never anticipated a time when doing a poo would become a cause for celebration, or when my pubic hair would start mysteriously disappearing only to reappear in other places - springing perkily from my nostrils, protruding at a jaunty angle from a hitherto innocuous facial mole.ĭispleasing though these indications of incipient decrepitude were, they didn't worry me unduly. “Identifying and addressing the underlying cause, however, is the best long-term approach,” she says.No one told me, however, about the part where you wake up one morning in your late 30s to discover that your body isn't quite what (or indeed where) it used to be. “In instances where extra help is needed, a course of anti-inflammatory medications, acetaminophen or muscle relaxants can often be effective. ![]() “As a physician, I try to figure out what is triggering the pain,” says Dr. “Muscle cramps and spasms are often a part of the body’s normal stress response,” says Rio Dickens-Celestin, MD, an internal medicine physician at Scripps Clinic Carmel Valley. Applying heat to the cramp when the spasm begins can also help. ![]() However, hand or foot spasms, as well as cramps in the feet, arms and abdomen are also common.įor immediate relief, stretch the muscle gently and massage it to help the muscle relax. Muscle cramps and spasms are most often experienced in the leg. ![]() Cramps are caused by muscle spasms - involuntary contractions of one or more muscles. ![]() You’ve probably experienced a muscle spasm or cramp - that sharp stabbing pain in a muscle that wakens you from a deep sleep or trips up your run.Ī cramp is a sudden contraction or tightening of a muscle that usually lasts a few seconds to a few minutes.
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