By Zev M.Cohen, M.D.
Do you suffer from chronic low back pain? Do your knees hurt when you go up the stairs, and your hands hurt when you try to open a jar? Do you experience headaches that feel like a bomb going off in your head? Do you get ringing in your ears? Have you been diagnosed as having carpal tunnel syndrome?
These conditions can all be the end result of muscle spasms! While it seems incredible that a simple thing like a spasm can cause so much trouble, it’s easy to understand when you take a close look at the body. There are 600 muscles in the body and 206 bones. The only reason that bones move is because muscles pull on them (unless you have a traumatic accident), and therein lies the problem. The muscle originates at a stationary point in the body, it then crosses over a joint and inserts onto another bone. When a muscle contracts it pulls the insertion point toward the origination point, and the joint bends. For example, the biceps and triceps are responsible for bending the elbow. If your arm is straight out and you contract the biceps muscle the elbow begins to bend. At the same time, in order for the arm to completely bend, the triceps muscle must fully stretch. If you then want to straighten your arm again the triceps must contract and the biceps must fully stretch. If you try this, slowly, with your own arm you will understand the concept easily.
If, for example, the triceps muscle is contracted and shortened by a spasm, you will only be able to bend your arm as far as the triceps will stretch. Many people then think that they have a problem with the elbow, while the problem is actually less serious than it appears.
We teach our clients an analogy that is very helpful in understanding the root of the muscle spasm situation. Imagine a young child standing between a deep well filled with water, and a big rain barrel. The child has an eyedropper and is going from the well to the rain barrel putting tiny amounts on water into the barrel, many times – back and forth – for hours every day. Then, about 40 years later, the rain barrel overflows. The child (who is now an adult) says “I don’t understand, I’ve been doing this for years and it’s never done this before!” Likewise, people say to us: “I’ve been doing this (exercise, etc.) for years and it never hurt before, I must be getting old” No – you’re not getting old, you just never emptied your “rain barrel” and now its overflowed!
The body is amazing. We have mechanisms for healing that are so incredible that science still hasn’t been able to fully understand how they work. Our bodies mutate very slowly, but life is now changing rapidly. It wasn’t such a long time ago, before electricity was discovered, that people would work very hard all day – and then rest when the sun went down, going to bed early. In the past, when people would rest at the end of the day, the body would begin its process of removing the lactic acid that is the natural by-product of muscle action. This is the body’s method of emptying the rain barrel. But, when electricity increased the hours in our days, we began to stretch ourselves by working out in gyms, staying on the computer until late at night, and even doing fun things like dancing until the wee hours. Our bodies weren’t able to keep up with the increased lactic acid production, and we began to pile up spasms one on top of the other. This continued day after day, and our muscles started getting tighter and tighter.
This situation leads to the next analogy that we share with our patients. Remember that muscles originate in one place, cross over the joint and then insert in another place. Muscles always pull on the insertion point. Now, visualize pulling your hair at the end. You don’t feel it at the end where you are pulling, but you do feel it on the scalp where it inserts. Likewise, you rarely feel the pain in the part of the muscle that is being pulled, but you do feel it at the insertion.
