Complaints & connections · borters.ch
Myalgie
Usually overload or tension — lasting and with weakness it needs assessment.
Also known as: muscle pain · aching muscles · myalgia
Open in the tool — with search and all the links →This compilation is for information and replaces neither medical diagnosis nor treatment. If you have symptoms, see a doctor.
Muscle pain is very common and usually harmless. The best known is soreness after unaccustomed effort, plus tension from posture and stress or the aching of a flu-like illness. It usually settles on its own within days. Sometimes there are special causes: certain cholesterol-lowering medicines (statins) can cause muscle pain, as can vitamin D deficiency or an underactive thyroid; rarely an inflammatory muscle disease is behind it. Be alert to muscle pain with marked weakness, with dark urine (a sign of muscle breakdown), with fever, or if it starts soon after a new medicine — then have it assessed.
Widespread pain over more than three months, with exhaustion, unrefreshing sleep and trouble concentrating: that is a pattern of its own with effective levers of its own — and not a diagnosis of exclusion.
For soreness/tension: warmth, light movement and some patience.
Consider new effort, an infection or a newly started medicine as the cause.
Discuss statin-related muscle pain with the doctor — don’t stop on your own.
Weakness, dark urine or fever need prompt assessment.
Fever, muscle pain and swollen eyelids one to two weeks after raw pork, wild boar or bear meat form a picture of their own. The eosinophils are strongly raised.
Painkillers damp the signal, they repair nothing — and with muscle pain that matters, because a muscle can be overloaded while on painkillers. Warmth and movement act through circulation and tension. If a statin is involved, CK is measured and the drug paused rather than the pain numbed. Magnesium is used traditionally; with a documented deficiency the benefit is clear, without one the studies show little.
Muscle soreness begins six to twelve hours after exertion and is gone in five to seven days. Muscle pain on a statin affects five to ten in a hundred in observations, but a similar number without the active drug in blinded comparisons — which is why it is paused and restarted rather than stopped. CK rises to several times normal after exertion; only above ten times normal does it become a finding of its own. Dark urine after heavy exertion is an emergency.
After effort or from posture/stress — harmless, passes on its own.
Typical with flu-like illness, along with fever and fatigue.
Cholesterol drugs, vitamin D deficiency or thyroid can cause muscle pain.
Or soon after a new medicine → get it assessed.
Rises with muscle damage — relevant e.g. with statin problems. Also raised after sport.
Makes sure the muscle lets go again after tensing. A lack favours cramps, twitching and inner restlessness — and the blood value reflects the store poorly.
Sets the excitability of muscle and nerve. A low value causes weakness and cramps, a high one is dangerous for the heart rhythm — here one measures rather than guesses.
Sets off the tensing in the muscle in the first place. A low value causes tingling around the mouth and in the fingers and cramping of the hands.
With heavy sweating both are lost together. Drinking only water dilutes the sodium further — with long exertion salt belongs with it.
The most common question with muscle complaints on statins. Statins measurably lower the body’s own level; whether 100–200 mg a day over 12 weeks improves the complaints, the studies answer contradictorily.
A pronounced deficiency causes dull, two-sided muscle pain — especially in thighs and upper arms. That is one of the few muscle pains with a number behind it.
With a proven deficiency tension and twitching improve. Without one the studies show nothing — though the blood test reflects the store poorly.
Both under- and overactive thyroid cause muscle pain and weakness. With underactivity creatine kinase in the blood rises as well — a pattern occasionally taken for a muscle disease.
A pronounced vitamin D deficiency causes dull, two-sided muscle pain in thighs and upper arms, plus trouble rising from a chair. That is one of the few muscle pains with a clear number behind it.
With adrenal insufficiency muscle pain and weakness are among the early signs — together with craving salt, low blood pressure and darker skin. Rare, but dangerous untreated.
Muscle pain on statins is more common with low vitamin D; after correction some tolerate the medicine again. The link is observed, not proven — measuring is simple.
With muscle pain after exertion or heat, fluid intake, sodium and potassium count. With lasting pain without exertion, thyroid and CK belong measured.
Well studied for muscle-related pain, with a short duration of effect.
The classic sports oil; with clear limits because of the aspirin relationship.