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It’s early in the New Year, and people are crowding the gyms to get in shape. If you’re one of them, chances are your body is hurting all over! 

Usually, when pain occurs in one part of the body, it’s easy to pinpoint the cause. But generalized aches and pains are another story and are much harder to diagnose. 

When your whole body hurts, the cause could be anything from the flu to fibromyalgia. It doesn’t help that these aches tend to be dull and persistent instead of sharp and short-lived.

In most cases, body aches and pains are harmless and resolve on their own without treatment. However, sometimes they’re the result of an underlying illness. 

What Causes Generalized Aches and Pain?

Flu or a Bad Cold

Soreness could be a sign that you’re coming down with something like the flu or a bad cold. The prostaglandins that your immune system releases to fight the infection are responsible for the achiness you feel and other symptoms like fever. Pain relievers stop the production of prostaglandins. 

Poor Posture

Most people have poor posture; they slump over when sitting and hunch their shoulders when walking. Over time this leads to incorrect alignment of the pelvis, and a curved lower back, which causes back pain and muscle tension. The pain usually goes away if you improve your posture and stretch or workout more often. 

Stress, Anxiety and Depression

Many people who suffer from generalized body aches have no physical condition that accounts for their symptoms. In such cases, the cause may be psychological. 

Stress can weaken your immunity and cause inflammation leading to mysterious soreness. Similarly, anxiety disorders can lead to pain, muscle tension, and headaches. 

Depending on the severity, you can treat this pain with relaxation techniques, therapy, or medication. 

Dehydration

Water is necessary to keep your body functioning optimally. When you’re dehydrated, essential bodily functions become more taxing, which can leave you feeling sore all over. Thankfully, you can relieve this kind of pain by drinking six to eight glasses of water daily. 

Lack of quality sleep 

Your body requires sleep for rest and recovery. Lack of sleep can make you feel sluggish and sore. The obvious solution is to get more sleep. However, if you struggle with insomnia or any other condition that keeps you up at night, talk to your doctor about it.

Serious Medical Conditions

Body aches can point to an underlying medical condition such as mono, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, pneumonia, arthritis, and various autoimmune disorders. If the pain or soreness refuses to go away on its own, disrupts your daily life, or is accompanied by other symptoms such as shortness of breath, weakness, or fever, see your doctor. 

Generalized body aches and pain can be annoying at their mildest, and a sign of a severe medical condition at their worst. 

Most of the time, all you need is a tall glass of water, some pain relievers, and a good night’s sleep. However, don’t wait to seek medical attention if the pain is accompanied by other symptoms and persists after you’ve tried your home remedies. 

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Americans spend one billion dollars every week on work-related musculoskeletal injuries because many of us spend our workdays straining to accommodate our workstations when it should be the other way around.

Having a workstation that
isn’t suited for your body forces you to hold your wrists, neck, shoulders and back
in strange positions for hours at a time, which causes a surprising amount of
damage to those body parts.

Is Your Workstation Right for You?

The right workstation
allows you to work in a relaxed position, and requires little force, strength
and effort. It’s the only way to avoid putting unnecessary strain on your body.

While we can’t all have
custom-made office furniture, there’s a ton of adjustable furniture on the
market; the more adjustable, the better.

Adjust Your Workstation to Suit your Body

Your Monitor

Your eyes should be level with the top of your monitor. You should be able to read your screen without craning your head and neck forwards and backwards. Your head should remain above the base of your neck at all times.  

You can achieve this by
raising or lowering your monitor, or moving it closer or farther away. If using
a laptop, you might need to get a larger monitor.

Your Chair

Your chair should support your lower back and allow you to sit at a slightly reclined 100 to 110-degree angle, allowing you to maintain the normal curve in your spine in a way that slouching or sitting up straight doesn’t.

When seated, your feet should rest flat on the floor, and your thighs should be parallel to the ground. Also, you should sit back when working, leaving just a few inches between the back of your knees and the chair.

Adjust the armrests so that the weight of your arms is supported at all times and your shoulders are relaxed. If your armrests are too low, your arms won’t be supported, which could cause neck and shoulder pain. And, if your armrests are too high, your neck and shoulders won’t be able to relax.

Your Desk

Most desks are built at the correct height for writing but not typing, which forces you to reach up when typing, straining the shoulders and arms. However, a desk that forces you to hunch your shoulders isn’t any better either.

Your desk is at the right
height when your forearms are parallel to the floor and your wrists are not
pointing upwards or downwards.

If your desk is too high, consider getting a keyboard tray that slides out from under the desk. And if it is too low, try adjusting your chair downwards.

Just because your job requires you to sit behind a desk all day doesn’t mean you should be doomed to a lifetime of neck, wrist, and back pain!

Take the liberty of adjusting your workstation to suit YOUR needs so you can stay healthy and pain-free!

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So, you kicked off the New Year with a great resistance workout and left the gym beaming with pride, but now your muscles are so stiff and sore that it hurts to even walk. Should you give your body a break or grind through the pain and keep going, forcing your body to adjust to your new exercise routine?

There is no simple answer to this question because it depends on the intensity and duration of the pain.

How Bad Is the Pain?

There are two main types of muscle soreness associated with intense resistance training: Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) and Rhabdomyolysis.

DOMS – the Annoying Pain

DOMS is caused by microscopic tears in the muscle fibers. Although that sounds kind of bad, it’s actually part of the muscle building process. The amount of damage varies depending on the intensity, duration and type of exercise.

The soreness starts as early as 12 hours after an intense workout and can last several days. However, the worst pain occurs about 48 hours after the workout when you’re first starting out. Your body gets acclimated in a few days and the pain goes away.

Rhabdomyolysis – the Dangerous Pain

The second and more serious type of muscle soreness is called rhabdomyolysis. It occurs when a direct or indirect muscle injury causes the death of muscle fibers, releasing toxic substances into the bloodstream. This can lead to kidney failure if the kidneys are unable to remove these wastes from the body.

Rhabdomyolysis can happen to anyone, from beginners to pros. Its symptoms are muscle pain, weakness, problems with urination, brown or dark red urine, irregular heartbeat, dizziness, confusion and vomiting. If you experience these symptoms after a particularly tough workout, rush to the ER immediately.

Bottom line, if you’re only experiencing mild soreness that makes walking up the stairs uncomfortable, or when stretching your arms or legs in a certain way, it’s perfectly okay to continue your workouts. In fact, it’s likely that the pain will decrease significantly after you’ve been exercising for a few minutes and your muscles are warm and filled with blood. However, don’t push yourself as hard as you did the previous day; go lighter.

If the pain is bad enough that you think you might have sprained something, take a day off. However, keep in mind that a day can easily turn into a couple of days or week. Get back to your workouts as soon as the pain reaches manageable levels. Push yourself but in a healthy way.

How Long Have You Been Sore?

Other than the intensity of the pain, you should also consider the duration. DOMS should be gone within 3 to 7 days without any form of therapy. If the soreness lasts longer than this and your workout performance declines noticeably, your body may be trying to tell you that it’s time to chill out.

Take a day or two off and increase your protein intake to speed up muscle recovery. Alternatively, you can change your workout to give the sore muscles time to heal. If you have overworked your abs and arms, give them a break and focus on your legs for a couple of workouts – but remember to give your legs at least one day off between workouts as you should never work the same muscle group two days in a row (the exception to this rule might be abs; it’d be wise to seek advice from your personal trainer).

Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness happens to everyone; most times you can push through the pain and discomfort. However, if the pain is too intense or lasts longer than a week, it would be wise to take a break and seek medical attention.

Always remember that an object in motion stays in motion, and an object at rest tends to stay at rest. We were built to move! So, do what you need to do to be healthy and well, and don’t let pain keep you on the sidelines indefinitely (unless it’s an injury) because your body will start to deteriorate, which is much worse for your life and health in the long run.

(Photo credit courtesy of Trainer Academy https://traineracademy.org/) 

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Physical therapy is so much safer than pain medications, which only provide temporary relief and come with cardiovascular and stomach bleeding risks. Its non-intrusive nature is also a clear advantage over surgery, so it should be the first line of defense against pain (unless surgery is clearly needed).

What to Expect from Physical Therapy

The physical therapist spends the first session conducting an initial examination comprised of a variety of strength, balance and range-of-motion tests. The results of the tests, coupled with a thorough review of your medical history, helps to identify the source of the pain.

These tests are extremely important because sometimes an illnesses in one part of your body causes pain in a completely different and seemingly unrelated area. Cardiac, respiratory, and gastrointestinal illnesses are especially guilty of this.

Once a therapist has identified the cause of your pain, he develops a personalized treatment plan. The plan is tailored to fit into your everyday life and includes short term and long term goals, ensuring that you stay on track long after your last physical therapy session.

The number of physical therapy sessions you need varies depending on the severity of your condition. On average, 6 to 12 sessions are enough to decrease pain, improve flexibility and range of motion, and increase strength.

Getting Ready for Physical Therapy

As a patient, there are some things you should do before starting physical therapy. For starters, check your health insurance to see what’s covered and any amount you’ll need to pay. Since some insurance copayments are quite expensive, this step avoids expensive surprises down the line.

Once you’ve figured out the financial component, schedule your initial examination either by phone or in person; plan for an hour. Also, remember to bring a complete list of medications that you’re taking as this might factor into your course of treatment. Once you and your therapist have decided on a plan moving forward, schedule several appointments over the next few weeks to ensure progress

On the day of the appointment, wear comfortable clothes that don’t restrict your movement. Better still, wear something that allows the therapist to access the affected body parts with ease.

In today’s world, arthritis, joint pain, back pain and other injuries are no longer a life sentence of taking expensive pain medications. In many cases, physical therapy provides a wide variety of safe and effective treatment options to relieve pain without the dangerous side effects that are often associated with medication.

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