Participants: Nick Evenson (Host), Dr. James Marcum
Series Code: UP
Program Code: UP000085B
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00:01 Welcome back to the program.
00:02 I'm Nick Evenson, here with Dr. James Marcum. 00:04 And on today's program 00:05 we're discussing muscle aches and pains. 00:07 You know, there's a lot of different reasons 00:10 as we discussed before Dr. Marcum 00:11 overuse, stress, lack of water, those can all be common causes 00:17 and we've had a lot of people 00:18 write in with questions to our website. 00:20 And if you have a question, 00:21 we want you to visit at heartwiseministries.org. 00:24 You can ask the doctor your questions. 00:26 You can submit prayer requests for your health issues, 00:29 and we encourage you to visit the website 00:30 and give us some feedback. 00:32 Dr. Marcum... 00:33 Before you go to those, I'm gonna interrupt you here. 00:34 Okay, let's hear it. 00:36 I just got an epiphany, a thought 00:38 which just crossed my brain. 00:40 You know we talk a lot about pain 00:42 and a lot of people are out there that have pain. 00:45 But I really think if you break it down 00:48 and you think about it logically 00:49 and you understand a little bit about pain 00:52 where it's coming from, what's causing it, 00:54 I think that lowers your stress level. 00:56 Yeah. 00:58 You know, it turns off those 00:59 what we call worry, stress, anxiety type pain. 01:02 Remember that text 01:03 the biblical prescription in Philippians, 01:05 "Be anxious about nothing." 01:08 When we're anxious, 01:09 it creates all of these chemicals 01:11 that make it more likely to have pain, 01:14 and if we have pain it makes it that much worse. 01:16 Yeah. 01:18 And then we don't think 01:19 with the higher part of our brain 01:21 which actually has more control over pain than the lower part. 01:24 See, if you were really tuned into the higher parts of brain, 01:27 we can understand and we can actually turn off pain. 01:31 Have you ever seen people that are so focused 01:33 that on something's 01:35 that they turn off pain pathways. 01:37 I don't know if I recognize that. 01:38 Okay, okay, but anyway, 01:40 you know, we think in the Bible about, 01:42 you know, how God worked with people. 01:44 And you know, I do think that the people 01:46 that are so tuned in 01:47 and they have really good brain health, 01:49 really good worship health, 01:50 I think that only helps deal with chronic pain 01:54 including all these pains 01:55 we've been talking about, muscle pains. 01:57 And as they learn more about it and they know how to avoid it 02:00 and how, what to do if they get it 02:02 and what the algorithm is in knowing. 02:05 And then there're some people 02:06 that will never get rid of all their pain. 02:08 Right. 02:09 But that's why we're so glad that we have a God 02:11 that's a ultimate physician that's gonna heal us, 02:14 it's just where, when and how. 02:17 And everyone out there can have hope 02:19 that there's a God, 02:21 that if you have a relationship with Him, 02:22 He's gonna work things out for you in your life. 02:26 And that gives such hope and just that hope 02:28 and that reassurance helps 02:31 cope with the pain we might be having. 02:33 And we just talked about some of the physical pains, 02:35 but there's mental pain 02:37 that's a real issue as well, Nick. 02:38 Yeah, that's right. 02:40 So now we can get to the questions. 02:41 All right now... 02:42 The epiphany, the epiphany is over. 02:44 That was a good epiphany. That was a good epiphany. 02:45 Yeah, just hit me there, 02:47 you know I don't know where it came from. 02:48 So yeah, it's a good thought because sometimes 02:50 when we're not in control 02:51 and we don't know what's going on, 02:53 it's easy to just get more stressed out 02:54 on the whole just causes worse problems. 02:56 It's like a snowball. Yeah. 02:58 A snowball, but when we, our brain, 02:59 we let our brain control 03:01 and we turn it over to God right up front... 03:02 That's right. 03:03 Say God, you know, we worship You, 03:05 I know that worship's gonna help me get through this. 03:07 I know there's real chemistry behind worship 03:09 that deals with stress and chronic pain. 03:12 Let me jump in that first and get that going. 03:15 Because even if we can't understand it, 03:17 if we just trust in God and have peace... 03:19 Yes. 03:20 That will help us physiologically. 03:22 A healing belief. That's right. 03:23 A healing belief. 03:25 There's real chemistry even though 03:26 we can't explain it. 03:27 That's right, that's right. 03:29 Well, let's get to a few of these questions 03:30 on muscle pain. 03:32 The first one is from a viewer who asks, 03:34 what is the treatment for a muscle spasm? 03:36 Okay. 03:37 So first, what is a muscle spasm 03:38 and what causes the spasms? 03:40 Yeah. 03:41 You know, muscle spasms is just what it says, 03:43 the muscle spasm, it contracts 03:44 when you're not telling it to contract. 03:46 Okay, it usually balls up and it hurts. 03:49 Yeah. Okay. 03:51 The first thing is you know, if you have it, you know, 03:53 you're not gonna say, well, what's causing my...? 03:55 No, you want to do something right now. 03:56 Right, yeah. 03:58 And the things that you can do right now is usually 03:59 stretching it into a position. 04:01 You know, you've seen in the leg cramps 04:03 how you change the position of the foot. 04:06 A massage helps with that. Yeah. 04:08 Ice will also help with that. 04:10 And then once you get it to go away, you know, 04:13 fluids will help. 04:14 Then you say what caused it to happen, 04:16 overuse, 04:18 I'm not having enough water, 04:19 I'm not having enough electrolytes, 04:21 those are some of the more common causes 04:23 of acute spasm. 04:24 So is the spasm the some thing as a cramp? 04:27 Yes. Okay. 04:28 Cramp, spasm, we're talking the same... 04:29 Same kind of thing. The same verbiage, Nick. 04:31 Except one's a little bit higher 04:32 and you know spasm. 04:34 You know, and the other one's a little bit lower in cramp. 04:37 And we're counting. 04:38 But it's the same verbiage. 04:39 But those are the, you know, the stretch to relieve 04:41 that spasm to take pressure off the muscle. 04:44 And then of course, you know, massage to sort of work that, 04:47 you know, that muscle, you know, that's contracting, 04:51 work that contraction out. 04:52 Yeah. 04:54 You know, some can be so bad, it's like a really solid muscle 04:56 that's like really cramping so you can feel 04:58 a ball of muscle there that's contacting. 05:00 It's kind of a knot. 05:01 Well, it's not supposed to be doing that. 05:03 Right, right. Yeah. 05:05 Another viewer writes in and asks 05:07 when should muscle pain 05:08 prompt a visit to the emergency room? 05:10 Yeah, that's a good question, 05:11 I think we alluded to that earlier. 05:14 If you have, you know, severe, you know, 05:16 these severity hydration, you going on a walk, 05:19 you pass out. 05:20 But you know people are gonna take you there anyway. 05:21 Yeah. 05:23 If you find grandma that's been on the floor for three days, 05:25 you know that's a trip to the emergency room to see 05:26 if they have muscle breakdown. 05:28 Right. 05:29 But as usually the bane what I wanna tell people 05:32 is if you find someone with a stick stiff neck, 05:35 muscle pain in the neck and a fever, 05:37 that could be a serious infection 05:39 called meningitis. 05:41 So that's muscle pain, stiff neck and a fever, 05:43 that could be a meningitis type situation. 05:46 That would be a trip to the emergency room 05:48 to get that treated right away. 05:50 Right, right. 05:52 What are some... 05:53 So that's a trip to the emergency room. 05:55 That's right. 05:56 There're different places to go when you have muscle pains. 05:57 That's right. That's ER. 05:59 So I was gonna ask, if you're gonna stay at home, 06:00 what are some of the things you can do if your situation 06:02 is deemed not serious enough to go to the ER? 06:05 What are some things you should try at home? 06:06 Okay. 06:08 Well, you know to self treat it rest it, massage it. 06:12 Hydrate it. 06:14 Hydrate it, put some ice on it, 06:16 compression and we have this 06:19 and we call it the RICE treatment. 06:20 Okay, the RICE treatment rest, ice, compress, elevate. 06:26 Okay. 06:27 Okay, if that, now what would require muscle pain 06:31 and a trip to the doctor's office? 06:32 Now I'm not telling you the emergency room, 06:34 a doctor's office. 06:35 If you have a rash with it with muscle aches, okay, 06:39 a tick bite, you've heard of rickettsia and lymes 06:43 that can sometimes a tick bite can cause muscle aches. 06:46 Okay. 06:47 If the muscle aches lasts longer than a week, okay. 06:51 If it's a combination of the muscles red and has pain 06:56 those might be the trips to the doctor 06:57 to dilate a little bit more. 06:59 Okay. 07:01 So that sort of let you know which one should you do it 07:02 at home RICE, what you do if it's little more involved 07:06 because of the doctor and then if it's a lot involved 07:08 you know, this extreme weakness, 07:10 stiff neck then maybe 07:12 that's a trip to the emergency room. 07:13 Right, so another viewer asks, 07:15 what tests might help diagnose muscle pain, 07:18 say at the doctor's office? 07:20 Yeah. 07:21 Well, one of the test that help a lot. 07:22 When a muscle breaks down, 07:24 it spits out protein into the blood 07:26 because the muscle is breaking down. 07:28 Okay. Mm-hmm. 07:29 And so we can measure the muscle products in it, 07:31 and one of the ones 07:32 we measure is creatine phosphokinase or CPK. 07:35 Okay. 07:37 Sometimes we can have, 07:38 when we have muscle break down, 07:40 we can have elevated inflammation. 07:41 We can measure that with a sed rate. 07:43 If we think the muscle is breaking down 07:44 for lots of overuse, 07:46 we can see if there's lactic acid doses developing. 07:48 But that is severe, a severe case. 07:51 Sometimes when there's cancer in the body 07:54 and the cells are metabolically turning over quickly. 07:56 Uric acid in the blood might be a clue for that. 08:00 If we think that the body is attacking itself, you know, 08:03 fibromyalgia or some of those. 08:05 We can measure chemicals like that. 08:07 One that we measure is called "antinuclear antibody," 08:11 ANA we can do that too. 08:12 And then there are some diseases 08:14 we haven't talked about where the muscles aches 08:16 and there's diseases in the muscle. 08:18 You've heard and we haven't talked much about these 08:20 conditions like muscular dystrophy. 08:22 You know, other things that are going on 08:24 where the brain can't control the muscles. 08:26 We can diagnose those things 08:27 with test like electromylogram. 08:30 We measure how the muscle contracts, 08:32 where we can do a biopsy 08:34 to see if there is some inherit thing 08:36 wrong with the muscle. 08:37 Some infections can make the muscles very, very weak. 08:40 I wrote a paper years ago about a patient 08:43 that presented with polymyositis, okay. 08:46 He was a young person that was, his muscles were so weak 08:50 that he couldn't even brush his hair. 08:52 That's how weak all his muscles were. 08:54 And we went through all of these causes 08:56 and they were weak and they were sore. 08:58 And usually they're not sore, they're just weak. 09:00 And his cause was he had AIDS, he had an HIV infection 09:04 and that was causing all these muscles 09:05 all over the body. 09:07 He wasn't sore but they were weak. 09:08 Right, yeah. 09:09 So those are some simple things 09:11 that we can do to sort of diagnose 09:13 what these muscle problems 09:14 and whether they're real serious 09:15 or it's something that's gonna pass. 09:17 Now you mentioned lactic acid doses earlier. 09:20 I ride bikes a lot 09:21 and we always hear about something 09:23 called lactic threshold and it's usually associated 09:25 where your heart rate gets up to a certain number 09:29 where you're producing more lactic acid 09:31 than your blood stream can clear. 09:33 Is that same thing? 09:34 That's the same thing and then guess what? 09:36 And why is that dangerous? 09:37 Well, because you change the pH in your body. 09:40 Yeah, more acid. 09:41 Yes, more acidic, sometimes you can't breathe fast enough 09:44 to burn off the acid. 09:46 And then the muscle can actually break down 09:48 under acidotic conditions. 09:50 So you can't exercise too much. 09:53 Yeah. And it's sort of rare. 09:55 But for instance, 09:56 that's why people that exercise, 09:58 they have to make sure they get their glucose, 10:00 they have to make sure they get their water, 10:02 they make sure that there's a rest. 10:03 And if they start having symptoms 10:05 just stop, don't do it. 10:07 Don't do it, it's not worth becoming dehydrated, 10:09 because a lot of people don't realize it, Nick, 10:11 but when their extreme exercises, 10:13 your temperature 10:14 because your metabolism goes up. 10:16 Right. 10:17 And that high metabolism starts to break down things. 10:19 Remember the body operates 10:21 under a fairly narrow temperature range. 10:23 Hmm, right. 10:24 So when you go above 102 degrees 10:26 above that hyperthermia, okay. 10:27 If you, your body can't regulate that temperature, 10:30 you start breaking down. 10:32 Your brain doesn't think well, 10:33 you start breaking down the body parts... 10:35 Your organs will quit functioning as well. 10:37 Acid doses, it could be real serious 10:39 because hyperthermia is not a good thing to have. 10:41 Yeah. 10:43 But a little bit of rest 10:44 before you get to those serious stages. 10:46 A little bit of rest will help reduce that lactic acid doses. 10:47 Yes, rest, hydration get your body, 10:51 give it what it needs basically. 10:52 All right. All right. Don't abuse it. 10:54 All right, let's talk about 10:55 just a few general suggestions for muscle health. 10:57 We've talked about rest and trying not to overuse them, 11:00 what are some of the few other things. 11:01 We talked about water. 11:02 Yeah, water, resting, 11:04 don't overdo it, lots of greens, 11:06 greens and beans, muscles like that... 11:08 Mmm, Good nutrition. 11:09 Kind of stuff, stretching as we go through life. 11:11 Simple things like making sure 11:13 your hormonal levels are good especially vitamin D level, 11:16 all the things of that. 11:17 Those are just some general things 11:19 that might help. 11:21 Some people get severe muscle pain 11:23 and they need something to help them over the hump. 11:25 And I think an occasional use of a non steroidal 11:28 like you might get at over the counter 11:30 just for one or two doses might help that as well. 11:33 And then if pain doesn't go away, you know, 11:35 like the times we cause, see your doctor. 11:38 Yeah, sound like some good advice, 11:40 and I'm gonna try and take it to heart 11:41 and make sure I don't overuse my muscles. 11:43 Thank you for joining us on today's program. 11:46 Visit our website at heartwiseministries.org. 11:48 There's a lot of good health articles 11:50 that Dr. Marcum has written there, 11:51 radio programs, 11:53 prayer form where you can ask for prayer, 11:55 and you can also ask the doctor your questions. 11:57 Visit the website 11:59 and we'll be back in just a minute 12:00 with Dr. Marcum's closing with prayer. 12:12 I hope you've been learning 12:13 a little bit about pain in this pain series. 12:16 We've been talking about pain from all over the body. 12:19 After you have made a lot of programs about health, 12:21 sometimes it's little bit more challenging to find 12:24 something that's interesting and helps our viewers, 12:26 but I hope this is helping you 12:28 and I hope you learned a lot about muscle pains today. 12:31 Now what are the take home points? 12:33 Well, lets prevent muscle pains 12:36 and the way we do that is by drinking water, 12:39 eating a healthy diet, 12:40 lots of greens, moving our parts, 12:43 making sure we don't overuse them 12:46 and taking good care of them 12:47 making sure we don't put toxins on them. 12:50 Well, if we have muscle pains it's unexplained, 12:53 we need to see the doctor. 12:54 Specific pains that are worrisome, 12:56 if pain with fevers, pain with rashes, 13:00 those are things that we want to look at sooner. 13:03 You might want even go 13:04 to the emergency room if you have pain 13:07 and you're passing out or you can't breathe. 13:10 Those are some big time pains. 13:12 We've learned a lot today. 13:14 Let me say a prayer for all those 13:15 that might need a special blessing. 13:17 Let's bow our heads. 13:18 Heavenly Father, 13:20 thank You for being our ultimate physician. 13:23 And for healing us, Father, 13:24 and for giving us love and care, 13:26 and thank You as we've learned about our bodies 13:28 and how we can honor You 13:30 and worship You better 13:32 by taking care of our body that You've given us. 13:35 Now go with us and stay and be with those Father, 13:38 especially those that need an extra help and extra boost, 13:41 extra encouragement is our prayer, amen. 13:46 I want you to join me at the website, 13:47 if you have a question, heartwiseministries.org. |
Revised 2016-12-26