Muscle Spasms

What Causes Muscle Spasms? 

What are muscle spasms? Muscle spasms are involuntry muscle contractions which sometime cause intense muscular pain. At other times, a muscle spasm will just cause a muscle to tighten up and feel stiff. Spasms can occur at anytime, to anyone, and they usually happen without warning. The continuous straining and contraction of the muscle caused by a spasm can sometimes cause muscle knots, which intensify the problem.

The first step in preventing spasms is diagnosing the causes. For example, if heavy exercise or overexertion is the cause, then reducing the amount of exercise you’re doing or resting when you feel fatigue can help prevent muscle spasms. Slowly stretching the affected area can help to relax the muscles and reduce the pain. Sometimes taking pain relievers will help relieve some of the soreness.

Other muscle spasms causes include:

• Dehydration
• Multiple Sclerosis
• Medication
• Cerebral Palsy
• Alcoholism
• Kidney Failure
• Malnutrition
• Hypothyroidism, or underactive thyroid.

If your spasms reoccur, last for a long time or happens for no apparent reason, then it’s suggested you see your health care provider. Be prepared to answer several questions about when your spasms began and how long they last. Your doctor will need this information in order to diagnose the cause.

There are a few tests that will be done that can help determine the causes of muscle spasms. Blood tests can help reveal if there’s a disorder affecting thyroid or kidney functions, which can be muscle spasms causes. They also look for disorders in potassium, calcium and they will check the amount of magnesium in the body.

Two types of tests help show muscular health. They include

• myelography, which is a type of x-ray and
• electromyography, which is a technique for evaluating and recording the electrical activity produced by skeletal muscles.

Both of these tests are used to try and determine muscle spasms causes. If there’s a chance the patient could be pregnant, then a pregnancy test will be done as well because being pregnant can also cause muscle spasms.

Muscle relaxants are sometimes prescribed for relief. They do not generally work directly on the muscles themselves, but act in the brain as and give your entire body an overall sense of relaxation.

The medical name spasms in the muscles is involuntary hypertonicity.

Also see muscle pain relief.