When 36 year old Aaron Powell, a software engineer by profession, woke up on Sunday morning and found that the muscles in his back and legs were killing him, he knew he would have to call it quits about joining his friends on the day long hiking trip they had planned. He knew what had brought on the pain in his muscles; he had been hauling furniture into the new apartment he had moved into, practically all through Saturday.

While everybody experiences the occasional muscle pain some time or the other in their lives, for people who suffer from chronic muscle pain, it can be an incapacitating condition, with the quality of life deteriorating to a great extent. Muscle pain may be caused by a specific injury, or due to muscular spasms, or because it affects the soft connective tissues surrounding muscles such as tendons, ligaments, and fascia, or it could be as a result of a broader condition, like arthritis. It can range in intensity from aches that come on infrequently to disabling, chronic pain.

Usually, muscle pain is linked to overuse, physical exertion, or injury due to exercise. In such cases, the pain tends to affect specific muscles, starting either during the activity or after it. Tension can also result in muscle pain. Read the rest of this entry »