After a long, hard
day of physical work,
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there are a few things that
feel better than a warm bath
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to help relax the
body and unwind a bit...
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But what if you have overdone
it and you're experiencing
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muscle pain?
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Many issues in muscle
pain can be eased at home,
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but some should really
be taken to the doctor.
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Learn which is which on
today's program as Dr. Marcum
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teaches about muscle pain.
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I'm Dr. James
Marcum, are you interested in
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discovering the reason why?
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Do you want solutions
to your healthcare problem?
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Are you tired of
taking medications?
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Well, you're about to be given
"The Ultimate Prescription"
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I've discovered that it's
a good idea to warm up slowly
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before starting
a vigorous workout,
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and general stretching
can sometimes help prevent
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muscle damage which
causes varying levels of pain.
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But sometimes,
muscle pain occurs
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without an apparent
cause which is why we need to
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discuss it
today on this program.
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Welcome to "The
Ultimate Prescription"
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I'm your host Nick
Evenson and Dr. Marcum, welcome,
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and what are some of the
common causes of muscle pain?
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Yeah Nick, well muscle
pains are another type of pain
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that people
experience, and remember,
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we've gone over this
theme over and over...
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"Whenever you have a pain,
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it's something to
be concerned about."
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What level of concern
depends on many other variables.
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It's your body's
protection mechanism to
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tell you something
is wrong. Oh yes...
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Something is wrong, so
you don't want to ignore it.
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And muscle pain is one of those.
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You know, it's sometimes hard
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to tell where the
pain is coming from.
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Okay, but muscle
pain for a doctor is one
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of the easiest ones, okay?
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So what I would do, put
your arm over here... All right
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Put your arm
over here, if I would
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squeeze you
right here and you say,
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"Oh, it hurts, it
hurts." Yeah, right!
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And I look and there's
no rash there, I would say,
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"You have muscle pain." Okay
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And so that would be step #1.
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Muscle pain is rarely deadly,
and I'm going to talk a little
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about the couple
of times it is deadly.
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But muscle pain -
usually the most common cause of
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muscle pain is overuse. Right
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You just do too much.
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You overuse that
part of your body.
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The metabolism goes on,
and the temperature goes up.
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You break down the muscle
and we go into what we call,
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"anaerobic metabolism." Right
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When we go into anaerobic
metabolism or use a muscle
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more than it can
do, what happens is it
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builds up the toxins,
lactic acidosis is one of them,
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or sometimes you just
hurt it and guess what?
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The muscle starts to hurt. Right
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And the treatment for
that is to quit doing it and
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usually the muscle
gets better on its own.
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Just some rest will help
when it's just overuse. Usually!
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But there are so many
weekend warriors out there,
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and that don't use their
muscles on a regular basis,
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don't give them the
substrate it used to be...
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so if you go to your local
drugstore or local food market,
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you'll go to the pharmaceutical
section and you'll see
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tons of things that you
can put on muscles. Right
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Most of them have a chemical
called "menthol" in them
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that makes the
muscles feel good.
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Some sort of heat up the muscle,
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makes it feel a
little bit better,
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but the bottom line,
the reason the muscle is
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feeling better is because
it's not working anymore. Yes
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So the treatment for an overused
muscle is not to overuse it.
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By doing too for the muscle,
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the treatment for that is
don't do it again and build up
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your muscle a little bit
slower. A little bit at a time.
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Yes, a little bit at a
time, so that's probably
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the most common cause
of muscle pain that I see.
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The second cause the most
common is probably too much
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stress in the
life, too much tension.
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And Nick, we talked about
this many times for chronic pain
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that's not life-threatening,
STRESS is a leading cause.
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And if you think about
the physiology of stress,
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you're under stress
from no matter what it is;
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your adrenalin goes up,
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your inflammation
in your body goes up;
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you hold your muscles tight
because your under stress...
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"I have to do
more work, my boss..."
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You probably have a mean
boss, your muscles are all tight
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all the time and you
just go home with headaches
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and muscle pains all
night, you go home and say,
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"Honey, honey, my
muscles are hurting all over."
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And she says, "Well,
did you overuse them today?"
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And you go, "No." And
she says, "You must have
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too much stress at work." Right
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So, occasionally my son
was having some problems
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with muscles - it
really didn't make sense.
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You know, and he was
just having too much stress...
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to make the inflammatory
and it got in the muscles
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and it caused a lot of pain.
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So just cutting
back down stress.
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The opposite of stress is rest.
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More rest - this is a place
where worship is very useful.
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Sometimes that
could be all that's needed
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to relax those muscles.
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So if you're used to working
hard every day regularly,
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you can probably
get by with that. Yes
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But if you don't
work hard every day,
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and then you go out and
give a really big effort on
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one particular day,
that's going to cause a problem.
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Exactly!
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Another common cause
of muscle pain is trauma.
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Let's say you decide
to take up boxing. Okay
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And you're not
very good at boxing,
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and someone else is
very good at boxing,
00:05:08.84\00:05:10.34
and he keeps boxing you
and hitting you and hitting the
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muscles... I'm going to
have a lot of muscle pain.
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That's trauma or
here's another trauma...
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Let's say you decide to
be a weight-lifter. Okay
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And you go into the
gym and everyone there is
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putting up a lot of
weight, and you say,
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"Man, I gotta lift a
lot of weight too." Exactly!
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And you put trauma
on the muscles. Right
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That's another thing that
can cause muscle problems.
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Muscle strain
and tears maybe? Yeah
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So most of these
are not dangerous
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so far - if you're smart,
okay? If you're smart about it.
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Certain medications
that we take can damage
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muscles and hurt muscles.
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The most common one
that everyone has heard of is
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the medicine the "statins"
that lower cholesterol.
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Those can cause muscle
pains because they change
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some of the protein
function in the muscle.
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Other medicines that can cause
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it are medicines
called "diuretics."
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They take fluid out of
the body and, of course,
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the muscles are made of fluid,
the muscle gets dehydrated,
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it cramps and it hurts. Right
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You see, and the muscle
anywhere can do that. Yeah
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It also loses
potassium and magnesium.
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So anything that
pulls fluid out of your body
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can cause this as well.
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A nutritional deficiency
can cause muscle aches,
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and the ones we see
mostly are low in potassium,
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and low in magnesium.
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You know when mom said to
eat your fruits and veggies,
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there was a reason for that.
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Okay, if you don't eat
the fruits and veggies,
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you're more prone
to have muscle spasms
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because those are the
basic ingredients of a muscle.
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Water, magnesium, potassium,
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those help the
muscles work well.
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Now the one that's serious,
that could be life-threatening,
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is one called, "a
myositis," a severe myositis,
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and when that happens,
I've seen it a couple of times
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in a few years - you see it
in a couple of instances, Nick,
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I saw it in a bicycle rider that
was riding a long bicycle ride,
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and he didn't get his water.
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And his muscles broke
down and when the muscles
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started to
break down for energy,
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it increased a chemical
in the body called, "CPK,"
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which damages the kidneys.
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That could be
potentially life-threatening,
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and we call
that, "rhabdomyolysis,"
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muscle breakdown and
the muscle breakdown product
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overwhelms the kidneys and
the kidneys can go into failure.
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Another type of person
that would get that is...
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and I've seen it in
a few elderly patients
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that would fall down at
home and lay on the floor
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for 2 or 3 days after
they fell down on a muscle...
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not able to get to the
phone, not eating or drinking,
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someone then finds
them, they go and measure this
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muscle breakdown product
called, "CPK" in the blood,
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"creatine phosphokinase (CPK),"
and a large amount of that
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floods the
kidneys, this muscle...
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and the kidneys can't take it
and they go into renal failure.
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Because there's no water
for the kidneys to use? Yes
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You know, usually
if people get hydrated,
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it doesn't cause
a big problem. Right
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We call that "rhabdomyolysis,"
and that could happen.
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The muscles help regulate
temperature in the body,
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do those type of
things, but those things
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can cause muscle breakdown
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and be
potentially life-threatening.
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Now, there are many other things
00:08:08.42\00:08:10.29
out there that can
cause muscle pains.
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Those are just
the most common ones.
00:08:12.59\00:08:14.36
Sleep apnea - did you know that?
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That's when you don't
get enough oxygen at night.
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Why do you have it? Because
you don't get enough oxygen.
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Muscles like oxygen...
So that can cause pain.
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Thyroid - If you
don't get enough thyroid,
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that can cause it
because thyroid is a chemical
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that regulates
how the muscles work.
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Don't get enough
blood into your muscle.
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That can hurt because, you know,
the muscles need blood too.
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Needs a blood supply,
so if you have blockages
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in your arteries,
that can cause a problem.
00:08:38.61\00:08:40.22
The biggest muscle that
I work with that sees that
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is an internal
muscle called, "the heart."
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The musculoskeletal muscles can
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have that to
some degree as well.
00:08:47.02\00:08:49.02
Infections - have
you ever had the flu,
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and you get achy all
over? Yep - sure have!
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You get achy, the body
turns on all these inflammatory
00:08:54.53\00:08:57.93
markers trying to fight an
infection, you're achy all over
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because your body's
immune system is trying to
00:09:00.90\00:09:02.70
fight an infection.
00:09:02.74\00:09:04.07
Anytime the immune
system is really revved up,
00:09:04.11\00:09:07.18
it can cause muscle aches.
00:09:07.21\00:09:08.71
So not only can
that come from infection,
00:09:08.74\00:09:10.75
it can come from things like:
lupus, rheumatoid arthritis,
00:09:10.78\00:09:14.92
scleroderma; the medical
conditions where the body
00:09:14.95\00:09:18.09
attacks itself.
00:09:18.12\00:09:19.69
Now sometimes, people have
muscle aches and we really don't
00:09:19.72\00:09:23.69
know why and we give
that term, we can call that
00:09:23.73\00:09:27.03
"fibromyalgia." Okay
00:09:27.06\00:09:29.26
Fibromyalgia, but
usually there's something in the
00:09:29.30\00:09:31.63
environment that
triggers the immune system
00:09:31.67\00:09:33.90
that causes the
muscles to ache all the time.
00:09:33.94\00:09:36.60
And I would say that 8 out
of 10 people that I see in my
00:09:36.64\00:09:39.94
office - that if I give them
to eat a whole food plant-based
00:09:39.97\00:09:42.84
diet, water, stretching
and exercise, the fibromyalgia
00:09:42.88\00:09:47.22
dramatically improves.
00:09:47.25\00:09:49.98
Inactivity can
cause muscle aches
00:09:50.02\00:09:52.52
because you just
don't do anything, right.
00:09:53.36\00:09:55.06
Alcohol - too
much alcohol and drugs
00:09:55.09\00:09:57.26
can cause muscle aches.
00:09:57.29\00:09:59.43
And then one that
I've seen a few times cause
00:09:59.46\00:10:01.40
muscle aches, we
don't see it that much,
00:10:01.43\00:10:02.76
is any type of
malignancies, cancers.
00:10:02.80\00:10:05.30
Cancers can get into
the bones - specifically,
00:10:05.33\00:10:07.90
the lymphomas, leukemias,
they make extra cells.
00:10:07.94\00:10:11.24
They can metastasis and
sometimes that can cause chronic
00:10:11.27\00:10:14.74
muscle aches because of all
the medical problems it creates.
00:10:14.78\00:10:19.01
So that's just a few
of the many muscle aches
00:10:19.05\00:10:22.88
that we have,
myalgias that we have.
00:10:22.92\00:10:25.52
Now can you think of the last
time that you had a muscle ache?
00:10:25.55\00:10:29.69
Yeah, I was actually
doing a running race,
00:10:29.72\00:10:33.19
and I started off when
I saw one of my buddies
00:10:33.23\00:10:35.56
was ahead of me and so I
was going to run him down,
00:10:35.60\00:10:37.43
and then chase him
down and run with him
00:10:37.47\00:10:38.80
and I started off a little
too fast and about halfway
00:10:38.83\00:10:41.60
through the race, I
had to stop because my
00:10:41.64\00:10:43.57
calf started
cramping. There you go!
00:10:43.61\00:10:45.21
I drank a good amount of water
in preparation and whatnot,
00:10:45.24\00:10:48.28
but I just started too
fast and it cramped up.
00:10:48.31\00:10:51.01
And that is probably...
if we can leave one thing
00:10:51.05\00:10:54.02
with our listening
audience today, for cramps
00:10:54.05\00:10:56.79
and muscle aches,
one of the hallmarks
00:10:56.82\00:10:59.52
we should do is make
sure we get enough water.
00:10:59.55\00:11:03.79
I tell everyone to eat
more greens because it has
00:11:03.83\00:11:06.80
potassium and magnesium,
replace your electrolytes,
00:11:06.83\00:11:10.07
and then, if you've noticed,
whenever a muscle gets cramped,
00:11:10.10\00:11:13.30
it sort of balls up. Yeah
00:11:13.34\00:11:14.94
So usually you need some
type of stretching maneuver
00:11:14.97\00:11:17.67
to relieve that
balled up knot...
00:11:17.71\00:11:19.77
some type of massage
maneuver that will help.
00:11:19.81\00:11:22.48
But I would say that
that is probably 80% of
00:11:22.51\00:11:25.28
the muscle pains is just because
we don't take care of our
00:11:25.31\00:11:28.08
muscles the way we should. Right
00:11:28.12\00:11:30.09
You know, in your description
of what the muscles need...
00:11:30.12\00:11:33.36
it's kind of
like a car engine. Yep
00:11:33.39\00:11:35.42
You gotta feed
it the right fuels;
00:11:35.46\00:11:37.46
you've got to let the
waste, the exhaust out,
00:11:37.49\00:11:40.36
and your blood does all of that,
00:11:40.40\00:11:42.66
if you've eaten the right foods
and you drink enough water.
00:11:42.70\00:11:44.83
And for our athletes
out there, everyone likes to
00:11:44.87\00:11:47.80
run these long
marathon races, Nick...
00:11:47.84\00:11:50.44
Right, good
challenge. But that's not
00:11:50.47\00:11:51.81
really good for our muscles.
00:11:51.84\00:11:53.17
It can be too much stress. Right
00:11:53.21\00:11:54.54
And in the muscles,
it puts too much stress,
00:11:54.58\00:11:56.14
it wears them out; their
metabolism is going fast;
00:11:56.18\00:11:59.85
the temperature goes
up, so you have to keep
00:11:59.88\00:12:02.35
getting lots of water
to replace what the muscles
00:12:02.38\00:12:04.92
in the body is losing.
00:12:04.95\00:12:06.29
That could be a real
serious problem on our muscles
00:12:06.32\00:12:08.66
so be careful to
exercise extremely to make sure
00:12:08.69\00:12:12.56
your muscles have what it needs.
00:12:12.59\00:12:14.10
And if your muscles
start to ache and they start
00:12:14.13\00:12:16.30
hurting and your body
starts malfunctioning,
00:12:16.33\00:12:19.33
maybe you're
overusing your muscles;
00:12:19.37\00:12:21.84
maybe you need a
little bit more help;
00:12:21.87\00:12:23.61
maybe you should be
a little bit smarter.
00:12:23.64\00:12:25.01
Because there's a process
called, "oxidation," Nick.
00:12:25.04\00:12:28.08
Oxidation just
means that parts of aging.
00:12:28.11\00:12:30.75
And if you overdo
it and you do too much,
00:12:30.78\00:12:33.25
and you go into oxidation,
00:12:33.28\00:12:34.88
the parts wear
out a lot quicker.
00:12:34.92\00:12:37.32
Antioxidants are
another good thing for athletes
00:12:37.92\00:12:40.76
that use a lot of muscles. Yep
00:12:40.79\00:12:42.42
Now my son does a lot of
exercising of a lot of muscles,
00:12:42.46\00:12:45.09
and I really make sure
he hydrates himself, greens,
00:12:45.13\00:12:47.66
and lots of
antioxidants especially
00:12:47.70\00:12:50.03
after the acute exercise.
00:12:50.07\00:12:52.07
The muscles are
repairing themselves.
00:12:52.10\00:12:53.80
They are repairing themselves
get a lot of antioxidants,
00:12:53.84\00:12:55.90
a lot of water, a lot of
rest, a lot of good things,
00:12:55.94\00:12:58.94
make those muscles
able to fix themselves
00:12:58.97\00:13:01.31
and repair themselves sooner.
00:13:01.34\00:13:02.68
So we really need to
listen to our bodies.
00:13:02.71\00:13:04.05
God has given us an
amazing system to tell us
00:13:04.08\00:13:06.61
when there's a
problem and we need to listen
00:13:06.65\00:13:08.82
to that and take
care of our muscles.
00:13:08.85\00:13:10.29
But the good news...
I'm going to interrupt you.
00:13:10.32\00:13:11.99
The good news is most muscle
pains are not life-threatening,
00:13:12.02\00:13:15.09
just only a few instances
are, so that's a good news.
00:13:15.12\00:13:17.66
Usually if
you're smart about it,
00:13:17.69\00:13:19.03
it gets better
pretty quick. Excellent!
00:13:19.06\00:13:20.76
Well, we're going to
be back in just a moment,
00:13:20.80\00:13:22.60
and Dr. Marcum will
be answering questions
00:13:22.63\00:13:24.43
and if you have a
question, go to our website at:
00:13:24.47\00:13:26.47
heartwiseministries.org
00:13:26.50\00:13:28.20
Go to the "Ask the
Doctor" page and submit
00:13:28.24\00:13:30.57
your questions there and we
will get you some information
00:13:30.61\00:13:32.87
about your issue.
00:13:32.91\00:13:34.48
Stay right with us,
there's more to come.
00:13:34.51\00:13:36.34