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Burning muscles — is it myalgia / pain?

Discussion in 'Pain and Inflammation' started by cassava7, Jul 27, 2022.

  1. cassava7

    cassava7 Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Pain is not one of my usual ME/CFS symptoms. When I overexert myself physically and subsequently have post-exertional malaise, my muscles (especially those which I used the most) feel leaden, sore, but not stiff, and they burn. I can relate to the often used description of feeling “poisoned”.

    This kind of burn is very similar, if not identical, to the one I would get from doing as many repetitions as possible of a bodyweight, dumbbell or barbell exercise, for example a bicep curl. I personally call it a “lactic acid burn”.

    However, I don’t consider my muscles to be particularly painful when they burn. Moving hurts because they feel sore, but it doesn’t make me let out a “ouch” as though I were pressing on a cut, a burn or a broken arm with a finger.

    Is this kind of “lactic” burn considered as myalgia and/or pain? (In other words, I don’t know if I should say I have pain or not when my muscles burn.)
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
  2. Mithriel

    Mithriel Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    That is the myalgia of myalgic encephalomyelitis. I feel as if there is acid in my muscles and bones constantly and it is one kind of pain. Without my painkillers I can't think for it.

    There are other dimensions to the pain though with the muscles feeling sore to the touch and aching with random nerve pains like electric shocks run through them.

    Swollen lymph glands in my neck (and under my arms) feel sore but also distort the muscles so they hurt as if I have slept wrong.
     
  3. Wyva

    Wyva Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Budapest, Hungary
    I can't answer this either, I just wanted to say that I have this too.

    However, in my case this doesn't happen when I do something on an "OK" day. I only experience this kind of muscle burn when I overexert myself on an already bad day. This is how I'm sure this can't be the result of deconditioning or similar. I can do the same thing on an "OK" day and feel no such burn, then a few days later do it on a bad day and end up with it, and it is really painful and goes on for days. I always thought maybe it is because my muscles/energy production function is considerably worse on bad days and my muscles may have to work harder to do the same thing on these days. (I also definitely feel physically slower and my limbs/body feel heavier etc on these days to begin with, so it would make sense.) But I'm just guessing.

    Otherwise, I'm one of the painless types (I do have headaches, painful lymph nodes and this muscle burn though). So usually I say I'm painless because none of the types of pain I feel are similar to say fibromyalgia. But I often wonder about this too, just like you.
     
  4. Kitty

    Kitty Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    UK
    And me.

    Thought I always have it in my quad (thigh) muscles, no matter what I do or don't do.

    As soon as the muscle is relaxed completely, the burning starts. If I tense them to stand up, 90% of the pain goes away until I relax them again. This means sleep without painkillers is essentially impossible.

    I also have it in my intercostal muscles, the ones between the ribs that are used for breathing. I didn't realise this for years, though, because I don't tend to stop breathing for very long! I only really feel the pain—which is significant—when I touch them with my hands or catch my ribcage against something.

    The fact that severe pain only happens, at least to me, when the muscles are relaxed is one of the reasons I'm puzzled that no-one can work it out. If you understand physiology, surely that must tell you something.

    Apart from painkillers, the only way to relieve it is pressure. I can't lie face down for more than about 30 seconds because it hurts my neck so much, but for those few seconds it does reduce the leg pain quite a bit.



    Edited to clarify...

    Although the pain stops as soon as I tense my leg muscles, it would come back if I kept them working in order to walk for more than a few metres. I can't do this anyway, which is why I describe the pain as stopping when the muscles are tensed—I just don't reach the stage of burning pain during use.
     
    Last edited: Jul 27, 2022
  5. bobbler

    bobbler Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    2,315

    I get exactly the same thing and always have for many years. My calves through to under shin bones have always been the most regular for the totally inflamed muscle, shoulders/neck potentially too (although that could be other things, where the calves was so distinctive when it first started as as an athlete before it was an 'unachievable' level with exercise level of muscle ache given what I had done before and was so 'fit' from such a small by comparison e.g. driving for a bit exertion). These are 'ouch' and affect how you can move or lie or sit etc.

    In my arms it is almost like they are dead weight achy and a bit different, but I get what feels like poison (lactic acid but in a way others wouldn't know it) down shoulder shooting pain which seems cumulative as well as 'reaction to one exertion'. At the same time my arms are such I can tend not to even be able to 'hold them' myself and have to use pillows under them to support their own weight however I am sat or lying.

    In other areas like feet, ankles, hands, wrists it feels like everything is inflamed and stiff inside and I get more clickiness round joints (such as move thumb back and wrist or elbow clicks) and the need to chase round for cool bed sheets for any kind of relief on front of ankle and wrist. But these are less obvious related to just one exertion and happen for lots of things.
     
    alktipping likes this.
  6. CRG

    CRG Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    If it's a muscle and it is hurting - that is myalgia. There's no limitation on the type of pain, nor on the cause. What may be interesting is to tease out if possible, whether it is simply muscle or if other types of connective tissue (tendon, ligament, cartilage, skin etc) that are involved.

    This is very much an unresolved area, in practical terms I think it's enough to know that connective tissue pain comes with ME/CFS and each individual likely has their own suite of pain and discomfort, mediated by individual pathophysiology and individual perception.

    FWIW my individual experience is that what I associate with "lactate burn" is present somewhere in the main muscle masses most of the time irrespective of any activity, as is an RSI type pain around joints. I'm also prone to what I interpret as "muscle tears" which are extremely painful, of the sort that involve involuntary yelps (actually a lot of swearing) if moving in the wrong way until the particular tear settles down or repairs itself or whatever - the muscles of the upper back are particularly prone and force me into a good reprise of Charles Laughton's Quasimodo.
     
  7. serendipity

    serendipity New Member

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    3
    You’ll get part of the explanation via Dr. Myhill’s wiki. https://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/CFS_-_The_Central_Cause:_Mitochondrial_Failure. In the paragraph entitled: “Every cell in the body can be affected”, you will learn: “If the body is very short of ATP, it can make a very small amount of ATP directly from glucose by converting it into lactic acid. This is exactly what many CFS sufferers do and indeed we know that CFS sufferers readily switch to anaerobic metabolism. However, this results in serious problems - lactic acid quickly builds up especially in muscles to cause pain, heaviness, aching, and soreness (lactic acid burn and lactic acid in the heart gives the symptom of angina).

    When mitochondria function well, as the person rests following exertion, lactic acid is quickly converted back to glucose (via pyruvate) and the lactic burn disappears. But this is an energy-requiring process! Glucose to lactic acid produces two molecules of ATP for the body to use, but the reverse process requires six molecules of ATP. If there is no ATP available, and this is of course what happens as mitochondria fail, then the lactic acid may persist for many minutes, or indeed hours causing great pain. (for the biochemists, this reverse process takes place in the liver and is called the Cori cycle).”.

    I take Levocanil, D Ribose & Baclofen to fight it off. The more you go on overstepping your limits the closer to cramps you will get. You should move from burns to contracture to cramps and it is myalgia.
     
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  8. Leila

    Leila Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    1,157
    I also have this when I overdo.

    The burning I can handle but it always comes with the feeling of draining. As if my muscles are..pouring out or something. It's an ugly, nasty feeling.
     
    alktipping and cassava7 like this.
  9. Midnattsol

    Midnattsol Moderator Staff Member

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    I don't always get it with PEM, but have been the last few times I've overexerted. It's also followed by my skin burning (strongest in the muscles I've used most, but my skin is hot to touch all over).

    As a kid I would get burning skin so that I could not have my hand on my arm because it hurt so much, never figured out what it was and I did outgrow it, though it did come back during my migraines.
     
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  10. Snow Leopard

    Snow Leopard Senior Member (Voting Rights)

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    Scientists have shown that it is not merely lactic acid concentration that causes this muscle pain, but instead the stimulation of a combination of receptors in muscle afferents:

    https://physoc.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1113/expphysiol.2013.075812
     
  11. serendipity

    serendipity New Member

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    Subtropical Island and Trish like this.

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