Pain in the calves can be due to many reasons and cause many problems. A person may have no idea why his calves hurt and what to do about it. The main thing is not to self-medicate and consult a doctor who will prescribe treatment. After all, a muscle can often hurt due to serious illnesses and become a threat to life. The reasons need to be understood in more detail.
The causes of pain in the calves can be different and each requires its own approach to treatment and diagnosis.
The most significant may be:
As you can see, the reasons are very diverse, but the most common is overwork or physical exertion, but if you rest, then everything will pass without a trace. But often the causes are more serious and can threaten a person’s life and health, and only timely treatment and the intervention of a doctor can help.
Distinguishing the symptoms of a particular disease is useful not only for the doctor, but also for the patient himself, so that he can go to a specialist in a timely manner. Some reasons will require the intervention of a specific specialist and as quickly as possible.
With pathology of the venous vessels, blood flow is disrupted and the muscle experiences oxygen starvation. Swelling develops and the nerve endings that innervate the calf muscle are compressed. During a chronic disturbance of blood flow, nutrition is constantly disrupted and toxic substances accumulate in the tissues, inflammation and pain develop when walking.
If there are symptoms characteristic of vascular damage, you should consult a surgeon, and the sooner the better. At an early stage, treatment is conservative and consists of prescribing special drugs that can restore the patency of the vessel. In acute thrombosis, the pain is severe and unbearable, the leg is swollen. The operation must be performed immediately, otherwise the blood clot may break off and clog the vessels of vital organs and lead to death. Pulmonary embolism develops most often; it is this cause that leads to death, so strict bed rest is indicated.
With chronic circulatory disorders, rapid fatigue develops when walking, the subcutaneous fat layer thickens, the skin becomes hyperpigmented, especially on the inner surface. Later, trophic ulcers develop that do not heal for a long time; this is typical for the late stage of the disease. Treatment is also strictly surgical, especially in the later stages.
Pain in the lower legs of the right or left leg can be due to damage to the arteries and is characterized by sharpness, strength, and sometimes unbearable. The outcome of this condition can be gangrene of the limb due to complete blocking of the lumen of the vessel. Surgical intervention should be performed immediately; first, operations are used to restore the patency of the vessel, and if this does not help, treatment should be reduced to amputation of the limb.
This reason causes aching or pulling pain, which intensifies when trying to move. During palpation the muscle is markedly painful. There are also professional myositis, they occur with constant tension. For example, drivers and dentists can develop this pathology.
Treatment in this case is conservative and boils down to the use of local and general anti-inflammatory drugs, physiotherapy and massage.
Neuritis and polyneuritis can lead to pain occurring in the right or left limb, or maybe in both at the same time. The pain is severe, can have a different character and goes along the nerve, several nerve trunks can be affected, this condition is called polyneuritis.
There can be many reasons for this condition, including diabetes mellitus and long-term alcohol consumption, infectious diseases, and malnutrition. For diabetes mellitus, you need to consult an endocrinologist and select the correct glucose-lowering drugs or insulin; drugs that improve nerve conduction are prescribed. You will need to consult a surgeon and prescribe vascular medications. Basically, a neurologist deals with nerve pathology, and in case of alcoholic cause of polyneuritis, a narcologist consults the patient together with a neurologist. If the disease is infectious, a neurologist and infectious disease specialist.
The reasons can be very different, and depending on each, different treatment is used. Referred pain syndrome is a concern, especially in the middle third of the right or left shin. A traumatologist deals with injuries and osteomyelitis, prescribing painkillers, decongestants, antibiotics (for osteomyelitis); surgery is often indicated to restore the integrity of the damaged tissue area. In arthritis, pain is seasonal (spring and autumn), this pathology is treated by a therapist, mainly using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
Pain may be bothersome if there is a problem with the spine or during pregnancy. Everything is connected with the load on the spinal column, which reacts to this with pain impulses in the lower leg; cramps may also occur, but the back itself is also troubling. After pregnancy and childbirth, the pain gradually goes away, and if it is persistent, an X-ray of the back will help determine its cause.
For osteochondrosis, treatment is prescribed by a neurologist; he uses non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, massage, and physiotherapy. For oncology, specific treatment will be required from an oncologist, tuberculosis - from a phthisiatrician, ankylosing spondylitis is treated by a rheumatologist and neurologist. Each specific case uses its own drugs and techniques, including surgical ones. During pregnancy, you need to give your legs more rest and put less stress on them, and if something happens, contact your obstetrician-gynecologist.
Regardless of the cause of the pain, you should consult a doctor. Procrastination and delay in many diseases can be fatal, but a full examination and treatment will help maintain and restore health.
Unbearable acute pain in the calves is, unfortunately, familiar to many. But in most cases, a person is in no hurry to see a doctor if he occasionally experiences cramps or simply cramps a muscle, because he does not know why his calves hurt and what it can lead to. But this muscle is one of the most important, as it allows you to perform a number of musculoskeletal functions of the body. The cause may not be the muscle tissue itself, but some pathologies, diseases of the skin, bone tissue, which also create discomfort in this area. Therefore, in order to establish reliable causes of pain in the calf muscles, you need to know about its structure and functioning.
The gastrocnemius muscle is biceps in structure and is located on the front of the lower leg. It performs the key role assigned to it - turning the foot along the sagittal surface (plane). This includes another important part, characterized by the stabilization of movements and the maintenance of balance performed during calm walking and running. This all happens due to the peculiarity of its attachment, since it, together with the soleus-like muscle, is attached to the Achilles tendon, and ultimately to the foot.
Often, discomfort and aching sensations occur when the calves of the legs hurt after training; in principle, this is the norm, since after performing various physical exercises and techniques, a load on the calves is possible, which entails natural biological consequences. Pain can occur after exercise, and, of course, when this area is injured. Since the muscle has its own characteristic structural features, this entails its special mobility and lability. A large number of different vessels pass through it, which will allow the tissues to receive nutrition much more intensively, so often it is problems with the vessels (obstruction and inflammation) that can be the reasons why the calves hurt, causing suffering for the patient.
Symptoms are an important part of a correct diagnosis. It is very important to find out not only the cause of the disease, but also its subjective and objective manifestations. For example, the nature of pain in the calves allows the doctor to roughly determine what disease is causing it, conduct additional examination to confirm the diagnosis, and prescribe appropriate treatment. For example, if a person becomes very ill from pain or is unable to stand on his feet, he should definitely be placed on a flat, soft surface, a bed, ottoman or sofa. He will naturally try to take a forced position in which he will feel most comfortable and also feel less pain in the lower leg area.
You should not allow the patient to make sudden movements with a high amplitude, because with certain diagnoses, such as blood clots, it can go higher in the bloodstream, which can lead to diseases of the cardiovascular system, such as stroke, heart attack, or rupture of a blood clot. This can be extremely dangerous to human life. Next, you need to calm the victim down and find out the nature of the discomfort:
It should be remembered that when interviewing, you need to use terms such as pulsating or tingling, sharp or not, boring or spasmodic. Since these characteristics can make a correct diagnosis in a matter of seconds and avoid unforeseen consequences. In truth, it is worth noting that when walking and after running, the calves of the legs hurt most often due to sprain and overload. Next, the doctor will consider the most likely diagnoses.
Unfortunately, the reasons that cause pain in the calves are different, and quite serious. The lion's share of calf diseases is inextricably linked with vascular dysfunction. Sometimes the calves of the legs hurt during pregnancy, which is also due to insufficient blood circulation and, accordingly, tissue nutrition.
If your calf hurts, which in itself is an asymmetrical phenomenon, in most cases it is caused by sedentary work, a sedentary lifestyle, including work that is continuously associated with being in a forced position, for example, standing for several hours a day, as they do These are security guards and military personnel. Lack of vitamins is another reason, especially the lack of potassium, an essential trace element that plays a key role in cardiac activity.
With thrombophlebitis, the pain in the leg in the calf area is pulsating in nature, and what is noteworthy is that the discomfort is constant, compared to other diseases. There is also a pronounced burning sensation.
Atherosclerosis of the arteries is another common problem that is directly related to this topic. The arteries become more compacted, which is reflected in the muscles, and most often it is on them that the unpleasant sensations are of a squeezing or pressing nature. The painful feeling does not have a constant severity, but it becomes more frequent only with vigorous activity - walking. What is worth noting is that due to poor blood circulation, the feet become cold to the touch.
Spine problems. Compression of the intervertebral discs leads to the production of involuntary nerve impulses that can radiate to the lower leg. This will cause pain in the calf of the right leg. The most interesting thing is that there may be no pain in the spine itself. The most common cause is inflammation of the sciatic nerve.
Inflammation of the muscle itself. This group most often includes myositis. It happens that bone tissue becomes inflamed.
The therapeutic effect should be aimed primarily at eliminating the primary disease that causes the secondary one. If your calves hurt, treatment and diagnosis should be carried out immediately!
Among a large number of different diseases, there are also pathological functional states that, although not a disease, still disrupt a person’s normal well-being. A typical example is myoclonus or clonic spasms of the calf muscles.
This is a symptom characterized by painful spasm of various muscle groups. The most typical is myoclonus of the feet or legs. Such spastic contractions are subconsciously associated with the name of the famous rock band “Nogu Svelo”.
Clonic seizures are short-lived. In addition to them, there may also be tonic involuntary contractions of the striated skeletal muscles, which are stronger and more prolonged and can last more than three minutes.
The reasons why leg muscle cramps develop lie in disturbances in the electrolyte balance of muscle cells, inadequate blood supply to soft tissues, or neurological problems. These three groups of causes can occur either in isolation or in various combinations, accompanying congenital anomalies or acquired diseases. It is not so important what the patient’s age is, since the mechanisms of development of myoclonus are almost identical for children, adults and the elderly.
Electrolyte disturbances are the largest group of conditions leading to leg cramps. Normally, muscle contraction is possible when a potential difference is created between the cell and the extracellular space, which is determined by the flow of sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium and chlorine ions in different directions. In any pathology that leads to an imbalance of these substances, muscle contraction is disrupted. In this case, the most important deficiency is sodium and calcium, leading to muscle spasms. Here is a list of some conditions that lead to leg cramps.
(from the second degree and above) the blood thickens, the concentration of sodium in the plasma drops, and leg cramps develop. The causes and mechanism of development of myoclonus from bleeding are similar to dehydration; convulsions develop with a sharp drop in the volume of circulating blood, for example, with heavy bleeding (see uterine bleeding - causes).
especially loop diuretics (furosemide, lasix, torasemide, bumetanide, ethacrynic acid) and carbonic anhydrase inhibitors (diacarb), which primarily remove sodium and magnesium. A decrease in the concentration of these ions increases the excitability of nerve endings, which leads to seizures. This is a very typical condition for elderly patients and those losing weight using diuretics. They often experience leg cramps at night and muscle twitching, which are provoked even by a normal change in the position of the limb.
and plasma transfusions, a sharp jump in oncotic pressure leads to electrolyte disturbances and seizures.
often accompanied by calcium deficiency, which is used for the needs of the growing fetus, and may be accompanied by myoclonus of the feet or legs.
in which the balance between albumin and plasma globulins is disrupted and fluid accumulates in the tissues, abdominal, pleural cavity and pericardial sac, can also cause seizures. Read more about liver cirrhosis.
in chronic renal failure it is also often complicated by myoclonus.
Tissue hypoxia leads to the accumulation of under-oxidized metabolic products, such as lactic acid and inflammatory mediators. Tissue ischemia is manifested by spastic muscle contraction and pain. This mechanism can develop with insufficient blood flow in the foot or leg area or with metabolic disorders that reduce the supply of glucose to the tissue (see cerebral ischemia in newborns).
the most typical pathology in which cramps of individual leg muscles occur after prolonged walking or static load (see treatment of varicose veins at home). This problem haunts hairdressers and sellers. teachers, as well as pregnant women in whom increased intraabdominal pressure provokes the development or exacerbation of varicose veins. In addition to spasticity and pain, patients may experience swelling and heaviness in the legs, on which an increased venous pattern appears and even nodes where blood stagnates, which can cause secondary inflammation of the vein (phlebitis) or even thrombosis.
This is the lot of patients with diabetes mellitus and smokers who are plagued by obliterating endarteritis, also called intermittent claudication. In this case, the first place is taken by disorders of arterial blood flow, to which, in diabetes, is also added a violation of tissue utilization of glucose and a state of hypoglycemia during fasting or inappropriately high doses of insulin. Characteristic symptoms include pain when walking, the inability to walk long distances, pallor and coldness of the legs, trophic skin disorders in the form of chronic ulcers and erosions. Diabetes is even characterized by necrotic processes, which are called diabetic foot. Obliterating endarteritis and diabetic foot are the most common causes of lower limb amputation.
and other similar abnormalities of the foot, leading to disturbances in the distribution of load on the ligamentous-articular and muscular apparatus of the leg, can also cause convulsive contractions of the muscles of the foot or lower leg. Both deteriorating blood flow conditions and compression of small nerve trunks play a role here. It is interesting that a similar situation can arise among lovers of fashionable narrow shoes or fans of high heels, when excessive load falls on the toes.
Raynaud's syndrome or disease, in which capillary blood flow is affected, also leads to oxygen starvation of the muscles and, as a result, myoclonus may occur. These two pathologies are characterized by mild chills in the extremities, intolerance to cold air or water, upon contact with which the extremities turn pale or even blue and can react with muscle spasms.
Infectious pathologies (meningococcal, staphylococcal), poisoning with methyl alcohol, cyanide, phosphides, hydrocyanic acid, strychnine, fungi (strings) may cause disturbances in neuromuscular transmission that lead to spasticity of the leg muscles. Rare causes of the same mechanism of action include the bites of scorpions, South American ants, black widow spiders and octopuses, injections of stingrays and sea urchins. In our latitudes, it is more realistic to eat aquatic squash, similar to parsley, and be bitten by a forest ant. In children receiving vitamin D, in case of overdose, spasticity in the legs may also occur as a result of excessive loss of calcium from the tissues.
against the background of cerebral circulation disorders in the acute period, tonic cramps in the legs may also develop. Here the symptoms are supplemented by precursors in the form of a headache, flickering spots in the eyes. At the time of a stroke, there may be loss or confusion of consciousness, asymmetry of the nasolabial folds, and deviation of the tongue from the midline (see signs of stroke in women).
(high temperature) with high convulsive readiness of the cerebral cortex can also lead to cramps in the legs.
or sacral spine, the development of intervertebral hernias due to compression of the motor roots of the spinal cord also often causes leg cramps.
In case of joint injuries or leg fractures, muscle spasticity is a protective mechanism that allows you to limit the mobility of the injured area. However, muscle spasm in response to pain impulses is the main cause of fractures of long bones during falls from a height.
Hypoparathyroidism or decreased production of parathyroid hormones due to radiation damage, trauma, or surgical removal can also manifest as leg cramps. But at the same time, cramps also affect the face and upper limbs, and hair loss and dryness, weakness and fatigue, a tendency to depression, and bronchospasm are also observed.
At night, muscle activity is reduced, however, when sleeping in a stuffy room, lactic acid can accumulate in the tissues of the legs, which causes spasm and pain. Also, after a significant load on the legs during the day, in people with vascular problems, the venous outflow from the extremities is insufficient, and the influx of arterial blood is slowed down, which provokes tissue ischemia and spastic phenomena in the muscles of the foot and lower leg.
Perfectly healthy people can also be susceptible to cramps in the calf muscles. The reasons for this phenomenon lie in strong or prolonged muscle tension; they occur during prolonged forced positions. These can be both domestic and professional loads, for example:
Calf muscle cramps are not a harmless phenomenon, but the most common cause of death on the water.
Another factor is the degree of training of the calf muscles. In untrained people, muscle spasm may occur within a few minutes. We can safely say that this phenomenon is often the main cause of deaths among swimmers. Young, healthy and self-confident people are the main risk group. Many of them had never experienced the phenomenon described above before the tragic moment. Therefore, the first feelings experienced when the calves cramp:
There is a very simple way to escape in such a situation. It is necessary to remember at that moment that you can unlock the calf muscle by strongly pulling the toe of this leg towards the shin. In this case, the foot works like a lever, stretching the muscles and forcing them into working condition.
So, the correct algorithm of actions will be like this:
If a problem such as leg cramps recurs, you should consult a doctor and get tested. The main directions are the exception:
With classic myoclonus, when there are no generalized convulsive seizures and loss of consciousness, it is worth paying attention to the level of fluid intake.
To interrupt the spasmodic contraction of the leg muscles, you can take the following simple measures.
The gastrocnemius is a biceps muscle on the back of the human lower leg. If your calves hurt, there could be many reasons. Cause both ordinary physical damage and the cause of serious illness.
Most often, when the calf muscles hurt, doctors diagnose “varicose veins.” Usually there is a nagging pain, heaviness in the legs, and swelling appears by the end of the day. With varicose veins, as with other vascular diseases, pain may occur in the right or left leg. This happens due to the narrowing of blood vessels. Blood begins to accumulate in different areas, causing the formation of nodules.
The main cause of varicose veins is heredity, but other factors often influence it. Such as:
There are many effective treatments for varicose veins. The main thing is not to start the disease. For prevention, you should start leading a healthy lifestyle, balance your diet, get rid of bad habits and eat vegetables and fruits that have a beneficial effect on the condition of the veins and strengthen blood vessels (citrus fruits, cabbage, apples, etc.).
A sedentary lifestyle leads to stagnation of blood in the vessels, blood flow is disrupted, as a result of which little oxygen enters the vessels. There is a dull and aching pain when walking, cramps and swelling, twisting and pulling of the legs. This often happens due to sedentary work.
Myositis is an inflammatory lesion of skeletal muscles. This is a very dangerous pathology that can occur due to a variety of diseases. It can even appear from the common flu, excessive exercise or injury.
Myositis is accompanied by a nagging, aching pain, as well as the growth of dense nodules.
If there was an open injury, then purulent myositis may appear. It is accompanied by increased body temperature, chills, redness of sore spots, hardening and swelling of muscles.
There is such a type of myositis as parasitic. It appears due to trichinosis, cysticercosis, toxoplasmosis, and rarely echinococcosis. They enter the body through consumption of meat from animals infected with helminth larvae. As with purulent myositis, the body temperature reaches 38°-41°, the leg muscles hurt. Also concerning is general weakness, swelling and headache.
The reasons why legs hurt below the knees are different. And all of them can manifest themselves from completely harmless diseases. Some reasons:
These are almost all the reasons why your calves hurt. Before starting treatment, you need to undergo a full diagnosis and find out the exact causes of leg pain.
To treat spontaneous pain that appears as a result of physical activity and muscle strain, you simply need to relax the muscles. Various massages and procedures affecting the leg muscles are suitable.
To prevent constant pain caused by any disease, you need special care and improved lifestyle. Smoking and alcohol should be avoided. All these bad habits have a detrimental effect on the condition of blood vessels. You need to lead a more active lifestyle, start eating right, and do special therapeutic exercises.
For varicose veins and other diseases associated with the formation of blood clots and blood stagnation, you need to exercise very carefully. It is mandatory to wear a constricting bandage or special stockings.
For pain in the calves, various preventive massages and light exercise are very painful. You need to try to move as much as possible. Walking has a very good effect on the condition of the muscles, and the symptoms of pain will become less and less each time. In addition, since muscle pain is often associated with excess weight, it is necessary to adjust your body weight.
For prevention, various herbal relaxing baths or contrast showers are very useful. Pharmacies sell special ointments that significantly relieve pain and swelling if used regularly and systematically.
Pain in the calves is a fairly common symptom, the cause of which can be as simple as physical fatigue after serious physical exertion, but in some cases such pain indicates the presence of severe pathology.
For example, diseases such as diabetes, atherosclerosis and spinal tumors can lead to such unpleasant sensations.
Naturally, the pain from physical fatigue will go away on its own in a day or two, otherwise you need to see a doctor and undergo an examination.
For some diseases, immediate medical intervention is not required (varicose veins, for example).
But there are also diseases in which a late visit to a specialist can lead to serious problems, even death. Such serious consequences can result, for example, from acute thrombosis of the veins of the leg.
Doctors of the relevant specialization are well aware of the rules for diagnosing such diseases, and it is useful for ordinary people to know what diseases indicate pain in the calves.
In the case when the movement of blood in the veins of the leg is disrupted, swelling of the limb begins to develop, which, in turn, leads to compression of the nerve endings.
It is this compression that causes pain. When such a disorder is chronic, the reason for the development of pain is somewhat more complicated - tissue nutrition is disrupted in the affected area, toxins begin to accumulate, and inflammation begins to develop.
This pathology requires urgent medical intervention, so pain in the calves in such a situation becomes a very valuable symptom.
The fact is that the formed blood clots and their fragments in some cases break off and move with the blood flow through the vessels. Thus, fragments of the blood clot can enter the heart, arterial vessels, etc.
Such fragments can be large enough to block important blood vessels, in some cases resulting in the death of the patient. Therefore, treatment for such a disease should begin immediately.
This disease leads to the following symptoms:
If the diagnosis is confirmed, the patient is transferred to a surgical hospital, special drugs are administered that accelerate the resorption of the blood clot. But even with proper treatment, in the vast majority of cases the disease becomes chronic.
This is also a very common cause of pain in the calves. In this case, there are no problems with diagnosis - all affected veins are clearly visible visually.
Most often, this disease affects women, and the predisposition to it is inherited.
At an early stage of development, the disease manifests itself only cosmetically, but over time, rapid fatigue, heaviness in the legs, constant bursting pain and cramps at night appear.
If appropriate treatment is not carried out, dermatitis gradually develops, which leads to the appearance of trophic ulcers.
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Pathologies of arterioles and arteries are often the cause of severe and acute pain. In this case, the cause is chronic or acute ischemia, due to which insufficient oxygen and nutrients enter the tissues, causing serious destructive processes to develop.
The acute form of this disease is characterized by a sudden cessation of blood movement in the vessel. The cause of this condition is usually thrombosis.
Most often, the formation of a blood clot occurs due to changes in the composition of the blood in some severe chronic diseases, trauma to a vessel or damage to the arterial wall, as well as shock conditions and vascular spasms after operations. Much less often the cause is tumor tissue, atherosclerotic plaques and fragments of blood clots.
In such conditions, the patient feels a burning sharp pain, the limb becomes cold and swelling quickly develops. In the future, oxygen starvation leads to impaired sensitivity and paralysis, and in advanced cases, to gangrene.
Simply put, this is an acute pathology that requires immediate intervention from specialists.
The main causes of the development of this disease are obliterating endarteritis and atherosclerosis, while atherosclerosis leads to damage to large vessels, and obliterating endarteritis leads to damage to arterioles.
In this case, anamnesis data is needed to make an accurate diagnosis.
With such a disease, both painful attacks and constant pain may appear, and in any case, the pain is accompanied by cramps.
Attacks of pain during ischemia usually occur when walking and they are so acute that the person is forced to simply stop. Usually the attack lasts about 3 minutes. In especially severe cases, such attacks appear after almost 5 minutes, even when walking calmly.
Atherosclerotic vascular damage leads to constant pain, which goes away as soon as the legs are given rest.
One of the main signs of the appearance of such a disease is night pain in the calves and pain when the leg is at rest.
Symptoms such as atrophy of muscle tissue, changes in the nail plates (degenerative in nature), hair loss, the appearance of slowly healing ulcers, and the appearance of congestive hyperemia in the limb when lowered may also be observed.
Myositis (inflammation of muscle fibers of various etiologies) can also cause pain in the calves. With such diseases, pains of a pulling or aching nature appear and they intensify very sharply with loads on the affected muscle. In fact, this leads to forced immobilization of the leg.
But only an acute form of inflammation manifests itself in this “obvious way.” In the absence of proper treatment, the disease takes on a chronic form, which is much more insidious - the pain in this case is much weaker, the inflammatory process slows down its development, but still continues.
In this condition, most people feel there is no reason to see a doctor—the symptoms seem minor. But in fact, the chronic form of the disease quickly leads to muscle atrophy, and treatment in this case is much more difficult.
There can be many reasons for the development of myositis - most often it is a consequence of significant overexertion or injury, less often (but this form is more dangerous) the cause of inflammation is viral diseases and hypothermia.
Pain in such a disease can be different - acute or dull, episodic or constant, shooting or aching. Treatment in such a situation is prescribed by a doctor depending on the causes of inflammation.
Pain in the calves can also appear as a result of neuritis and polyneuritis. In such conditions, paroxysmal tearing or pulling intense pain appears, which can spread along the affected nerve. The appearance of such pain, for example, results from compression of the sciatic nerve in piriformis syndrome.
Also, the cause of the development of polyneuritis can be diabetes mellitus, some infectious diseases, chronic alcohol poisoning, as well as some degenerative changes that develop due to metabolic disorders.
Back diseases in some cases can also lead to this type of pain. In this case, pain syndromes develop due to compression of the nerve roots.
Most often, pain is localized in the affected area of the back, but in some cases they begin to spread along the compressed nerve and even appear in the calves. This, for example, is possible with the development of an intervertebral hernia in the lumbar region - the pain spreads from the lower back to the legs and is practically not relieved by analgesics.
In such situations, a rather complex complex treatment is carried out, which is primarily aimed at eliminating back problems.
Many people have at least once wondered why their calves hurt . This unpleasant, and for some, unbearable pain has been known to many people since childhood. The younger the age, the less often people attach importance to pain and brush off doctors. It is hardly worth ringing the bells if the cause of the pain is not a mystery, for example, the day before the legs received an unusual load (they trained a lot without preparation, danced all night or decided to run a long mileage in order to urgently lose weight). But these reasons relate more likely to the younger part of the population. What about those people who have to deal with calf pain on a regular basis? Why do my calves hurt for no obvious reason?
If the option of a sudden load disappears, then consider other reasons why the calves hurt .
Injury sustained while playing sports. In addition to pain, swelling and bruising may be present.
Impaired blood circulation in the veins and arteries is caused by a long-term unchangeable body position, no matter whether standing or sitting. As a result, blood stagnates, oxygen starvation of tissues begins and toxins accumulate in the muscles. We need to move more and warm up.
Short periodic attacks. The duration of the cramp varies from a couple of seconds to five minutes. This pain is very unpleasant and sharp. It ends as spontaneously as it appears. In such cases, the question of why the calves hurt is not even considered; everything is clear and transparent.
Unbalanced diet, lack of potassium, calcium, microelements. Most often, pregnant women face this problem, because while carrying a child, they give him everything he needs from the reserves of his own body.
There are reasons for spinal diseases - discs have shifted, the sciatic nerve has become inflamed, etc., while pain manifests itself in the calf muscle.
The muscle runs along the calf, ruptures, causing unexpected severe pain.
The reason is the compaction of the walls of blood vessels. The pain intensifies when walking. A sign is cold feet even in the warm season.
Inflammatory vascular disease. Manifested by cramps and pain when moving.
They form in the veins and block blood circulation. Appear as a result of surgery or injury.
Staying in one position for a long time provokes blood stagnation, after which inflammation of the nerve endings appears, which is why the calves of the legs hurt. The result is systematic aching pain, heaviness in the legs and protruding blue veins on the legs. Varicose veins can also be hereditary.
An advanced form of varicose veins, which has dangerous consequences due to the formation of a blood clot in the vein. The pain manifests itself constantly, gradually turning into a burning sensation. The danger lies in the detachment of a blood clot.
A serious disease that requires only medical supervision and treatment. Causes severe pain, disturbing every moment. Appears as a result of severe trauma, hypothermia, excessive stress, complications of the disease (for example, after the flu).
Take responsibility for your health, because only a doctor can give why your calves hurt It is foolish to neglect the pain in the legs; they have a great mission - to hold and bear the entire load of the human body!
Therefore, during the consultation, the therapist will most likely prescribe a fairly extensive examination to exclude diseases such as atherosclerosis, varicose veins, gout or diabetes. If the doctor does not have much practical experience, he may immediately identify a spinal disease. After all, now this is a sore spot for 90% of the city’s residents over the age of twenty-five.
First of all, leg pulling can result from diseases associated with weakening of the tone of the vascular walls. These can be diseases of blood vessels of any size and location. These include atherosclerosis, in which the internal diameter of blood vessels decreases due to the proliferation of cholesterol deposits, varicose veins, diabetic angiopathy or obliterating endarteritis. With each of these disorders, blood flow worsens, that is, metabolic products are not removed from the muscles in a timely manner. These foods provoke fatigue and heaviness.
To clarify the diagnosis, a magnetic resonance imaging scan of the spine is required. This examination very clearly reveals pinched nerves.
If you have doubts about the correctness of the diagnosis, you can donate blood for analysis. There is a special analysis that shows what minerals and vitamins are missing in the body. And to prevent vitamin deficiency, you should eat rationally and variedly. Most often, representatives of the fairer sex who are addicted to diets suffer from similar symptoms.
To prevent this from happening, you need to cleanse the body of toxins, as well as get rid of the primary disease.