Why Are Muscles So Ignored as Causes of Pain, Tinnitus and Other Issues?

There are hundredths of muscles all over your body, when muscles are tight they will squeeze nerves, veins, move joints out of place and so on.

When people start complaining of pain, sounds, numbness they go to the doctor and the assumption is often NEUROLOGICAL! (so you go through MRI's, Scans and so on) and they can't find anything! And then the tendency is to claim it's all in your head and label it idiopathic!

But for some reason patients and doctors overlook muscles SO MUCH!

Take my example. I developed neck pain and headaches. After they started to happen every few days in between, I went to the doctor who checked me for nerve compression but claimed I was normal, he then referred me to a neurologist who also checked me for nerve compressions and then I had to get an MRI which showed NOTHING! The neurologist answer, well these issues happen because of idiopathic reasons (idiopathic means, they don't know why!) and that is it.... take pills and pills and pills!!!

People on the internet forums will also diagnose you with strange rare conditions with just reading a 300 words message on a board! Forums also ALWAYS have a resident expert who has a lot of book knowledge who will assure you that you indeed HAVE that rare disease because of the symptoms you describe!

I was in a very dark place by then!

The pain then spread to the face and I started to get tingling. Google of course diagnosed me with HORRENDOUS CONDITIONS that only happen to very few people! So I became pretty much suicidal!!

One day at a friend's house he stood behind me and started massaging my shoulder as we spoke about irrelevant stuff and he paused for a moment and told me. (wow you have so much tension on your left shoulder, it's hard like a rock!) and yes... my left shoulder felt tight but who cares, my tingling on the face and tinnitus meant something neurological OMG, so I ignored the shoulder tightness!!

I went home that night and started to stretch my shoulder and then started massaging it and found that my neck on that same side was EXTREMELY TIGHT, so tight I would press on it and give me the headache I often felt. I thought I had discovered something and went to the doctor and ask him, only to get the response of.... nah! Muscle tension on the neck has nothing to do with face pain and headaches!

Then I found that on the days when my neck was more relaxed, my face pain was more relaxed.... and neck tightness always brought tingling and pain on the face. (a few doctors claimed in my face there is no connection)

I googled muscles on the neck and found that the neck will cause pain if you don't watch your posture (NO DOCTOR TOLD ME THIS), I slouched ALL DAY ON THE COMPUTER! I found that about 70% of the pain I felt was exactly the pain muscles feel when tight! I started to stretch these muscles and found them terribly sore. I also stopped slouching and decided to leave all those forums filled with distress and horror stories and stopped going to hospitals to see doctors!!! That alone calmed my anxiety! And once anxiety was out of the picture a lot of the weird things I felt on that general area dissipated!

I realized my issues was MUSCULAR, even my tinnitus.... but NO DAMN DOCTOR TOLD ME THIS.... muscles were never even mentioned!!! (this makes me angry because you have people who train for years and ignore such a vital part of our bodies (muscles) when looking at a patient with strange symptoms that don't make neurological sense)

I am also mad with myself for being stupid enough, for allowing myself to get filled with anxiety and panic, mostly by equally panicked people over the internet diagnosing me with rare conditions and by now paying attention to what my body is saying!!!

I need to forgive myself, but I learned a lesson!!!

I just want to vent but thanks for listening!

 

Hi naggy.
Our boddies do suffer when our muscles get tight and can cause many problems .
I hope your coping ok with your tinnitus and find our lovely forum helpful....lots of love glynis

 

Probably because patients come in with tinnitus as their primary complaint.

 

I guess we all have different experiences with doctors. My ENT has told me since day one that she believes muscle problems are a very significant factor in my tinnitus.

 

My ENT (when i was first diagnosed) paid no attention whatsoever to my jaw / neck injury less than 1 year previous. If they had properly treated me and tried to understand the link I may not have been around here today, who knows. Instead they said it was linked to a slight hearing loss (they also ignored the flu / ear infection that brought it on). I know now that I have a strong muscular component to my tinnitus, only through my own trial and error though.

The health services are incredibly patchy with no real understanding in most. I'm not a fan of the word holistic, usually gets applied to therapies that are next-to-useless, but that's what tinnitus needs in my eyes. A whole body approach will help to understand the different factors that may be causing it, which can vary a lot between cases

Pills are an all too easy way to get rid of a patient.

 

For me, the fact that I had chronic neck pain for five years before my facial and tinnitus issue came along was completely ignored and told it is a different thing.

I am only now finding HUGE amount of people complaining of neck pain who complain of facial pain as well and tinnitus!!!

Somewhere in medical school, they forget to remind students that MUSCLES exist!

 

@naggy , has your tinnitus improved as a result of treating your muscles?

 

@naggy
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/osteopathy-and-tinnitus.9435/#post-124188

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/osteopathy-and-tinnitus.9435/#post-123600

 

Yes.... the jaw muscles

 

can you be specific about how you've treated them? I doubt if any of this is going to cure me, but I do think that my tinnitus gets worse when my jaw muscles have been strained or are too tight, and this can also cause ear fullness/pain which I don't otherwise have.

 

These are my tight muscles

STERNOCLEIDOMASTOID
MASSETER
PTERYGOID
DIGASTRIC
ZYGOMATICUS

those five muscles have given me tinnitus, tongue burning sensations, throat pain, aches on the nose, lips. After several MRI's, because I also had headaches, they found that my issue is muscular because I started to check myself for trigger points.

I noticed that after exercise, I get blood rushing to my face and muscles relax and I feel nothing, no tinnitus!!!

I asked a neurologist and he told me it's likely the cause. Muscle tension brought on by computer overuse, anxiety, bad posture, stress. I am currently doing neuroplasticity therapy.

and yes, ear pain is also part of the whole package.

This is all coming from the slouching upper back towards neck and works its way up to your face like a domino.

 

Just1morething what was the cause of your muscle tension?

 

First of all that post was from a different forum about noise from Patricia whom I don't know. I have some poor posture from being in front of a computer too much and possibly driving tractors, combines etc. Not totally sure that is the cause of my noise though. Tinnitus origins can be a bit complex as you know.

Another post related to neck muscles and tinnitus:
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-tmj-headaches-neck-pain-facial-pain-etc-—-possible-treatment.500/page-28#post-92271

 

Neuroplasticity therapy?

 

it seems like your symptoms were similar to mine

sort of this weird facial pain, tingling sensations around the tongue, lips, nose, sore jaw.

neurologist told me my symptoms are weird as neurological problems are almost always unilateral and mine happen on both sides (mostly on the left though)

Those stretch and watching my posture might help me for sure

 

on youtube they have videos about it

its training the brain to feel no noise or chronic pain

they have studies and all

 

Part of the problem with Western Medicine is that they like everything in convenient little boxes of responsibility (systems-based specialization) and tinnitus/sound intolerance, being symptoms doesn't slot readily slot into any one Specialty easily, and differential diagnostic models are almost non-existent. This also becomes a problem (or a bonanza for some) as far as it goes with Medicine's primary concern: billing.

 

I've got tight muscles from stress, neck injury (subluxation), poor posture, no massage, too little water, worry.

interested to hear who else has tight muscles and t.

 

Can you describe in detail what neuroplasticity therapy is?

 

I have. Chronic as well. Getting less and less sleep as time ticks on .....

 

thank you so much for posting this, I also have neck pain, headaches, sore jaw sometimes, muscle spasms, my T started after a vietnamese massage around the neck, not sure why or how but 30 minutes after this massage my T started and my neck hasn't felt normal since, not sure yet but my T could be from tight muscles or other muscle issues.