If you’ve read the first blog
post in our pain series, you are aware that one of the ways we will be talking
about pain is within the context of Traditional Chinese Medicine. If you haven’t read the first blog post, you
may want to do that now. Doing so will
make this post and the ones to follow make a lot more sense. To understand the role of TCM in joint and
muscle pain, we first need a little background on the joint tissue and muscle
tissue.
The joints of
the body work to provide mobility and to hold the skeleton together while the
skeletal muscles work to produce movement, maintain posture and stabilize and
strengthen the joints. These two body
tissues work in concert to create mobility and manipulation. Joints are the weakest part of the skeleton,
but even so, they are able to resist many forces like crushing and
tearing. The muscles definitely play a
role in this. The stronger a person’s
skeletal muscles are, the more stable that person’s joints will be. With so many of us living sedentary lifestyles
with little to no exercise, the weakest part of our skeletons can become even
weaker because that lifestyle decreases the strength of the skeletal
muscles. With that in mind, it makes
sense that pain often affects these vulnerable parts of our bodies. Like most people, I don’t actively think
about my joints or muscles. They just do
what I need them to do. Like most of
you, I don’t think about my joints and muscles until they hurt.
When viewed from
the TCM perspective, both joint and muscle pain can fall under the category of
“pulling pain”. They may also fall under
the category of “aching pain”. Issues
associated with pulling pain involve Blood stagnation which basically means
that the Blood is “stuck” – it’s not moving properly. It can also involve obstruction of the
vessels and a failure of the Liver to nourish the muscle tissue. Aching pain involves an excess of
dampness. These issues contribute to the
pain, so the goal is to maintain the free movement of the Blood and to dry the
dampness. That makes perfect sense,
right?
In case it doesn’t make much sense, here are a
few tidbits of info to help clarify.
Skeletal muscle has a rich blood supply.
It needs to have a rich blood supply because contracting muscle fibers
use a huge amount of energy and require an almost continuous delivery of oxygen
and nutrients by the arteries. Muscle
cells also create large amounts of metabolic waste products that must be
removed through the veins if we want our muscles to contract efficiently. In contrast, the joint tissues are not well
vascularized. For example, cartilage is
avascular; it doesn’t have a blood supply.
This feature makes it very difficult for cartilage to obtain sufficient
nourishment to repair itself. Instead of
nutrients being directly delivered to the cartilage, they have to permeate
through layers of tissue. So, if the
Blood, which functions to deliver all the nutrients our bodies require, is
moving sluggishly along or the vessels that deliver Blood to the tissues are
obstructed, the skeletal muscles don’t receive that necessary constant supply
of oxygen and nutrients and the joint tissues don’t receive what little
nutrients are permeating through layers of tissue. A lack of nutrients leads to weakness, which
leads to malfunction, which leads to pain.
Sluggish movement of the Blood can also cause an accumulation of
dampness. Think about how heavy your
clothes are when they are wet. Wearing
wet clothes can hinder your movement by weighing you down. Same thing can happen in our bodies. What do we do to dry wet clothes? We apply heat. Certain TCM herbs do the same. They gently warm the body, providing a tender
nudge toward Blood movement.
Now it makes sense, right? The basic concepts of Blood and Qi (energy) movement are directly related to the skeleton's ability to move itself and to move without pain. If we can maintain and support Blood and Qi movement, we can ensure proper nutrition for the muscles and joints and prevent the accumulation of dampness that weighs us down.
