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At one time or another, everyone suffers from some degree of muscle pain. This is where your muscles are sore and ache. It can be from an injury. People hurt themselves by lifting heavy objects or have work requiring the overuse of certain groups of muscles. Some types of sport quite often involve injury. Equally, the pain can come from stress. Perhaps less obviously, muscles often ache as a symptom of other problems in your body. If you have an infection and a high fever, muscles can be affected. But, most often, there is a strain or damage to tendons or ligaments, or some other injury to the soft tissue of the body. Given this range of causes for pain, there is no fixed set of treatments. It is always for your healthcare professional to fit the best treatment to the injury or disorder you have. That said, the range of potential treatments fall into convenient groups.

We start with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs. These are for less serious problems and have two effects: the reduction of pain and of inflammation. Because they are not addictive, they are usually available over-the-counter in a variety of different formats, e,g, as tablets, liquids, topical creams, sprays, and so on. But, if the degree of pain is in the range of moderate to severe, a stronger analgesic is required. Although the injury or damage to the muscles will heal so long as you rest and stay reasonably still, a more powerful painkiller helps to keep you comfortable. However, one word of warning is appropriate. Just because a painkiller is effective does not mean you can immediate resume mobility. All the drug does is to stop the pain message reaching your brain. It does not heal the injury. You have to wait for nature to take its course. Except, of course, gentle physical therapy and the use of heat and ice packs can speed the process. If the ligament or tendon is torn, surgery may be required. Effective medical intervention to treat the underlying cause of the pain is always required. Because muscle pain can be associated with anxiety, stress-related and depressive disorders, it is often appropriate to prescribe the relevant drugs to control the anxiety, relieve the stress and reduce the depression. You should not feel ashamed that the muscles may be a symptom of a mental disorder. The more important emotion is confidence the treatment will be effective to relieve the pain.

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One of the entertainments in everyday life is to watch the endless cycles of urban myths. They start as whispers, slowly build in volume and then roar around the community for a few days or weeks until we all get bored. Then people start whispering a new myth. One of the more common themes is sex and, because we all like our stories to be slightly macabre, death and sex gets the biggest laughs. Have you heard the one about the man who died on top. The rigor mortis set in fast and, were it not for the weight pressing down on her, the woman said she’d never enjoyed an erection so hard and long-lasting. Such stories feed into all the fears and insecurities we have following a stroke or heart attack. Family and friends tell us to “take it easy” and not overexert ourselves. But the medical profession would not necessarily agree. It all depends on your physical condition. If you have been a couch potato, carry too much weight, have a high cholesterol level, are stressed and smoke, the risk of a second heart attack is high. But for the rest, exercise is good for you. It helps burn off the cholesterol, reduce the weight and restore your heart to a better working order. So how do you know which camp you fall into?

You should ask your physician for a stress test You are hooked up to monitoring devices and set to work on a treadmill or exercise bicycle. After a few minutes, there is clear evidence of your blood pressure, pulse and EKG. With this information, you can decide how quickly to start living life to the full again – which obviously includes resuming sexual activity. If your heart was strong during the test, you should begin an exercise program to build up stamina. Sex can be quite tiring and, to get and give the maximum enjoyment, you should build up strength. If there was evidence of heart damage, you should make lifestyle changes and rest to allow your heart time to heal. Your doctor will give you a rehabilitation program to help you return to a more active life. This will start with gentle exercise like walking and swimming, and slowly increase to more energetic activities over longer periods of time.

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