Weakness
What is Weakness?
Weakness is considered as loss of muscle or group of muscles strength. Weakness in the muscles can be caused due to some injuries, metabolic disease or neuromuscular diseases. Weakness in the muscle obstructs a person to exert force on that muscle, to the amount he is capable of. The body fitness indicates the level of weakness that person having.
Relating weakness to tiredness is not a correct fact. Because sometimes patients having disease like influenza and cancer complain tiredness in their body, but the medical detection of the body doe not frame out any muscle fatigue in it.
Diagnosis is done by testing muscle disorder before etiology. Sometimes muscle weakness can happen due to excessive physical work or over and vigorous exercise. It is a part of asthenia that can happen due to combination of physical fatigue and mental thought or origin. Muscle weakness can be further divided on the basis of true, perceived, and variable topically.
Muscle contraction: Muscle cells contracts to release calcium in the body, on the basis signal obtained from electric impulses flowing in the brain. Some research says leakage of calcium by muscle cells in the sarcoplasmic reticulum causes muscle contraction, resulting in inability of muscles in generating force or fatigue.
Symptoms of Muscle Weakness
1. First and foremost symptom of muscle weakness is pain in the muscle or in the body. Too much pain can result in mild fever in the body because of the extra pressure body is taking against itself.
2. Suddenly after taking extra pressure, the muscle can feel tingling or numbness in the region around.
3. In very rare case, vomiting can occur to a person. More and more weakness of the muscle results in disease like diarrhea caused due to dehydration.
4. Some amount of weight loss is normal, but, suddenly too much weight loss triggers to another medical complication.
5. Change in skin texture and color along with weakness in the eyes or vision change are considered as some of the rare symptoms of the weakness.
6. Depression or loss mental alertness: Too much weakness can make person depressed or can change in mental condition like loss in alertness or in concentration towards activities going around.
Types of Muscle Fatigue
1. True weakness or fatigue: It is a condition where the force applied by the person is less than of what it requires to have. People who are suffering from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) are not able to recognize the exact amount of force that need to be exerted to complete the task. It generally happens at time when a person is doing vigorous exercise.
2. Perceived weakness or fatigue: This happens to people who suffer from chronic fatigue syndrome, where by looking at the task or activity they think they would not be able to complete it or they do not have that much energy in them self to carry on with the activity. On the contratory, looking at their muscle strength one can say that they can easily do the activity.
3. Variable topically or Topically fatigue: Muscle weakness occurring in variable topical location such as central, neural, and peripheral is known as topically fatigue.
4. Central fatigue: In this condition, nerve-based motor in the brain does not transfer adequate signals to the muscle to force enough. It is like sense of energy deprivation happening all over the body. It can be explained by an example, when a person who is doing vigorous exercise stops doing it further after feeling fatigue in the body. Now, here the neurons signal the muscle about the extra pressure that person is putting on the muscle, hence, the signals help in failure of organ.
5. Neural fatigue: In this condition, nervous system of the body stops generating signals to the muscle to force. Nervous system signals the message to the muscle to force calculates the number of muscle contraction and stimulates the body accordingly. Now, in this case nervous system reduces doing muscle contraction. As a result, there is no pain and discomfort in the muscles, just like ‘no reaction’ in it.
6. Peripheral fatigue: It is a combination of central and neural fatigue and can be explained by a condition when the body is supporting enough or not supplying energy to the muscle to do the required task. A very common type of fatigue found in most of the cases. Inadequacy of energy supplied results in burning sensation in the muscle.
Other than this, metabolites in the body speed up the process of muscle contraction. The condition leads another type of fatigue, named metabolic fatigue.
There are certain substrates and substances in the body produced as a result of contraction in the body. Such as:
7. Substrates: Substrates within the muscle cells like adenosine triphosphate (ATP), glycogen and creatine phosphate result in powerful contraction of the muscles.
8. Metabolites: Metabolites or substances like ADP, Mg2+, and reactive oxygen species are some of waste products produced after muscle contraction.
9. Lactic acid: Lactic acid results in intercellular acidity in the muscle, resulting as a main reason behind muscle fatigue.
Causes of Weakness
1. Muscle weakness can be caused to some disease the person is suffering from like neuromuscular disease, Addison’s disease, diabetic neuropathy, stroke, Guillain-Barre syndrome, trauma, and poliomyelitis. List is endless because every major disease results in the loss of several substrates and substances from the body causing weakness in it.
2. Normally, a person feels weakness in the body after doing excess amount of physical work or exercise. Muscles feel weakness, tiredness, or sometimes redness and soreness start happening in it.
3. The burning sensation and pain occurring in the muscles might fade away after taking proper treatment.
4. Too much physical activities can cause general or normal weakness in the body. Activities like going for very long walk or climbing heights can make feel weak and tired, or your muscles may become sore. The sensation caused by the weakness might take somedays to get away.
5. In human body, energy consumed is regulated by the thyroid glands. When some imbalnce happen in the level of the thyroid gland, then some weakness or change in body is experienced.
6. Like, a low level of thyroid gland certainly results in lethargy, weakness, depression, change in skin texture and color.
7. High level of thyroid gland also result in fatigue and weakness in the body, accompanying weight loss, sweating, or anxiety.
8. As said earlier, nerve disorder like Guillain-Barre syndrome results in muscle weakness, further leading to paralytic attack in the body.
9. If day by day the weakness in the body is getting worse, then it is necessary to contact your doctor immediately. Because the weakness might be indicating symptom of some other medical complication.
10. Sudden attack of stroke can result in muscle weakness or paralytic attack in one part of the body.
Diagnosis of Weakness
After detecting symptoms of the weakness, doctors can recommend to go for certain tests.
1. Blood tests are taken to detect autoimmune disorders in the body .
2. Complete blood count and electrolytes are also detected by blood tests.
3. Further, if the symptoms are severe Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and computerized tomography (CT) are done to detect any complication in head and spine of the patient.
4. Urine analysis and culturing are done to further detect the any other complication.
5. Low and high level of thyroid gland causes weakness in the body. So, thyroid function tests are conducted to check level of the thyroid gland.
Treatment of Weakness
Weakness can be treated by confirming the exact cause of it. Further, medication is provided on the basis of it.
Still, in all cases it is required for a person to not do extra work, which beyond his physical ability. This will only lead to injuries and pain in muscle.
1. Take enough sleep, try to remove boredom from your life, and discover things that refresh your mood.
2. Do exercise and physical activities that strengthen your muscle, but in controlled manner.
