Chronic Pain Caused by Scar Tissue

Many people suffer from chronic muscle pain, from athletes to office workers, and are not aware of the source of their pain. The truth is there are many reasons for muscle pain, from diet, to dehydration, to what seems more obvious- musculoskeletal injuries. Let's look at injuries as a source of mysterious muscle pain, which is often the case even when you’re not aware of how or when they happened.

Scar tissue and adhesions are often the culprit of mysterious musculoskeletal pain. In my sports massage practice I constantly experience the scenario where clients arrive complaining about pain in certain muscles or joints. When I ask if they’d ever sustained an injury in that area they’ll often don’t remember anything that might have caused the onset. Once I do an assessment of the area, I’ll often find adhesions in the muscle tissue and surrounding connective tissue that are causing the pain.

You don’t need a big traumatic event to have these tissue fibers torn and repaired with inelastic collagen fibers. When we exercise we’re causing small micro tears in muscle and these tears repair themselves and help us build new muscle fibers. It’s easy to overdo it in a workout and cause a lot of tears which require collagen fibers to come to the rescue. On a smaller scale sitting at a computer and making micro movements with your shoulder while you move your mouse can have the same effect. This is another example of a repetitive stress injury. They build up over time and the person is unaware of this slow progression until they are experiencing pain that seems to come out of nowhere.

Having a professional assessment of your area of chronic pain is an excellent way to discover whether or not you have scar tissue, how much of you it you have and to begin to heal from it. Feel free to send me an email with any questions or comments you may have.

Stay well