What are "muscle spasms"?

What are "muscle spasms"?

Marc Darrow (Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Joint Rehabilitation Sports Medical Center, Inc. ) gives expert video advice on: What are some specific types of chronic pain?; What is "somatic pain"?; How is somatic pain treated? and more...

Muscle spasms are actually involuntary contractions of muscles. What doctors often will do, is they will treat the muscle spasm, whereas in my practice I'll treat more of what we call the emphasis of where the muscle will attach to bone. The reason for that is I find that if we get to the actual emphasis of the muscle attachment and we treat that, the muscle spasm will go away. Now, if someone has an acute muscle spasm, it may be a good idea to use a muscle relaxant for them, or they may want to get a trigger point injection or a tender point injection into the area where there is a spasm. This can often just reduce it, and it can often eliminate the muscle spasm in a minute or so.