After Strenuous Exercise, Their Muscles “Dissolve”

In recent years, there have been reports of rhabdomyolysis, often in military training or at the gym.I thought exercise was good for health, but how can it be life-threatening?What is this disease?

Why do muscles dissolve inexplicably?

The muscles of the human body are divided into transverse and smooth muscles.Rhabdomyosin is found mainly in the bones and the heart and is predominantly found in the bones.The rhabdomyosin on the bones is also known as skeletal muscle and is responsible for our daily movements.

Rhabdomyolysis, also known as myosinuria, is a medical emergency.The so-called “lysis” is a common term, which does not mean that the muscle actually dissolves, but rather that the cells that make up the muscle break down, and the proteins and other substances inside the cells enter the bloodstream and cause a series of clinical symptoms.

Scientists have identified a number of possible causes of rhabdomyolysis, and one of the most common causes is the strenuous exercise mentioned in the opening paragraph, such as lots of deep squats, long marches, and running marathons.Just as a rubber band can collapse if you overstretch it, anything that is overused can be damaged, and the same is true for strong skeletal muscles.Skeletal muscles that lie within a narrow space in the body’s anatomy are the most susceptible to damage during excessive muscle movement, such as the tibialis muscle in the lower leg.

In addition, rhabdomyolysis may be caused by adverse drug reactions, extreme body temperatures, infections, metabolic disorders, high-voltage electrical shock, burns, crush injuries, and autoimmune diseases.

Rhabdomyolysis tends to involve the kidneys

Don’t underestimate the substances inside the rhabdomyocytes, they can play a positive role in the cells, but once they leak out into the bloodstream, they not only don’t “work”, but also “make trouble”, and may bring a series of serious illnesses as a result.

Due to the rupture of muscle cells, patients with rhabdomyolysis usually experience redness, swelling, pain, and stiffness of the muscles. This pain is differentiated from the usual muscle soreness after exercise, and is often accompanied by sudden warmth and fatigue throughout the body.

In addition, a typical symptom in these patients is that the urine becomes soy sauce, tea or red wine colored, due to the excretion of myoglobin from the muscle cells with the urine.Typically, the severity and duration of these symptoms vary depending on the degree of muscle cell damage.

When rhabdomyolysis is serious, it will put a huge burden on the kidneys.After rhabdomyolysis, it is like pouring a pot of dirty water into clean blood with all kinds of dirty things in it, which will reach the kidneys with the flow of blood, and when it exceeds the load of the kidneys, it will block and damage the renal tubules, resulting in ischemia of the kidneys, which then induces acute renal failure, and even life-threatening in particularly serious patients.

How to prevent rhabdomyolysis?

First of all, don’t exercise out of the blue.If you’re someone who doesn’t usually exercise much and likes to stay at home, don’t do overly intense exercises that are beyond your ability on a whim, and don’t punish yourself in this way.You can use cross-exercise, alternating between completing different exercises to give your muscles a chance to rest.

If you already suffer from some metabolic diseases, you should pay more attention to the amount of exercise, and take a break as soon as you experience muscle fatigue, pain and stiffness.Summer is the high incidence of rhabdomyolysis, when the three factors of long workout time, high intensity, and high ambient temperature come together, it is also important to pay attention to prevent the occurrence of the disease.

In addition to avoiding repetitive or overloaded exercises for long periods of time, make sure you have enough energy in your body for your muscles to move efficiently, and don’t exercise massively after a low-calorie diet or a long period of fasting.Many people who lose weight fasting while exercising, the muscles do not get enough energy but to overload exercise, it is easy to cause muscle damage.

When you have played intense sports, remember to drink more water and replenish electrolytes, not only to quench your thirst, but also because drinking water can accelerate the elimination of harmful substances in the blood, even if there are some muscle cells ruptured due to exercise and the substances inside are released into the bloodstream, drinking water in time can accelerate the elimination of these substances and reduce the chances of causing damage to the kidneys.

In addition, it is important to prevent and be alert to other common triggers, such as taking medications and asking your doctor to avoid interactions before medications and foods.Patients who have developed rhabdomyolysis should rest and keep an eye on changes in their urine. If the discomfort is severe, such as an inability to move a part of the body or if the urine never improves, seek medical attention and treatment as soon as possible.