What causes the swelling and muscle spasm?
These chemicals cause the body to react in such a way as to create signs of swelling. Thus, swelling found during your examination is indicative of soft-tissue damage. There are pressure-sensitive pain receptors in soft-tissue, as well as chemical-sensitive pain receptors. When pressure produced by swelling fires pressure-sensitive pain receptors, pain is felt, that is if the pain message can get to the brain. Inflammatory chemicals can cause injury to local cells resulting in local muscle spasms. It is known that pain stimuli can cause reflex spasm of local muscles, which presumably is the cause of much if not most of the muscle spasm observed in localized regions of the human body. Guyton Textbook of Medical Physiology pg. 695 These muscle spasms in turn reduce blood flow in the area, resulting in a reduction of food and waste removal for local cells. The circulatory system of the body provides cells with a source of food, and a way to rid the area of toxins. Either a reduction of fo
