Weight Related Strains, Sprains, and Back Pain

Obesity is known to increase the risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, and even sleep apnea. However, the impact that carrying extra weight has on people’s skeletal systems, including their joints, muscles, and connective tissue, is often overlooked.

Physicians frequently hear overweight patients complain of foot, knee, and back pain. While analgesics can provide temporality relief for these patients, the only real treatment plan for these conditions is weight loss and an exercise program to strengthen the muscles.

Overweight and Orthopedic Injuries

Being overweight or obese increases a person’s risk of muscle strains and sprains because of the stress associated with carrying the excess weight. In addition, overweight people are often relatively sedentary and as a result often have poor muscle tone.

Muscle Strains

Muscle strain is the term used to describe the discomfort that accompanies overstretching and, in some cases, tearing of the muscle fibers. Muscle strains occur when a muscle has been stretched beyond its limits or when a muscle is contracted too tightly while performing a task it is not strong enough to handle.

In mild cases, only some of the muscle fibers are stretched or torn. The majority of the muscle remains strong and intact. In severe cases, the strained muscle may be torn and, thus, unable to function properly.

Muscle strains are characterized by localized pain and swelling. The discomfort usually eases when the muscle is rested.

Obesity is a contributing factor to muscle strain particularly in the arms and legs because, in addition to these muscles having to help support the body, they are under pressure from the stored fat that stretches the muscles and can strain or tear them. Severe abdominal obesity can cause hernias, particularly in the umbilical area where the muscles are naturally weaker.

How Do Sprains Differ from Strains?

Sprains are more painful and serious than all but the most severe muscle strains. Sprains are injuries to the ligaments (the connective tissue which holds bones to the joints) and/or the tendons (connective tissue that joins muscles to bones). Like muscle strains, the symptoms of a sprain include pain and swelling, but they also may include bruising and usually sprains significantly limit movement of the affected joint. Sprains take longer to heal than muscle strains. Recovery requires that the area be rested, and if the sprain involves a weight-bearing area of the body, the patient will need to use crutches or other devices to keep weight off the affected joint. Severe sprains may require casting or even surgery, just like broken bones. Once sprained, tendons and ligaments are more vulnerable to re-injury.

Sprains and strains can occur together and in or near a joint. The knee and the ankle in particular, because of its complex arrangement of bones, are especially vulnerable to sprains.

Obesity puts extra stress on joints, particularity the weight-bearing joints of the knee and ankle. According to the American Orthopedic Association, each pound of weight a person gains puts an extra 3-4 pounds of stress on the knee joint. Carrying excess body weight makes it harder for people to maintain their balance while involved in physical activities and, thus, increases the likelihood that they will make a wrong move and sprain a limb.

 A large study of 2673 patients aged 20-49 years conducted in Finland in the mid-1990s found that only 16% of patients having elective surgery for repair of a herniated disc or hip or knee replacement procedures were within normal weight ranges. By contrast, 22-28% of those receiving the same procedures were obese. Researchers also noted that the majority of younger adults having disc repair surgery and of women having arthroscopic knee surgery were obese.

Back Pain

According to family medicine physicians and internists, back pain, especially low back pain, is one of the most common complaints from their patients. Patients complaining of back pain are often overweight. What’s the connection? Excess weight puts added pressure on the spine, whether the body is at rest or involved in movement. While carrying excess weight is not the only cause of back pain, it certainly aggravates the situation since any weight puts pressure on an injured back and can cause pain and discomfort.

Obesity will worsen just about any form of back pain by putting excess pressure on the spine and causing it to work more to support the weight of the body.

Back pain is especially common in overweight people who carry most of their weight in the abdominal area. The uneven distribution of weight puts added stress on the lower back and the lower back curves to counter-balance that weight. This type of back pain is common in pregnant women since they, too, are carrying excess weight in front of their bodies.

Obesity is also known to increase an individual’s risk of developing a herniated disc and degenerative disc disease. In older people, obesity is known to increase the risk of stress fractures to the vertebra of the back.

People who are significantly overweight generally don’t get enough exercise and find it difficult to complete the movements necessary to strength the core muscles that help support their upper body. Thus, more stress than usual is put on the spine.