Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Avoid the Clenching Syndrome



I should have mentioned this in my post on Ergonomics. Psychosocial factors also contribute to repetitive stress injuries. How many of you have been in this scenario?

It's a typical week day. You rush out of the house and drive that long traffic ridden route to work. During this time you think about that manager who has been making your life miserable, the project that is overdue, and the impending performance review that may not be stellar. Unconsciously you start clutching your steering wheel, clenching your teeth, and yes even squeezing your pelvic floor muscles.

By the time you reach work, you have already strained several muscle groups. If this happens on a daily basis then it may contribute to carpal tunnel, tension headaches, neck pain, and coccygodynia (pain in the tail bone area). Not pleasant. So push out the negative thoughts--what are they going to change after all, take a deep breath, and think about a place where you would like to be.

Reference: Sheon, RP, Moskowitz, RW, Goldberg, VM. Soft Tissue Rheumatic Pain: Recognition, Management, Prevention. 3d ed, Williams Wilkins, Baltimore, MD 1996.
Photo: courtesy of uhaweb.hartford.edu

26 comments:

cochinblogs said...

Hi Dr. Razavi,
I found your blog pretty useful,
being a doc (radiologist) myself.
Check out my blog, which is in its formative stage--> www.cochinblogs.blogspot.com
Please give me some tips to build it up.
DR. JOE ANTONY.
COCHIN, INDIA

Marsala said...

Hi doctor,

Try a patient's point of wiew in "My spine and me"

"M", Sweden

How do we know said...

thank god for this informative blog!!

david said...

Strange how one can come across information. This might even work out to be a solution for me. Some weeks ago I woke up with this severe pain in the tail bone area (I wont attempt the medical term) which disturbed me for a day or two then went away. I thought of all the reasons for it but came up with nothing concrete. Anyway, the stress and worry were present alright, so was the strain. I guess I now have a fairly good idea!

Anonymous said...

very interesting

Anonymous said...

سلام آقای رضوی
من یه درخواست از شما دارم و اون اینه که اگه شما می تونید فارسی بنویسید و بخونید یه وبلاگ پزشکی به زبان فارسی هم بزنید چون یه همچین چیزی خیلی نیاز هست ...

Anonymous said...

very useful blog Thanks .

Oberon said...

......dear doc.....my wife suffers from constant flatulence....well...i'm the one who suffers....heh..heh...can you help me with this issue?

San Francisco Photos said...

I better take this advice...I do it all the time!

Anonymous said...

voltarei a este blog. interessante e importante. a vida não é só "poesia"... mas ajuda!!!!

Unknown said...

I didn't even realize I was a clencher. I suffer from amazingly nasty headaches, and had gone to an internist, an allegist, an ENT and was in a dentist's chair when informed that I clenched my teeth.

He'd asked me how I was doing, and I mentioned that I was suffering from a horrible headache. He said, "I know why." Yeah, right, I thought. No other doctor could figure it out and a DENTIST is going to. He did.

Now I take Topamax every night and the instance of these headaches has been greatly reduced. I never realized before that clenching was an automatic response I had to stress.

Thanks, doc, for warning others about this little-known cause of nasty headaches!

OhPunk! said...

Very interesting -- especially the headache portion!

** Shaun **
My awesome blog: ohpunk.blogspot.com

-

Deborah Eley De Bono said...

This is amazing. I broke my tail bone twenty years ago and periodically have the pain you described. I'd never asked a Dr because, lucky for me, it doesn't last long. Now I know what causes it. Thanks for a great blog.

Noreen said...

Thanks, Dr. Razavi. I think that I am the victim of this (clenching, not of a trained anime fighter).

I am glad I found your blog. It seems really informative and I know I'll be back.

Dr. Taraneh Razavi said...

To gladiator:

There are many techniques for imagery, relaxation, and simple breathing exercises which may be used.
The first person to contact of course is your doctor who would know you best (if you have one).
A site that I've recently found which has lots of CDs,Videos to offer for this purpose is healthjourneys.com.

If you implement any of them please let me know what worked for you.

Dr. Taraneh Razavi said...

To every one who found this post useful, I'm very glad to hear that.

Tiffany Thomas said...

Trunks!

Anonymous said...

Thank u, good blog, check out my blog, Anything Sports

Samantha said...

I'm a clencher, and yes, I am extremely headache-prone. I knew it was causing some headaches however, I didn't know there was an actual syndrome! My physician tells me to take Tylenol -- he so sucks.

Thank you for the post, and the blog!

akilaz said...

wow! I'm glad I found your blog, Dr! I'm going to read it regularly

Anonymous said...

To clench or not to clench, that is the question

champ said...

thanks for the post, and also, Nice picture. Now I know not to clinch so much.

Unknown said...

Dear Dr.Razavi,
I have a medical question regarding my nefew who has this
syndreom as " Hemangiblastoma"
and this has been removed but what
I want to know infact what sort of
disease is that ? and tell me if
this by rewmoving it do not appear again.
I 'll much obliged if you let me know as soon as you can.
Best regards,
T.FARIDI,MRSC.

Anonymous said...

Let's talk about something irrelevant so we all can feel important.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this informations.(escuseme my english is bad.)


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