This is a series on arm and hand pain causes. If you missed the beginning, go back to the Checklist.

There is no event that initiates arm and hand pain from accumulated tension. It’s just the sum total of all the tensions to which the upper extremity is subjected over time. People come into my Neuromuscular Therapy center near Boston saying, “I’ve been doing this all my life and I’ve never had pain before. Why now?”

There is a threshold of nervous system activity that can actually be measured in Hertz, a unit of frequency defined by cycles per second. There’s a huge volume of signals coming through our nerves monitoring everything that’s going on in our bodies. Our brain doesn’t need to know all of that, so the spinal cord mediates and automatically responds to the input. That’s called reflexive action. When the sum total of the input exceeds that threshold, the signals can no longer be handled reflexively and the information goes up the spinal cord to the brain. That’s when we feel pain. So we pay attention to it. We rest, ice, stretch, take pills or do something to make the pain go away. Now with that under control, we go about living our life until the pain recurs. We’ve just stepped over that threshold again. The signals had never gone away, they had just been spinning in a reflex arc below the level where the brain needed to get involved.

To keep the pain from coming back, reduce the accumulation of tension. That means some preventative measures: regular exercise and stretching, stress reduction, massage and bodywork, a healthy diet, supplements and herbs, drinking enough water, detoxification measures, postural correction, avoiding repetitive motions, a warm bath maybe with epsom salts (or aromatherapy, a candle and a glass of wine!). You’ve heard it all before. The fact is that the older we get and the more tension we accumulate, the more time we need to take care of ourselves. Maybe that’s why there’s retirement!