I GUESS the most painful experience a person can have upon waking up is to have muscle cramps. The condition consists of a sudden but involuntary contraction of a muscle or part of it that is painful as well as self-extinguishing (or self-limiting), with a palpable knotting of the muscle accompanying it. But the condition is normal. There is nothing serious enough to worry about other than the excruciating pain as it progresses and the usual difficulty at walking for a day or two after the event. Healthy individuals experience it. It can occur at night (benign nocturnal cramp) or in the morning just before waking up. It can also happen during strenuous activities, usually during physical exercise Long periods of exercise or physical labor, particularly in hot weather, may cause muscle cramps. Muscle cramps, however, can appear in disease conditions, such as... [ READ MORE ] This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 15 May 2013.
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