Arbor Day pains

By Song Sang-ho

Events for Arbor Day, which falls on April 5 here, already started a week ago. People are planting trees and seedlings are being distributed in many places. To plant trees is of course good for nature conservation but it is also good for our own health. People have to use almost every part of their bodies to plant a tree, making it a whole body exercise.

But if you feel pain all over your body after tree planting, you may have to check whether you hurt yourself with too much enthusiasm. It could just be simple muscular pain but it could also be some other injury, such as a sprain, that needs to be treated.

Delayed onset muscle soreness, more commonly expressed as muscular cramp or stiffness, frequently takes place if office workers who aren’t used to physical exercise suddenly take up shovels without any warm-up or carry items that are too heavy. Most of the pain is caused by the sudden use of muscles that have barely been used previously, and may last for five to seven days. The pain is due to microruptures of muscular fibers inside the muscles, which creates inflammation in surrounding tissues while bringing fluid swelling that elevates the pressure inside the muscle. We feel our muscles cramp because our pressure sensing nerve is stimulated. In this case, physical therapies such as massage therapy, ultrasound treatment, electrostimulation and compression therapy can work to reduce the pain to some extent.

If muscles or tendons are overstretched or ruptured by abrupt movements, one feels serious pain and bruises can also appear. In such a case, drug treatment will sometimes be necessary.

I often see patients coming to the hospital with serious pain after only using medicated patches. Such medicated patches may be effective for muscular pain but not for any kind of disease. They could work to the contrary. Hot patches, especially, which give the sensation of hot flashes, facilitate blood and lymphatic circulation to work against arthritis or neuralgia, but can also aggravate inflammation. So those patches are not recommended for inflammatory diseases.

Inflammatory areas are better treated by applying ice in the early stage and hot massages to relax muscle cramps after two or three days. If the pain still continues even after a week, consult a doctor and receive rehabilitative treatment along with anti-inflammatory painkillers.

If you are planning to plant trees or flowerbeds this weekend, there are some things you must follow. First, stretch your body. Starting to shovel, hoe or plough all of a sudden could lead to pain in your neck, wrists and ankles. Squatting for a long time to plant the flowerbeds could hurt your waist, legs and shoulders. So, stretch before working and keep doing so throughout the work, whenever you feel your waist or neck becoming stiff.

If you want to plant a rather large tree, keep in mind that you should dig with strategy. Try not to use a shovel that is too heavy or too long for you. If you are right-handed, hold the handle with your right hand and hold the lowest part of the handle with your left hand. In this way, you can save some labor. When shoveling, use the principle of a lever as if you are pushing something. Do not try to scoop out earth and throw to the side. You may strain your spine by twisting your waist when throwing the earth.

Once you have completed planting your trees, stretch again before you finish. For between 10 and 20 minutes, stretch from your neck to your shoulders, then knees, wrists and ankles, in order. This can prevent muscular pain.

Now that you know how to prevent and treat any pain, all you have to do is to enjoy nature. This weekend, planting trees would be good but you can also go climbing or do other activities to enjoy the outdoors. It’s spring, the beginning of all that green and flowers. We may get enough energy by just looking at them.

The writer is the president of Wellton Bone & Joint Hospital.