Difference Between Bone Pain And Muscle Pain

Bone Pain vs. Muscle Pain: Key Differences in a Tabular Comparison

Aspects	Bone Pain	Muscle Pain
Point of origin	Deep inside your body	On the surface
Location	Can be pinpointed exactly	Spread over a larger area
Duration	Longer than muscle pain	Comparatively shorter
Intensity	Comparatively more intense	Less intense compared to bone pain
Associated diseases	Bone Cancer, Osteoporosis, Osteoporosis	Dystonia, Influenza, Lyme Disease
Treated by	Orthopedic doctors	Orthopedic doctors

Bone pain and muscle pain can be extremely draining, and as the names imply, hurt a lot. Both can also derail your day to day plans, impacting your work and mental health as well. This makes treating bone pain and muscle pain vital for your long term health.

While bone pain and muscle pain have tons of similarities, they are not exactly identical. Learning about their differences, then, can be essential to receive the correct treatment and can be of great help to reassure your mind. 

Now, you know why differentiating between them is important. Next, we will look into how bone pain and muscle pain are different:

Definition: Bone Pain & Muscle Pain

Let’s start with the basics and understand how these terms are officially defined. 

The Human Phenotype Ontology, a comprehensive database that organizes and defines the features of human diseases, describes bone pain as an unpleasant sensation characterized by physical discomfort (such as pricking, throbbing, or aching) localized to bone.

On the other hand, muscle pain -also known as myalgia- is defined as pain in muscle.

How Does The Pain Feel Like? 

While the official definition can help clear some stuff up, knowing the definition itself isn’t enough to differentiate between bone pain and muscle pain. Let’s look at how bone and muscle pain each feel to help us identify the type of issue we are having.

Bone pain:

• Bone pain is usually deep and the ache feels dull.
• The pain is felt as something that comes from deep inside your body. 
• You will be able to pinpoint the exact location of the pain site (meaning the pain is localised), and the skin surrounding that area feels tender to touch.
• The pain doesn’t go away even when you are sitting still and not taking part in a particularly taxing activity.

Muscle pain:

• Muscle pain is usually less intense than bone pain, but is still just as awful.
• The pain is more surface level compared to bone pain - and the source of pain is less penetrative as the source of pain is the muscle layer.
• You might have trouble locating the exact area of pain as muscle pain is usually more spread out - covering more ground than bone pain.
• Muscle pain also gets worse with strenuous activity, a fact that could help you differentiate between bone pain and muscle pain!

Causes:

Some injuries can cause both bone pain and muscle pain, as they affect the musculoskeletal system at the same time. Let’s first go over the causes that overlap with each other before looking at the distinct causes:

Factors Causing Both Bone And Muscle Pain:

These are some common factors that can cause both bone and muscle pain:

1. Trauma and Other Injuries:

You could’ve probably predicted this one! Injuries, especially traumatic ones, seldom impact just one part of the body. Car crashes, sports injuries are some of the many instances which result in a combination of bone pain and muscle pain.

2. Chronic pain syndromes:

Conditions like Fibromyalgia and Chronic Fatigue syndromes cause both bone pain and  muscle pain.

3. Autoimmune disorders:

Autoimmune disorders like Rheumatoid arthritis (RA), Lupus, Myositis can cause bone, joint and muscle pain simultaneously.

Bone pain:

These are some causes that are exclusive to bone pain:

1. Bone tumours(non-cancerous):

Also known as benign bone tumours, these tumours do not cause cancer, but can weaken your bones and result in a lot of bone pain. 

Some examples of this type of tumour are enchondromas, osteochondromas, nonossifying fibromas, chondroblastomas, osteoid osteomas, osteoblastomas, periosteal chondromas, giant cell tumors and chondromyxoid fibromas.

2. Underlying health conditions:

Health conditions like Osteoporosis(which lessens your bone density), Osteoporosis(the most common type of arthritis), Osteomalacia(caused by a lack of Vitamin D) and Avascular necrosis(where the blood flow to your bones is cut off), can also lead to extreme bone pain. Most of these conditions also get worse with time, which is why consulting a doctor when you feel any bone pain is so important!

3. Bone tumours(cancerous):

You might not be surprised to learn that there are certain types of cancer that cause bone pain - and that bone cancer is one of them. Some other types of cancers that cause bone pain are Osteosarcoma, Leukemia and Metastatic cancer.

Muscle pain:

These causes are exclusive to muscle pain:

1. Muscle strains (pulled muscles):

Muscle strains are caused by your muscles being stretched too much and tearing as a result. Most common among athletes, muscle strains or pulled muscles are one of the topmost causes of muscle pain.

2. Repetitive strain injuries:

Repetitive strain injuries are caused by the overuse of muscles and tendons, which results in a severe damage to these organs and causes a lot of pain. As such, it is a common cause for muscle pain.

3. Overuse syndrome:

Commonly known as overtraining syndrome, overuse syndrome refers to the condition caused by exercising to the point of it hurting your body, due to the intensity and/or the frequency of your workouts.

It is different from the pains that you normally feel as a result of training, and greatly impacts your mental and emotional health.

4. Infections:

Bacterial and viral infections both can trigger inflammation and cause severe muscle pain. Muscle pain caused by infections are usually temporary, so if the pain persists for a longer period, you should consult a doctor.

While differentiating between bone pain and joint pain can be extremely useful, you should make sure you contact a doctor if either of these conditions last for more than 2-3 days.

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