muscles


Your Tongue – Episode 105

Tongue Basics

Your tongue is made up of eight muscles.  This is why it is called a muscular organ.  It is the most important articulator in speech production. (A brief word dissection:  articulate means to communicate something clearly.  In medicine, articulate means to make a connection.  It all makes sense!)

The tip is called the apex.  The crease down the middle is called the median lingual sulcus.  There is another crease at the back of your tongue and it is called the sulcus terminalis.

Tongue Muscles

The tongue has two types of muscles.  Extrinsic muscles attach to bones boarding the mouth.  Intrinsic muscles are completely contained inside the tongue borders.

Extrinsic Muscles

These muscles are responsible for moving your tongue front to back and side to side.  There are four of them and they are named for the facial bones that they are anchored to.

  • The genioglossus muscle moves it forward so you can stick it out of your mouth.
  • The Hyoglossus muscle pulls it back and presses it down.
  • The Styloglossus muscle raises the sides of it during swallowing.
  • The Palatoglossus muscle raises the back of it during swallowing.  It also presses the soft palate down and squeezes the palatoglossal arch inward during that same step of swallowing.

Intrinsic Muscles

These muscles are responsible for all the shapes and movements your tongue makes when you talk and eat.

  • The superior longitudinal muscle covers the top side.
  • The inferior longitudinal muscle covers the bottom side.
  • The vertical muscle fibers are in the middle and connect the superior to the inferior muscles.
  • The transverse muscle fibers start at the median sulcus and connect to the outer edges.

The Tongue Has Skin?!

The surface of your tongue is known as the masticatory mucosa, which basically means it’s the surface that food comes in contact with.  The surface is made up of epithelial cells just like your skin.  The cells are keratinized (or filled with a toughening protein) so it is tough and does not get damaged by the wide variety of things we eat.

Call Backs

Wrinkly Brain

Skin 101

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Music Credits: Up In My Jam (All Of A Sudden) by – Kubbi https://soundcloud.com/kubbiCreative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported— CC BY-SA 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b…Music provided by Audio Library https://youtu.be/tDexBj46oNI


Treating Injured Muscles [Show Notes]

How Muscles Work

Muscle contractions depend on the muscle cells trading Potassium (K⁺) and Calcium (Ca⁺⁺).

As your muscle uses up energy to do work, the by-product is Lactic Acid.

Muscle fibers are “woven” together – kinda like fabric.

Contracting and relaxing a muscle causes the fibers to grip together and then spread back out.

Bilateral muscles = symmetrical muscles.  They look the same on each side of your body and worktogether to move your body in both directions from your center (left and right).

How Muscles Get Hurt

Stretching a muscle causes the muscle fibers to extend.

Over-extending a muscle can lead to a strain or pull/torn muscle. 

Inflammation happens in the tiny fibers of your injured muscle.

Treatment Options for Injured Muscle

Anti-inflammatory medications work great for strained muscles.
– Ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin)
– Naproxen (Aleve)

R.I.C.E.
Rest: stop using it, or at least give it a little break with only light use
Ice: yep, that cold, frozen water stuff
Compression: for smaller muscles, they can be wrapped to help limit inflammation and hold muscle fibers in a inoffensive position.
Elevation: smaller muscles that can be affected by gravity pulling blood to it, can benefit from being elevated and allowing gravity to pull blood away from it for a short time.

Here’s a link with a concise explanation of when to use ice vs when to use heat.

Prescription steroids help relieve inflammation.

Prescription muscle relaxers keep the muscle from knotting up.

Holla

@_KevinBuchanan used 800 mg ibuprofen for his injury.  800 mg should be taken every 8-12 hours, no sooner, or GI side effects may occur.

Recap

1. Stop the offending activity.

2. Ice the injured muscle (24-72 hours after injury)

3. Take anti-inflammatory pain relievers.

4. Apply heat to keep muscle relaxed

5. Gentle use or stretches

Behind the Scenes

Wearing a toddler while cleaning the kitchen can cause sore or injured muscles. Wear toddlers and clean kitchens with caution!

Since baby sister was born, Jossalynn gets one-on-one time with me by riding in the “backpack”, which is a woven wrap by Pavo Form.

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