Increased pressure in a muscle compartment.

• A. Fibromyalgia
• B. Osteoarthritis
• C. Compartment Syndrome
• D. Degenerative Disc Disease

Answer: (C)

This describes compartment syndrome, where pressure inside a closed muscle compartment rises enough to compromise blood flow and nerve function. The result can be tissue ischemia and potential muscle or nerve injury if not treated quickly. Clinically, it often presents with severe, disproportionately intense pain and pain on passive stretching, tense swelling, and sometimes numbness or tingling as nerves become affected. It’s an emergency because delaying relief of the pressure can lead to irreversible damage, so the typical treatment is urgent fasciotomy to relieve the pressure.

Other conditions don’t involve increased intracompartment pressure. Fibromyalgia causes widespread musculoskeletal pain without a specific rise in compartment pressure. Osteoarthritis is a degenerative joint disease with joint space narrowing and stiffness, not a pressure phenomenon inside a muscle compartment. Degenerative disc disease involves spinal discs and radicular or axial back pain, not compartments in the limbs.