How do you know if you are having muscle or joint pain?

Palpating: Muscles exist between joints. Joints turn structures in diferent directions (have range of motion) if the joint hurts while being touched or while moving you have arthritis or joint problem. When you palpate muscles and they hurt you have miositis or mialgia or disease of the muscles.

Muscle vs Joint Pain: It can be very difficult at times to differentiate these two sources of pain since joint pain can produce surrounding muscle pain, but muscle pain does not typically cause joint pain. Joint pain is typically associated with stiffness in moving that joint and palpable pain right on the joint. Joint pain is normally not relieved by heat, ice, or motion/stretching, whereas muscle pain is. Dr blake.