A Spasm is a sudden, involuntary contraction of a muscle, a group of muscles, or a hollow organ, or a similarly sudden contraction of an orifice. It is sometimes accompanied by a sudden burst of pain, but is usually harmless and ceases after a few minutes. Spasmodic muscle contraction may also be due to a large number of medical conditions, however, including the dystonias.
By extension, a spasm is also a sudden and temporary burst of energy, activity, or emotion.
A subtype of spasms is colic, an episodic pain due to spasms of smooth muscle in a particular organ (e.g. the bile duct). A characteristic of colïc is the sensation of having to move about, and the pain may induce nausea or vomiting if severe.
See also
The content of this page is retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spasm under GFDL
