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Pain Relief with Trigger Point Therapy
Trigger points are palpable, tender spots of tightly contracted muscle or fascia, an isolated spasm like knot, occurring usually in overloaded on injured muscles. That small patch of knotted muscle cuts off its own blood supply, creating a dysfunctional cycle where blood flow has been reduced and metabolic wastes are not being exchanged for oxygen and nutrients.
Trigger points are found by palpation of the problem area and potential problem source areas in other muscles.
They are treated with a variety of techniques to open the tight spots of the muscles, which allows blood flow to bring oxygen, glucose, and co-factors to the muscle cells. These are used to make ATP energy in the cell, leading to normalization of the muscle.
Most of our common aches and pains — and many other puzzling physical complaints — are actually caused by trigger points,
A collection of too many nasty trigger points is called myofascial pain syndrome.
Trigger points affect muscle range of motion.
Range of motion is affected when there is enough contraction of the muscle that it will not fully lengthen. Unless trigger points in the affected muscle are inactivated, strengthening (conditioning) exercises will likely encourage the substitution of other muscles, further weakening and de-conditioning the muscle with the trigger points.
The muscle is tight, not weak, and trying to strengthen it with exercise or stretches may damage the muscle further, or cause pulling on the tendon at the end of the muscle where it attaches to a bone. This can lead to tendonitis of the muscles tendon. Sometimes there is a tendon sprain/strain first, which causes the muscle to tighten around an unstable joint, to help stabilize the joint and to keep the joint from being over used.
Trigger points complicate injuries.
Trigger points show up in most painful situations. Almost no matter what happens to you, you can count on trigger points to make it worse. In many cases they actually begin to overshadow the original problem.
Trigger points mimic other problems. Many trigger points feel like something else. It is easy for an unsuspecting health professional to mistake trigger point pain for practically anything but a trigger point. For instance, muscle pain is probably more common than repetitive strain injuries (RSIs), because many so-called RSIs may actually be muscle pain.
Trigger points may cause “Referred Pain”. In addition to minor aches and pains, muscle pain often causes unusual symptoms in strange locations. This odd phenomenon of pain spreading from a trigger point to another location is called “referred pain.” For instance, many people diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome are actually experiencing pain caused by a muscle in their armpit (subscapularis) or forearm muscles.
Here are some other examples of interesting referred pain leading to misdiagnosis:
Sometimes trigger points cause such severe symptoms that they are mistaken for medical emergencies. For example-signs of heart failure, but with symptoms that can be relieved by a few minutes of rubbing a pectoralis major muscle (over the heart area) trigger point.
Trigger points are found by palpation of the problem area and potential problem source areas in other muscles.
They are treated with a variety of techniques to open the tight spots of the muscles, which allows blood flow to bring oxygen, glucose, and co-factors to the muscle cells. These are used to make ATP energy in the cell, leading to normalization of the muscle.
Most of our common aches and pains — and many other puzzling physical complaints — are actually caused by trigger points,
A collection of too many nasty trigger points is called myofascial pain syndrome.
Trigger points affect muscle range of motion.
Range of motion is affected when there is enough contraction of the muscle that it will not fully lengthen. Unless trigger points in the affected muscle are inactivated, strengthening (conditioning) exercises will likely encourage the substitution of other muscles, further weakening and de-conditioning the muscle with the trigger points.
The muscle is tight, not weak, and trying to strengthen it with exercise or stretches may damage the muscle further, or cause pulling on the tendon at the end of the muscle where it attaches to a bone. This can lead to tendonitis of the muscles tendon. Sometimes there is a tendon sprain/strain first, which causes the muscle to tighten around an unstable joint, to help stabilize the joint and to keep the joint from being over used.
Trigger points complicate injuries.
Trigger points show up in most painful situations. Almost no matter what happens to you, you can count on trigger points to make it worse. In many cases they actually begin to overshadow the original problem.
Trigger points mimic other problems. Many trigger points feel like something else. It is easy for an unsuspecting health professional to mistake trigger point pain for practically anything but a trigger point. For instance, muscle pain is probably more common than repetitive strain injuries (RSIs), because many so-called RSIs may actually be muscle pain.
Trigger points may cause “Referred Pain”. In addition to minor aches and pains, muscle pain often causes unusual symptoms in strange locations. This odd phenomenon of pain spreading from a trigger point to another location is called “referred pain.” For instance, many people diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome are actually experiencing pain caused by a muscle in their armpit (subscapularis) or forearm muscles.
Here are some other examples of interesting referred pain leading to misdiagnosis:
- Sciatica (shooting pain in the buttocks and legs) is often caused by pain in the piriformis or other gluteal muscles, and not by irritation of the sciatic nerve. Many other trigger points are mistaken for “some kind of nerve problem.”
- Earaches, sinusitis, toothaches, ringing in the ears (tinnitus), and dizziness may be symptoms of trigger points in the muscles around the jaw, face, head and neck.
- A sore throat or a lump in the throat is often caused or aggravated by trigger points anywhere around the throat.
- “Appendicitis pain” often turns out, sometimes after surgery, to be caused by a trigger point in the abdominal muscles. Wow.
- Severe MPS is often mistaken for fibromyalgia (and other diseases that cause hypersensitivity to pain throughout the body).
Sometimes trigger points cause such severe symptoms that they are mistaken for medical emergencies. For example-signs of heart failure, but with symptoms that can be relieved by a few minutes of rubbing a pectoralis major muscle (over the heart area) trigger point.
Red shows referred muscle pain areas. 1. Scalenes 2. Trapezius 3. Gluteus Minimus
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