Articles

Shedding Some Light on Trigger Points
Sometimes when we have joint pain such as neck/lower back/shoulder/jaw/knee pain or we are suffering from headaches, tennis elbow/carpal tunnel syndrome or reduced range of motion or stiffness or a niggle that just won’t go away we just don’t know which direction to go in to get the right help.

Studies suggest that Trigger Points are a component of up to 93% of the pain seen in pain clinics and the sole cause of such pain as much as 85% of the time.

So what is a trigger point?
Basically it is knot in your soft tissue (ie muscle/fascia/ligaments and tendons) that impairs your muscle function and can cause pain. Often the pain is not felt where the trigger point is though. For example a trigger point in a muscle on the back of the shoulder blade can cause pain down the arm – not in the shoulder blade. You may have trigger points in your upper shoulder muscle – this can cause headaches up the neck and around the temple area – not pain in the upper shoulder muscle. A trigger point in one of your deep buttock muscles can cause sciatica type symptoms – not pain in the buttocks. This is why they are often missed in treatments and the pain just won’t go away or always comes back after doing a certain activity.

By the way they can also cause all sorts of symptoms not just muscular aches and pains such as sinusitis, numbness in the fingers, chronic cough, and tinnitus.

What causes them?
There are a great variety of causes but here are some of the main causes
• Emotional stress
• Overuse and underuse of muscles eg cycling/tennis or sitting down for too long
• Diet can trigger them eg caffiene
• Poor posture eg rounded shoulders
• Overloading of muscles eg lifting a heavy suitcase
• Chronic repetitive misuse eg using a mouse
• Work/daily activities eg computing/driving for long periods
• Trauma eg whiplash

How to treat them?
Come and see me! My job is to find them and to release the knots using pressure within your pain threshold. Blood flow will then flow into the muscles and we will also stretch them to realign the fibres. Trigger points can build up slowly after many years so sometimes it takes a while for them to be reduced/eliminated. That is why I recommend regular treatments to begin with to notice a reduction in the pain. After that monthly maintenance sessions are recommended.

My treatments
In my Advanced Clinical Massage Treatments trigger point therapy is a major component when treating pain but I work in a nurturing way also using heat and cold, fascial release, acupressure/meridian work and advanced stretching techniques. I will also help you to help yourself with homecare advice for treating trigger points and stretches. I recommend 1 ½ hours for your first session as a detailed consultation is given.