Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction Guide

 

For anyone who missed our last foray into the subject of trigger point massage therapy, Myofascial Trigger Points are hyper sensitive and hyper contracted muscle areas, which, when irritated, result in a predictable pattern of pain referral. The main advantage of knowing the aforementioned patterns is that pain in a particular area that stems from a myofascial trigger point, can help determine which muscles to work to help alleviate that pain or discomfort. This is pretty important because the pain can be as distant form the originating muscle as the length of an arm. As well as resulting in referred pain, myofascial trigger points may cause decreased range of movement or stiffness and can trigger autonomic symptoms ranging from sweating and lacrimation to dizziness or tinnitus proprioceptive disturbances. Trigger Point Massage Therapy involves applying ischaemtic pressure (pushing blood and fluids out of inflamed areas) for 10-15 seconds. This can be applied whenever you run across unexpectedly sensitive muscle areas as well as those you’re looking for.

Conditions suited to trigger point techniques include chronic or acute head, back and other body aches and pains and repetitive motion traumas including cramps, stiffness or immobility. Trigger point massage can also be applied to fibromyalgia, a chronic disorder of pain and tenderness in your joints and muscles. Though trigger point massage can help with this condition, because of the intense pain associated with fibromyalgia, it’s usually not an effective treatment on its own. Rather, depending on the person, a combination of trigger point massage and complementary myofascial therapy usually works best.