Trigger points. Even if you have never heard the name before, chances are good that you have experienced the pain and discomfort of these common, musculoskeletal problems at some point. Myofascial trigger points are areas of painful soft tissue dysfunction that freqently occur in overused, overstretched, or weak muscles and in combination with other injuries.
Neuromuscular therapy is an effective technique used by manual healthcare practitioners to treat these myofascial trigger points. This is a technique that focuses on releasing nodular “trigger points” in bands of taut muscle and relieving the pain and dysfunction that they cause.
Muscles, just as with internal organs, each have unique patterns of “referred pain” (pain that is felt distant from it’s source) when damaged. For example, often a person experiencing heart troubles will notice referred pain in the area of their left shoulder. Similarly, a person with an active trigger point in their upper trapezius muscle will likely experience an aching pain referred up the side of their neck into their temple (a tension headache).
Due to this unique phenomenon of referred pain, trigger points can sometimes mimic other conditions including sciatica, carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis, and many others.
Some of the most common reasons that trigger points develop include; trauma(eg. whiplash, sprains, strains) or direct impact to the muscle, exposure to cold temperatures, or poor posture. Trigger points are also likely to occur simultaneously with many other musculoskeletal conditions due to additional strain in compensatory muscles.
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