Trigger point therapy can rid your body of unexplained pain you may be experiencing at sore or tender spots. Your neck or back may be filled with painful muscle “knots”, called “trigger points”, that surface when a portion of the muscle contracts tightly or goes in a spasm. The latest research indicates that there may be as many as 620 possible trigger points throughout the human muscular system. Fortunately, trigger point therapy can safely and effectively treat this kind of pain, which is one of the many available medical treatments at Spine Correction Center.
What are Trigger Points?
Wondering how a little point can cause so much pain? Here is what you need to know about trigger points. Trigger points are tight bands of muscles that may be felt as a knot. Trigger points can restrict movement and cause muscle weakness and may cause referred and or radiating pain. Trigger points result in decreased blood flow to the affected area, and scar tissue to infiltrate into the muscle. They are very painful and will limit healing of both the muscle and or dysfunctional joint.
Methods for Treating Your Trigger Point Pain
Spine Correction Center diagnosing and treating your trigger point pain. Trigger point therapy is a proven method for eliminating chronic pain in your back, neck, spine or other location. Long-term results from chronic pain, and prevention from future pain, are attainable with therapy. Here are four methods we prescribe:
- Stretching to help muscle tone
- Supartz anti-inflammatory injections to break-up scar tissue
- Whole Body Vibration to relax tensed muscles
- Massage therapy to untangle the knots
Treatment planning will be based on your particular needs and responses. One, or a combination of treatments will help you attain your goals. We will discuss all your options during your consultation with us, but here is some information to guide you on each approach.
Massage Therapy
One of the most common forms of treatment for trigger-point related pain is the direct, targeted approach of massage therapy. Our expert therapists can find the hard knots triggering your pain. Patients are often surprised to learn that the trigger point responsible for their pain is not where they are feeling the majority of their pain. This is because trigger points often cause “referred pain”—such as headache pain when you push on a spot in the shoulder, or pain in the hip when you touch a trigger point in the lower back. Trigger points are linked to symptoms like numbness, weakness, stiffness, or limited muscle mobility. Massage therapy eliminates muscular tightness responsible for triggering pain in other parts of your body.
Whole Body Vibration for Trigger Point Pain
Vibration mechanically stimulates your muscles at a specific frequency to trigger muscular contractions and relaxations through the natural, involuntary, muscle-stretch reflexes. Your muscles respond to vibration frequencies by producing involuntary muscle contractions. Vibration therapy helps regain muscle strength, helps with bone density, and is a critical component of our neuromuscular reeducation program. It is a very effective tool in “retraining” the brain to use correct posture and bio-mechanics.
When you stand on the vibration platform, your posture muscles have to make multiple rapid adjustments, as many as 50 times per second, to adapt and balance. Exercises performed on vibration platforms can be as much as three times more effective than if they were done alone.
These contractions bring on a series of positive responses in your body. Vibration exercises have been shown to:
- improve blood circulation
- enhance your strength, stamina and speed
- speed up the muscle and tissue recovery process
- develop your flexibility, mobility and coordination
- boost collagen production
- reduce fat
- strengthen bone tissue
- promote lymph drainage
- lift your metabolic rate
- increase the production of hormones that repair injuries and regenerate tissue
At Spine Correction Center we offer an integrated approach with both whole body vibration and exercise we often combine vibration exercises with compression therapy for optimum results.
Stretching and Muscle Memory
Stretching teaches your muscles to remain elongated, in a natural resting state, rather than of its contracted “triggered” state. Because of muscle memory, following a trigger point therapy session the muscle fiber that has been contracted will want to return to its injured condition. Therapeutic stretching exercises will help you develop new muscle memory parameters. Our treatment sessions will be instructive so that you can continue the stretching exercises at home–an important part of the process. To see the best results, frequent stretching (up to 6 times daily) when you first start treatment should be done. Stretching 1-2 times daily after is optimal. Participating in the home stretch program is 50% of your success with trigger point therapy.
What You Need to Know About Trigger Point Injections
Trigger point injections involve injecting a substance, usually a local anesthetic, at the trigger point site to inactivate it. Injections break down scar tissue and work to mend the affected muscle. These trigger point injections are done to promote healing in the dysfunctional muscle. They take a few minutes and are very effective in the rehabilitation process.
We also do large joint injections including knee injections, 3 different shoulder injections, and sacroiliac joint injections.
The Power of Supartz
The knee injections utilize Supartz which in essence is a vitamin injection for the cartilage of the knee. It is designed to lubricate and decrease pain,lubricate and decrease pain. (Supartz also promotes normal cartilage healing and can be utilized to assist in the pain from osteoarthritis of
the knee.)
All of our large joint and nerve injections are done under ultrasound guidance. The ultrasound is a safe and effective way to ensure patient safety as well as make sure that the injection is done in its proper place. It improves the effectiveness of the injection by insuring that the needle and fluid are going exactly where the practitioner wants. Ultrasound equipment is both non invasive and safer than x-ray methods.
Schedule Your Trigger Point Therapy Consultation
If you have been struggling with tenderness and inflammation that doesn’t appear to have a clear cause, we can pinpoint the muscles involved and relax the tension through trigger point therapy.
Spine Correction Center of the Rockies is an integrated medical model that is the future of medicine. Imagine the benefits of a medical staff working alongside chiropractors, and practitioners of physical therapy! Call (970) 658-5115 today to schedule your free consultation!