Some confirmation needed: Trigger Points!

[Richsimm22]

There is another article you may want to read Aurora?

Here is the link

http://saveyourself.ca/articles/trigger-point-doubts.php

The therapists intensions are all good and well Aurora but all shes doing is treating you based on what she has been taught and its all based and the travell and simons stuff. Shes read about vitamin deficiencies which all thats based on is people who have trigger points tend to be lacking in certain vitamins like b12 and vitamin C. I bet she couldn't actually name anybody who resolved trigger points by supplementing with vitamins. Ive read it time and time again the same old stuff with no evidence behind it at all. Believe me ive probably read everything there is to read about trigger points and I became obsessed with them as i thought id find the answer to my problems. The more you delve into it the more shaky the whole theory becomes.
Nobody actually knows for sure whats going on in the tissue. Its all just an educated guess at the end of the day. Here is what John Sarno written about trigger points in his book Healing back pain.

The term trigger points, which has been around for many years, refers to the pain elicited when pressure is applied over various muscles in the neck, shoulders, back and buttocks. There is some controversy over what precisely is painful, but most would agree that it is something in the muscle. Rheumatologists, who have taken the lead in studying fibromyalgia (TMS), appear to avoid using the term, probably because of its association with other diagnoses through the years. I neither use it nor avoid it, for I have concluded that these points of tenderness are merely the central zones of oxygen deprivation. Further, there is evidence that some of these points of tenderness may persist for life in TMS-susceptible people, like me, though there may be no pain.
In the first chapter the point was made that most patients with TMS will have tenderness at six key points: the outer aspect of both buttocks, both sides of the small of the back (lumbar area) and the top of both shoulders. These tender points, trigger points, call them what you will, are the hallmark findings in TMS and they are the ones that tend to persist after the pain is gone. It is an important part of the physiology of TMS to know that the brain has chosen to implicate these muscles in creating the syndrome we know as TMS.
Patients sometimes ask if breathing pure oxygen will relieve the pain. This has been tried and, unfortunately, does not help. If the brain intends to create a state of oxygen deprivation it will do so regardless of how oxygen-rich the blood is.

He mentions that these tender spots tend to hang around in tms susceptible people although there maybe no pain. In my experience this is true. People who have recovered tend to say that the knots feel like they are still there but the pain is no longer with them.

 

[Aurora]

Thanks for sharing! I'm familiar with SaveYourself.ca but didn't read that article before because I wanted trigger point therapy to be the answer. It's helpful to read it.

 

[sarah430]

So much great information in this thread! Thank you all for your contributions. I read this last night and then thought more about it on my run this morning. Instead of physical trigger points in my body causing pain, I imagined a psychological trigger point on my brain causing me pain that needed to get unstuck. I need to ponder this one some more, but this is another thread (and links) I will read and re-read. Thank you!

 

[Stormshadow]

Thanks so much for sharing all of these articles. I too was obsessed and still am with trigger points. I remember the night last November when I was walking thru Barnes & Noble and stumbled on Claire Davies Trigger Point workbook and started reading it and thought to myself that this was the answer. This was before I knew about TMS. I was amazed how I all of a sudden had so many trigger points. 4 monhts prior I had no pain so how come all of a sudden I had trigger poitns or tender points everywhere? Now the widespread pain seems to show that TMS makes more sense as oxygen is being deprived to various parts of my body. Some doctors think I have fibromyalgia which was very depressing since I'm male and I know its supposed to be mainly a female syndrome.

The thing that I just can't stop obsessing about is my arms. They got better for awhile, but two weeks ago I started using my home laptop quite a bit more and my arms are so sore. After using the laptop last night, my right arm is in burning pain along the radial and ulnar nerve pathways and has numbness. My left arm has numbness as well in the last two fingers affected by the ulnar nereve. So i just keep stumbling with the thought of why would using my laptop and mouse cause the pain to spike if it wasn't a real physical structural issue? I mean i assume these along with my elbow pains (tennis and golf) would be considered RSI's. And I know RSI's and carpal tunnel are supposed to be TMS. Before my pain got really bad I had EMG's done of my arms and there was no nerve compression issues. But I'm almost tempted to have them done again. I just don't know why the pain would skyrocket after doing certain physical things. Even with playing a video game. If I play a game that isn't too intense, it isn't so bad, but when I play a 1st person shooter and have to push in on the thumbsticks then my pain gets real bad. So I don't get it? It makes me doubt the diagnosis but I don't want to.

 

[SusieQ]

I thought I had discovered the solution to my pain a couple of years ago when I learned about trigger points. "The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook" by Clair Davies helped me a lot. It really did take a lot of my pain away to press on my muscle knots, especially the ones in my neck, shoulders, and lower back/side butt area. I had to do it every day, though, or I'd be in a lot of pain. It's still better than pain medicine and muscle relaxers, but I realize now that I was still only treating a symptom.

A few months ago I discovered Feldenkrais and Hanna Somatics. By doing the very gentle exercises in those programs (which basically teach us firsthand about our own mind/muscle connection) I realized that I was tightening up at certain times of the day, and that my pain and tightening would get worse when I was stressed.

Learning about TMS has been my "last piece of the puzzle" because it's teaching me why I'm tensing up and holding my body wrong in the first place, which is the underlying reason I've gotten the trigger points and pain. I created them myself through my emotions. In the last week since starting this program most of my trigger points are noticeably smaller and not really bothering me. One in my side, sort of under my shoulder, is completely gone and the ones in my neck are almost gone. That's a huge deal to me and I owe it all to the brave few doctors who have the courage to teach this, and to the folks here on this forum. I'm so happy and thankful for this knowledge.

(Btw, I'm still doing the Hanna Somatics "cat stretch" routine every day, not as "physical therapy", but because it's a wonderfully energizing, full-body maintenance routine. I highly recommend it for folks who enjoy exercising, although the movements involved are very small. It's easier than the easiest yoga.)

Dear NolaGal - since your post is from quite some time ago, I'm wondering if you are still active on the TMSWiki and would be willing to converse with me about the Claire Davies "Trigger Point Therapy Workbook" . I believe 100% in my TMS diagnosis, but my therapist recommended I give the trigger point massage a try - since my excruciating hip pain subsides a bit when I self-massage my outer thighs.
Your insight is greatly appreciated - thank you!

 

[Lavender]

Many thanks to all of you who have shared on this subject. Your information is most helpful to me.

 

[Abbo]

Grateful thanks to all of you that have participated on this forum. Knowing that I was not the only one who developed many, many " knots" in my muscles and only after reading and listening to Dr Schubiner did I absorb the fact that they were there because of all the tension and bracing that my body involuntary does.
I developed these knots following a pelvis incident (I call it this as originally called it a trauma caused by incorrect adjustment until I was criticised by a member). Like many others I embarked upon a "trigger point therapy release crusade and had 18 months of constant weekly therapies, massage, chiropractic "rebalancing of muscles" dry needling and the most barbaric of them all was " deep shockwave treatment". This felt like the chiropractor was drilling into my legs using a hand drill! All this therapy left me with the trigger points very much alive and kicking and even worse pain, increased anxiety, stress and fear. Despite embracing TMS and completing the program with a TMS therapist unfortunately my knots and pain are still with me. I know that it is my anxiety and fear that is feeding my TMS and even though I walk about three miles a day (split into two amounts) and have fully accepted that all my knots are down to TMS I cannot move forward. However, after coming upon all the positive messages on this forum I feel renewed hope. I just wish there ŵas a magic way to release this awful tension in my whole body. Strange observation, despitee the tension being from my neck down my knots are only in my thighs and buttocks, nothing in my upper body at all. Probably due to the unconscious bracing I do with my legs. By the way one chiropractor said they had been caused by stress and that they should go.
Again thank you all for your input especially to Mermaid. You have given me more hope.