Trigger Point (Headache In The Pelvis) or MBS/PPD or both?

B

balancedanswers

Peer Supporter
Hey guys

A week ago, I dived deep into mindbody work with "Unlearn your pain" and "psychophysiological disorders". I felt an improvement in my symptoms after 1-2 days. My symptoms are pain in scrotal / perinium area for 8 months.

So... I reviewed my daily journey and realized that the last time I had 4-5 days of pain free days, Alan Gordon had responded to a question I had on FB. In included what Alan wrote below. But, there were other days when I was pain free after a TrP session.

Anyway after Alan's post, the day after... I was pain free.

I'm not sure if it was coincidence, but I was also doing exercise / TrP work during this time so I don't know if it was Alan's words or the physical work that improved my condition.

A week ago I went all in on MBS work.. but...
After being pain free for 3-4 days, I noticed some pain start to come back.

I left it alone for 1-2 days, but the pulsating got worse...

So... I did some internal TrP and external TrP work and this time, I did it with the mental frame that "if there are some tightness I'll work on it but just because there's tightness it doesn't mean there should be pain. I'm not doing this to get out of pain, I'm just light attending to any TrPs I may have for good health"

However, when I hit some of my lower ab and intrapelvic muscles, I did sense referral pain. That is, press in one area produced pain somewhere else near where my scrotum is (original location when pain started)

This got me thinking that, although I am 100% in now with MBS work, there must be some component of this that is physical.

What are your thoughts? Thanks

Alan's response on FB:

"When I had really bad back pain, certain physical interventions
helped too. Both a cortisone injection and Rolfing brought me
temporary relief.
But just because something brings us relief, it doesn’t mean that it’s
addressing the cause of our pain.
If the brain thinks that something is working, then it can change our
interpretation of the sensation. And switch it from dangerous to safe.
This is how the placebo effect works.
Now, I know when something works for us, it’s really frustrating for
someone to say “it was a placebo.” I’ve been on both sides of that
conversation.
But I will say that there is no evidence in the medical literature
that trigger point therapy can reduce or eliminate chronic pain.
So two things about muscle tension.
1. If there’s chronic muscle tension, it’s not because there’s
anything wrong with the muscles that need to be fixed, it’s because
the brain is generating musculoskeletal tension (which happens when
we’re in a fight or flight state). So even if we were to manually
relax the muscles, in a matter of minutes or hours, they would return
to their default state.
2. Even if someone does have chronic muscle tension, studies have
found that there’s no correlation between muscle tension and pain. In
fact, many people who overcome neuroplastic pain have just as much
musculoskeletal tension as they did before.
So to answer your question, a combination of mindbody work and trigger
point work is kind of counterintuitive. Trigger point work reinforces
that there’s a problem with our bodies which needs to be fixed. And
this undermines the very premise of mindbody work - that our bodies
are healthy and our brains are simply misinterpretating signals as
dangerous."
 
Alan answered the question and broke it down quite clearly. You can't have one foot in the psychological camp and one in the physical. Every time you engage in physical "treatments" designed to treat physical parts Dr. Sarno explicitly states to abandon ALL physical treatments and exercises and crutches) , you are telling your brain that it's in danger and need of "fixing". If you were truly 100% embracing the TMS diagnosis you would not still have lingering doubt about the physical. He stated 'there is no evidence in the medical literature that Trigger Point therapy can reduce or eliminate chronic pain." The symptoms are stemming from ongoing mental and emotional tension. You could take muscle relaxants for example, but it will always start up again until you address the root cause. If you stay married to this random theory about trigger points, it will only perpetuate the TMS strategy. Before you respond by defending TrP and all the "science" (none of it proven as Alan noted), behind it, ask yourself if it's resolved the problem. How is holding on to the trp and "attending" (obsessing and monitoring) to these points helping you other than giving an illusion that you're "doing" something? I will also challenge this notion of "tight muscles" as simply a falsely held belief. The idea that you should attend to them for overall well being is also a false belief. A huge part of TMS is challenging these false beliefs that form the prison in our mind. Just because someone wrote about this theory does not make it true. Just because you bought into it and it helped you at some point, does not make it true, either. Remember, it's never about symptoms, it's about the cause.
 
Last edited:
balancedanswers said:
Hey guys

A week ago, I dived deep into mindbody work with "Unlearn your pain" and "psychophysiological disorders". I felt an improvement in my symptoms after 1-2 days. My symptoms are pain in scrotal / perinium area for 8 months.

So... I reviewed my daily journey and realized that the last time I had 4-5 days of pain free days, Alan Gordon had responded to a question I had on FB. In included what Alan wrote below. But, there were other days when I was pain free after a TrP session.

Anyway after Alan's post, the day after... I was pain free.

I'm not sure if it was coincidence, but I was also doing exercise / TrP work during this time so I don't know if it was Alan's words or the physical work that improved my condition.

A week ago I went all in on MBS work.. but...
After being pain free for 3-4 days, I noticed some pain start to come back.

I left it alone for 1-2 days, but the pulsating got worse...

So... I did some internal TrP and external TrP work and this time,I did it with the mental frame that "if there are some tightness I'll work on it but just because there's tightness it doesn't mean there should be pain. I'm not doing this to get out of pain, I'm just light attending to any TrPs I may have for good health"

However, when I hit some of my lower ab and intrapelvic muscles, I did sense referral pain. That is, press in one area produced pain somewhere else near where my scrotum is (original location when pain started)

This got me thinking that, although I am 100% in now with MBS work, there must be some component of this that is physical.

What are your thoughts? Thanks

Alan's response on FB:

"When I had really bad back pain, certain physical interventions
helped too. Both a cortisone injection and Rolfing brought me
temporary relief.
But just because something brings us relief, it doesn’t mean that it’s
addressing the cause of our pain.
If the brain thinks that something is working, then it can change our
interpretation of the sensation. And switch it from dangerous to safe.
This is how the placebo effect works.
Now, I know when something works for us, it’s really frustrating for
someone to say “it was a placebo.” I’ve been on both sides of that
conversation.
But I will say that there is no evidence in the medical literature
that trigger point therapy can reduce or eliminate chronic pain.
So two things about muscle tension.
1. If there’s chronic muscle tension, it’s not because there’s
anything wrong with the muscles that need to be fixed, it’s because
the brain is generating musculoskeletal tension (which happens when
we’re in a fight or flight state). So even if we were to manually
relax the muscles, in a matter of minutes or hours, they would return
to their default state.
2. Even if someone does have chronic muscle tension, studies have
found that there’s no correlation between muscle tension and pain. In
fact, many people who overcome neuroplastic pain have just as much
musculoskeletal tension as they did before.
So to answer your question, a combination of mindbody work and trigger
point work is kind of counterintuitive. Trigger point work reinforces
that there’s a problem with our bodies which needs to be fixed. And
this undermines the very premise of mindbody work - that our bodies
are healthy and our brains are simply misinterpretating signals as
dangerous."
Click to expand...

i appreciate this is an old post, so apologies but I’m new to this forum. The part below resonated with me, because I used to do it;

‘I did it with the mental frame that "if there are some tightness I'll work on it but just because there's tightness it doesn't mean there should be pain. I'm not doing this to get out of pain, I'm just light attending to any TrPs I may have for good health"

the fact you have to go through the process of justifying doing something, not for the pain, is reinforcing, backwardly, that you are doing it for me the pain. But you’re going with the guise of general health. I too did this constantly for hours and hours every single day. If you have to say, I’m doing this not for pain, the process has already begun.

i get things like that can be done for believed health benefits, but I always ask myself this question

‘would I be doing, what I’m doing now, if I wasn’t suffering with pain’

the answer, more often than not, when it comes to stretches, strengthening, trigger point work; is no. And I then have clarity over moving away.

very hard to do in practice, very easy for me to say.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top