Muscle Trigger Points Specialist

What is a trigger point?

A trigger point is a knot of muscle tightness or spasm that forms when your muscle can’t relax. You may be able to feel these knots through your skin when you rub a sore muscle. Trigger points are most common in the upper back and shoulder area, but these knots can also form in your lower back and limbs.

When you press on a trigger point, you may feel pain that radiates to another area in addition to tenderness in the knot itself. Injections of medication or dry needling directly into a trigger point are effective pain relief techniques for many conditions, including tension headaches.

How do trigger point injections relieve pain?

Trigger points commonly occur with painful conditions, such as neuropathy. To manage chronic or debilitating pain, the team at The Center for Neurology and Neurophysiology may recommend muscle trigger point injections.

This therapy involves injecting medicine directly into a trigger point. Depending on your needs, the injection may include:

• Anesthetics to numb the area
• Steroids to reduce pain and inflammation
• A mixture of anesthetics and steroids

In some cases, they may insert a needle without any medication into the trigger point to relax and lengthen the muscle fibers. This method is called dry needling.

Who is a good candidate for trigger point injections?

The team at The Center for Neurology and Neurophysiology may recommend trigger point injections if you have an easily detectable trigger point that may be related to your pain. They use trigger point injections to treat many painful conditions, such as:

• Migraines
• Headaches
• Fibromyalgia
• Neck pain
• Neuropathy
• Myofascial pain
• Back pain
• Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain

Trigger point injections can provide immediate relief from severe pain. You may experience relief in the trigger point itself as well as the area the trigger refers pain to, such as the neck.

Depending on the number of trigger points you have, the team at The Center for Neurology and Neurophysiology may give you multiple injections at once.

To find out if trigger point injections are right for you, call the nearest clinic or schedule an appointment online.