You probably think of them as knots, hard lumps beneath your skin that accompany muscle aches and pains, places where you may also feel stiff with restricted movement. Medically, these are known as myofascial trigger points.
At Commonwealth Pain Management and Wellness in Richmond, Virginia, we know these little lumps can add up to big distractions that keep you from enjoying your day to its fullest.
When these trigger points become chronic, you’re suffering from myofascial pain syndrome, which can negatively affect your health, interfering with restfulness and sleep while causing headaches and mood disorders.
Fortunately, there’s a simple, safe, and effective way to treat myofascial knots. Our board-certified nurse practitioner, Savitri Gopaul, FNP-BC, can help. Trigger point injections offer immediate pain relief. Here’s what you need to know.
Every muscle in your body is wrapped in a thin coating of connective tissue called fascia. Injuries to the soft tissue of fascia and muscles, whether sudden or accumulating over time, can cause the normally slippery fascia to get sticky and bunch up into the scar tissue that forms a myofascial knot.
One of the roles of the fascia reduces friction between groups of muscles. These sticky knots can interfere with your ability to move, since muscles can’t glide easily over each other.
Knots and localized inflammation also irritate nerve tissue, resulting in the aches and pains associated with myofascial trigger points.
Your body has remarkable healing powers, but it often seems as though trigger points are low on the healing priority scale. Trigger point injections (TPI) offer a way to ramp up your body’s response by stimulating healing at the site of a myofascial knot.
The most basic form of TPI is called dry needling, where we press a thin needle into a knot and manipulate it back and forth without complete removal until that trigger point is treated. It might seem like we’re breaking up the knot, and while that’s a simplified description, it’s an accurate concept.
The deliberate injury due to the needle piercing the tissue at the trigger point is minor from your perspective, but your body responds by increasing the urgency of repairs, sending blood full of nutrients and healing building blocks to the region.
Your trigger point jumps up the healing priority list, and the fascia in the area returns to normal. Dry needling isn’t the only way TPIs can relieve your pain.
Some trigger points can be quite tender or painful. Since, during a TPI, there’s already a needle in your body, it’s a logical progression to add medication to the site of your pain.
Perhaps the most obvious choice is a gentle anesthetic like lidocaine, a mild nerve block that temporarily interrupts pain signals that the trigger point generates, usually taking effect in a matter of minutes.
When inflammation aggravates the symptoms of trigger points, corticosteroid injections are a powerful way to reduce localized swelling. This can relieve nerve inflammation in the area surrounding the TPI.
Muscle spasms are often a problem around myofascial trigger points. A relatively new application for TPI includes botulinum toxin type A as the injected agent. Best known for its use at reducing the appearance of active wrinkles in the face, botulinum toxin selectively blocks muscle contractions. No contractions, no spasms.
Trigger point injections may be the ideal solution for you when myofascial pain becomes a persistent problem. Call or click to find out more from Commonwealth Pain Management and Wellness today.
