Pain – “Its just muscular” – the best way to treat muscular pain
What is muscle pain?
Muscle pain OR muscular pain is the name we use when the type of pain we feel is dull, aching, non specific to one area and non invasive on our daily function.
This problem is easy to treat and there are two ways to do this
1. find the key points in the muscle that seem to be causing the symptoms (Trigger points)
2. find the reason why the muscle developed the “active trigger points” in the first place
Finding Trigger Points
- these spots are tender points within a muscle. When pressed, they causes pain locally and people can also feel pain referred down their arm or their leg for example. This is usually normal.
- If you feel pain down your arm, the back of your leg, the back of the head or around your shoulder blades and it’s hard to tell exactly where it’s coming from then it usually means that you have a Trigger Point that is active – it produces pain without anyone pressing on it. This is not normal and requires treatment
What causes Trigger Points?
- There are many causes for Trigger Points, but mostly you find them in muscles that are always working, such as muscles that maintain posture (good or bad).
- So for example a lot of us have tender spots in our upper traps because we are constantly holding our shoulders up. Some of these points can refer pain into the head region, it can feel like you have a constant headache.
- Other causes include poor posture, bio-mechanical stress, injury, strain, stress, anxiety and chemicals in our food or environment.
How are Trigger Points treated?
- Trigger Points are treated by applying sustained pressure on them. Sometimes you can feel nodules or a knot in the muscle tissue where a Trigger Point is present. It can be quite tender, but for most people it is a sensation of pain that comes with a sense of relief, especially afterwards. It’s what we call “good pain”, it is like tension leaving your body.
- Secondly, identifying the reason why the Trigger point became active is important in making sure that it doesn’t return.
Eg. you sit at on office all day with bad posture. you develop active trigger points in your neck region, You get relief from massage or pressure directly on the trigger point but without making good improvements in your posture the neck pain returns
How Remedial Massage Therapy / Physiotherapy can help
- We identify where your trigger points are based on the pain you feel
- We know exactly how to remove these active trigger points and get you fast pain relief – check out Aline – our massage therapist doing this great self treatment drill
- We know exactly how to identify the cause of these trigger points
- We give you things to do to address the cause of these active trigger points so that they don’t become active again