Have you ever heard the term "trigger point" and wondered exactly what it is?  A Trigger Point is defined as a "hyper irritable locus within a tight band of skeletal muscle".  

Myofascial Trigger points are a very common cause of chronic and acute muscle pain.  Most people will have painful trigger points at some stage of their life.  Sometimes they last only for a short time, other times they become chronic and annoying.  They can commonly appear as recurrent episodes of pain in the same part of the body.  Occasionally they can cause severe, unremitting pain which is as severe as other causes like cancer or nerve pain and may be destructive to the quality of life for the person who is experiencing it.  

A little further breakdown:   

MYO arising from the skeletal muscle (MYO=Greek term for muscle, Fascial is the 3 dimensional web of tissue that surrounds practically everything in your body-great communication device for your body) 

Fascial - the fibrous layer over muscle.  A very strong shiny layer of tissue that acts like "glue" to band muscles together (you see this on chicken breasts or thighs when you've removed the skin) and coordinates their movements.  It's loaded with nerves which explains the complex patterns of pain that occur when there's a tight band of muscle (sarcomeres) and fascia squeezing nerves.    

Trigger Points have been referred to by many names over the centuries, but Dr. Janet Travell in the 1970's unified all of these names into the term "Trigger Point".  She was an amazing woman who was the personal physician to President John F. Kennedy and helped him recover from injuries received in WWII.   

When you have a Trigger Point, your muscle is in spasm and it's irritable and tender.  It makes the muscle lose it's optimal functionality, not to mention pain or discomfort!  When certain bands of muscles are tight, it make the bands on either side stretch further apart than normal creating a muscle that is not fully functional or being able to do it's job to the best of it's ability causing compensatory patterns in your body.   

When you run your fingers over a muscle that has triggers you can feel them as thickened bands, "knots" or tight cords like a guitar string.  These happen from our muscle spindles contracting and not knowing how to "let go".  Muscles spindles contract and release on a daily basis for us to move and function.  It's when these muscles spindles get "locked" and spasm that a trigger point occurs.  This can happen from many different things such as overuse or bad posture or a slip and a fall to a major trauma.  There can be several perpetuating factors such as bad diet, poor nutrition, lack of sleep, etc. that lend themselves to muscle spindles not being able to "let go" and release from their normal contracting & releasing jobs.   

This is where a Trigger Point Therapist comes in very handy.  We go through in depth training to learn the muscles that cause certain pain patterns.  It's quite interesting actually.  Most people will rub their shoulder if it hurts or rub their knee when they have knee pain.  The pain isn't necessarily stemming from the area that you feel pain at.  Only about 25% of myofascial pain comes from the direct area.  The other 75% of the time, the pain is coming from a muscles that is not at the pain site.  Again, Trigger Point Therapist to the rescue!  We know the most-likely culprits and can cut to the chase.   

For example, low back pain mainly stems from the Hip Flexor (front of the body) and from your Rectus Abdominis (front of the body).  You never would have guessed that, right?  You think it doesn't make sense, but it does and we know how to help you.    

Should you have muscle pain or dysfunction and have tried everything, including going to your doctor and they cannot find anything wrong, consider coming in for a consultation and assessment.  You'll be glad you did.