What is a trigger point?
A trigger point is a painful, bumpy area of muscle that may feel like a small, tight knot. You may develop a trigger point because of an acute injury, such as a sports injury, that heals incompletely. You can also develop trigger points from repetitive motions that stress your muscle fibers, causing microtrauma.
The pain from trigger points can prevent you from using your affected muscle. Trigger point pain can also radiate to other areas of your body, causing a condition known as referred pain.
What are trigger point injections?
Trigger point injections are used to treat and relax trigger points. Dr. Mukalel administers trigger point injections directly into muscle knots. Trigger point injections may contain one or more of the following:
- Saline
- Anesthetic
- Corticosteroid
Trigger point injections work quickly to alleviate pain and may help the affected muscle relax.
What conditions benefit from trigger point injections?
Dr. Mukalel administers trigger point injections to relieve a range of pain conditions, including referred pain. You may benefit from trigger point injections to improve pain from:
- Fibromyalgia
- Tension headaches
- Arm pain
- Leg pain
- Lower back pain
- Myofascial pain
Trigger point injections only take a few minutes. You can treat multiple trigger points in one session.
Are trigger point injections the best way to treat muscle pain?
Trigger point injections can be an effective way to manage acute pain or flares of pain caused by trigger points. However, trigger point injections don’t heal the underlying source of pain, which is tissue damage or incomplete healing. Dr. Mukalel may recommend platelet-rich plasma (PRP) injections to stimulate tissue healing in addition to or instead of trigger point injections.
Many traditional providers misdiagnose trigger points as being primarily a knotted muscle that needs to be relaxed. Instead, Dr. Mukalel has found that pain caused by so-called trigger points is actually a result of other conditions that respond to different therapies. For example, a muscle-tendon problem can be treated with ultrasound-guided PRP injections, and a facet joint signaling problem can be treated with radiofrequency ablation. Intrinsic muscle dystonia may be successfully treated with Botox® injections.
To get relief from trigger point pain, contact Jessen Mukalel, MD, by phone or online today.
