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Trigger Point Blog

If you have muscles, you have trigger points, and you will get trigger points. If you have muscles (which we all do, no matter how active or inactive you are), they will eventually get overused, tight and irritated.   

Those of you who have thrown out their backs can attest, a pulled muscle can be more painful that a bone fracture or even than giving birth. You may think that this is an exaggeration, but I have heard from patients first hand. Women who have gone through natural childbirth with no medication have claimed to me that throwing their backs out was more painful. When you throw your back out, you are spraining or straining the muscles in the hips. A sprain or strain is a microscopic tearing of the muscle fibers. It is akin to fraying a rope. The muscle is made up of thousands of muscle fibers. When you pull or sprain or strain a muscle, you are tearing some of the fibers of that muscle. 

When that happens, the rest of the muscle reflexively contracts, to prevent further tearing. It is a self protective mechanism. The muscle will contract so hard that it goes into a neurological pathway that will perpetuate the muscle spasm. This pathway, called a reflex arc, will keep the injured muscle in a neurological pattern of spasm and inflammation for literally weeks to months to years. This is the mechanism behind when you bend over to tie your shoe and you throw your back out. Or when you reach behind to the back seat of your car to grab something (like your kid who is misbehaving) and you throw your neck out, or pull a muscle in your shoulder or elbow or wrist. Those are the straws that broke the camel’s back. From overuse, our muscles get tighter and tighter over time until the muscles get so tight that they tear on a microscopic level. It wasn’t bending over to tie your shoe, but all of the hours sitting at a desk working and getting stressed out. Just like it wasn’t reaching back behind you into the back seat to grab your child who was misbehaving. It was all of the countless hours that you have told that child to stop misbehaving and quit teasing or hitting their sibling while you are driving that has stressed you out. It is also the countless hours that you did the repeated movements that we all do each day. Whether it’s sitting at a desk in front of a computer, or standing at assembly line, or doing the laundry and washing floors. We all have our repetitive motions that we do day in and day out. These motions eventually cause your muscles to get so tight that they tear on a microscopic level.

Once the muscle tears, it will fall into that neurological pathway of spasm and inflammation and form a trigger point. Trigger points will cause muscle imbalances and cause your body to be out of alignment. This will contribute to your joints wearing away quicker and becoming arthritic. The same theory of alignment that pertains to your car, pertains to your body as well: If the alignment of your car is off, then the breaks and tires will wear away quicker. The same is true of your body. If your body is out of alignment, then your joints will wear away quicker, leading to osteo-arthritis. Once you have osteo-arthritis, you have it for life. There is no cure for it. You can only manage it. From what my patients say, arthritis is painful. Tight and irritated muscles, and trigger points in muscles, will cause joint imbalances by pulling on the joints in imbalanced ways. Thus causing the joint to wear differently than how it was designed to wear.

Therefore causing osteo-arthritis. We all have muscles. If we have muscles, then we are going to overdo it. It’s our nature to overdo things. Eventually we will overuse and injure our muscles, and create trigger points. Learn how to treat your own trigger points, and you will be able to reduce your pain, and increase your mobility. If you have muscle pain or spasm or inflammation or trigger points, go see your local Nimmo Care certified chiropractor to get rid of your trigger points, and to keep your body functioning optimally and pain free. I hope that you have a pain free day.