10 exercises to deactivate the pain of your trigger points

The dry needling technique eliminates trigger point pain

The workday progresses and with skepticism, but with a slight hope, I watch my back. Yesterday I visited an acupuncturist on the advice of a friend. He did it with the intention of forgetting the acute pain that settles every day where my right hand goes automatically, near the left shoulder.

This morning I woke up lighter, without that weight that has been with me for more than a year. But I don’t want to claim victory: massages, medication and other treatments have not succeeded so far.

I know it by heart: the passing of the day is loading it, the tensions accelerate the process and the pain settles, fixed, irritating, to the point of becoming unbearable.
Those were my thoughts from a week ago and now I smile. You may have finally found the solution.

According to my therapist, the problem was “trigger points” that were making my life impossible. With patience, searching and with the help of her needles He was locating them one by one and undoing.

And in faith that he succeeded, because every time one of those trigger points went off, it did so giving me a spasm. A sharp response of the musculature. A suddenly release everything that had been concentrating in that area.

Months of tensions, hours of work sitting in front of the computer with a bad posture, shot out at the contact of the blessed needle. A great contradiction, that of which the extremes are touched. The pain was gone with pain.

Pioneer: Kennedy’s doctor, Janet G. Travell

Dry needling is a technique that began to make its way back in the 1960s, when Dr. Janet G.Travell, President John F. Kennedy’s personal physician, began to focus her attention on muscle pain. This traumatologist searched for meaning and a solution to the chronic muscle aches that his patients suffered.

Although initially his efforts were aimed at making his advances known to doctors -his work was collected in two wonderful volumes-, his work was mainly adopted by manual therapists.

The technique began to be put into practice with the use of injections without liquid; hence its name of dry puncture. In the East years ago progress had been made in this line. Traditional Chinese Medicine already knew of the existence of these painful points, those called by them points ashi.

And to this day he continues to treat them with acupuncture needles, the heat of the moxa and the force of the suction cups. Be that as it may, Dr. Travell’s theory was improved and simplified with the introduction of acupuncture needles.

For more than 15 years we can find manual therapists working with needles. The idea is simple: locate the painful point by manual palpation. Afterwards, the localized points are directly punctured, called “trigger points”, and if they are located, they react with a muscular spasm that relaxes the painful contracture. More than a technique in itself, it is a powerful tool that is easy to learn and widely used.

Help to navigate the pain map

This therapeutic tool is very powerful for two basic reasons. The first is the one that has already been explained: by using needles, it undoes trigger points. The second, at a similar level of importance, is that helps make a diagnosis.

Among the concepts included in the trigger point theory is that of the referred pain. That pain manifests itself in a specific area depending on where the trigger point is located. The surprising thing is that often the point is located in a place far from the area of ​​pain.

If the manifestations of each point are known, a quick and reliable diagnosis can be made, that is, one knows where to look for the cause of the pain. Unexpectedly for the patient, the therapist is going to puncture, therefore, not on the pain but away from it, but when he presses our muscle looking for the contracted area we will feel that he is on the target.

So, each point has a pattern of pain. Thanks to the drawings that represent these patterns, the discomfort and the active point can be quickly related. It only remains to undo it.

When I look at those drawings of referred pain, apart from thanks to the people who developed it, I imagine the amount of effort it took to get to these details. A level of concretion that serves to eliminate a lot of discomfort and make life more pleasant for many people.

How to detect a trigger point

The trigger point is, without a doubt, the bad guy in the movie. And we still don’t know anything about him, or “they”, rather, because each muscle has its own. To differentiate them, one must look at the symptoms they produce, the aforementioned referred pain.

So, A trigger point is a very irritated area of ​​the muscle. It is related to a hypersensitive nodule. The nodule is that little ball that we find and can often feel on our back. The one that bothers us, hurts us and we do everything to eliminate it. The one that seems to help us alleviate the pain when we squeeze it hard but it doesn’t go away.

Apart from causing pain, due to the irritation it causes in the muscular tissues, the trigger point limits the elongation capacity of the muscles. For example, generating low back pain that does not allow us to stay upright.

shortened muscles need to be stretched

The culprit very often is nothing more than a muscle shortened by an active trigger point. The same happens with a torticollis, in which we cannot turn the neck in its entirety.

Another possible accompanying symptom is loss of strength When you suffer from a shortened forearm, you may not be able to easily open a jar of preserves or turning the keys to the front door suddenly becomes a martyrdom.

Below the active points are the latent ones, which if pressed also cause pain. If we eliminate the first ones, those who are asleep can wake up, although rarely their symptoms are as acute as those of the main trigger point. It is worth keeping this in mind and knowing that with a single session all the symptoms will not disappear at the root.

Keep them at bay on a day to day basis

At the same time that the pain is eliminated, its causes must be investigated and see if they can be corrected so as not to relapse. In some cases the origin is structural, such as leg asymmetry, which can be rectified with the help of a podiatrist. There may also be a nutritional cause, such as a diet low in B or C vitamins.

But nowadays emotional and physical imbalances are usually the key to the matter. Stress and accumulated tension They especially punish the upper part of the back. Fear, for example of flying, weakens the lower back. A excessive physical activity It can also damage the muscles of the legs, if we are runners, or the upper trunk, when we abuse the gym.

The best antidote to pain is keep the muscles elastic and well hydrated. Walking for an hour a day for sedentary people or going to work on foot is a simple way to have “awake” and toned muscles.

Subsequently a short stretching session It will leave us in optimal conditions. If you have a tendency to suffer from pain in a specific area of ​​the body, you should focus on stretching that affects that area.

Five minutes a day will be enough, always after moving, for example when you get to work in the morning or after your daily walk. Thus the muscles are more elastic, better nourished by blood.

live without pain

I think back to my back. The weeks go by and I think I can already claim victory. The pain has not returned. I get home without the irritation hanging on my shoulder and smile. Since I can’t change my work environment and I haven’t yet learned to take things differently, I have focused on following my therapist’s advice.

If I notice any discomfort I press the trigger point for a couple of minutes that causes me problems. Little by little I notice how it is undone. And then I don’t forget to do the stretches you recommended every day: now they have become my regular routine before opening the email. I say good morning to my body by giving it some light attention and thanking that it is still happy.