If your muscles experience intense irritation, trigger points, or knots, can form. Trigger points can feel painful, reduce your range of motion, and even result in muscle weakness.
The good news is, trigger point injections can often cause the muscle tissue in these knots to relax, which can relieve the pain. Furthermore, trigger point injections can also treat other muscle-related conditions.
Our providers at Neuropathy and Pain Centers of Texas are experts in diagnosing trigger points and providing the appropriate treatments. In this blog, they discuss some of the conditions that can cause trigger points and how trigger point injections can help.
Many types of conditions, including chronic musculoskeletal disorders, can result in the formation of trigger points. If you suffer from these painful knots, trigger point injections may be able to relieve your pain and restore your ability to move comfortably. Furthermore, trigger point injections have also been found to help with other muscle-related conditions.
These injections usually contain natural substances, such as saline and plant-based pain relievers. However, depending on the situation, our providers may recommend injections that consist of an anesthetic, a corticosteroid, an anti-inflammatory medication, or a mixture of these substances.
When it comes to the injection procedure, most patients tolerate it well. Your provider at Neuropathy and Pain Centers of Texas uses a small needle, and relief can come very quickly. Furthermore, depending on the goal, relief can last for several hours up to several months.
Trigger point injections are able to treat a number of conditions, such as the following:
This condition, which causes chronic muscle pain, is localized and can occur in a variety of locations. Trigger point injections can relax the targeted muscles and disrupt the pain-related nerve pathways.
While myofascial pain syndrome is localized, some trigger points can actually cause pain to be felt in locations not directly related to the affected area. This symptom is called “referred pain.” Trigger point injections can help relieve referred pain as well.
While myofascial pain syndrome is localized to specific muscles, fibromyalgia is a chronic pain condition that can cause widespread pain in soft tissues throughout the body. The good news is trigger point injections have brought relief to many fibromyalgia patients.
In addition to chronic pain problems, trigger point injections can help with musculoskeletal injuries, including repetitive stress injuries. If you use one area of your body frequently — such as at work or during hobbies — the muscles in the overused area may experience unusual stress. This can lead to the formation of trigger points.
In addition to rest and other recuperative therapies, trigger point injections may bring you relief and help you recover.
The muscles of the jaw can be under a lot of pressure, especially if someone grinds their teeth, for example. In situations like this, the muscle tissue that’s related to the jaw can form trigger points. However, trigger point injections may be able to provide relief.
If you have trigger points in your neck, shoulders, or head, this could result in tension headaches or migraines. Getting trigger point injections, however, may be able to reduce your risk of suffering from tension headaches or migraines.
Ringing in the ears is medically known as tinnitus. By treating certain tissues with trigger point injections, some patients have been able to get relief.
To learn more about trigger point injections and to see if this treatment could help you, contact Neuropathy and Pain Centers of Texas to schedule an appointment today.
