5 Reasons Trigger Point Injections May Be Right for You

Muscles are a fibrous, stretchy form of soft tissue that are important for performing functions throughout your body. They’re important to almost every basic function you perform, including breathing, speaking, swallowing, digesting food, moving, pumping blood, seeing, and hearing. 

There are three main types of muscles in your body: skeletal muscles that connect to bones and joints, cardiac muscles that line the walls of your heart, and smooth muscles that line your organs.

Trigger points, or muscle knots, are sore spots in skeletal muscle tissue that can cause pain and refer pain to nearby muscles. They may also become chronic, causing conditions like myofascial pain syndrome. 

If you need relief from myofascial or other soft-tissue pain and live near Staten Island, New York, the Touch Stone Rehabilitation & Health Center team can help. We offer trigger point injections, a treatment designed to relieve pain from muscle knots. If other methods have not been helpful for you, there are several reasons to try this treatment. 

Let’s explore how trigger points cause pain, the reasons trigger point injections may help, and what to expect from the treatment.

How trigger points cause pain

These hyperirritable spots in your skeletal muscles are caused by either acute trauma (a direct injury to a specific area of the body) or repetitive microtrauma (a pain caused by repetitive motion in muscle groups). Microtrauma can be caused by factors such as prolonged poor posture, vitamin deficiencies, sleep disturbances, and joint problems. 

Repetitive motions from recreational and occupational activities, such as holding a phone, prolonged bending over surfaces, sitting in chairs with improper back support, and moving heavy objects, can stress specific muscle groups and lead to chronic stress in muscle tissue.

How trigger point injections work

Trigger point injections are designed to relieve muscle knots by combining substances that numb the affected area and reduce inflammation and pain. To accomplish this, injections are performed into myofascial trigger points.

Trigger point injections contain a local anesthetic to numb the injection site and a corticosteroid to reduce inflammation. They sometimes include a neurotoxin (botulinum toxin A, or Botox®) to relax muscles and prevent nerve signaling pathways. 

Five reasons trigger point injections can help

Trigger point injections can help you in a variety of ways:

1. Can offer immediate pain relief

The combination of a numbing agent and reduced inflammation from the injection can help reduce pain very quickly, while the neurotoxin relaxes the muscles.

2. Can restore range of motion

When the pain is bad enough to limit range of motion, these injections can help make moving easier in the tissue affected by trigger points.

3. Can allow other treatments like physical therapy to be more useful

Relieving trigger-point pain can make rehabilitating those muscles much easier, making these treatments more effective at improving movement and function.

4. Can be effective when other solutions fail

When other methods of dealing with trigger point pain fail to help, such as over-the-counter medications, heat therapy, massage therapy, and myofascial release therapy, these injections can offer a direct and swift solution for relief.

5. Can be used to treat a variety of conditions

Trigger point injections can be used to help numerous conditions affecting muscle knots, such as myofascial pain syndrome, fibromyalgia, headaches, and migraines.

Muscles play a vital role in movement. While trigger point pain in muscles can be excruciating, trigger point injections can help. If you’re ready to see what this treatment can do for your pain, make an appointment at Touch Stone Rehabilitation & Health Center today.