hey everyone my name is dr jeff peng we're going to be talking about trigger points a
trigger point is a hyperirritable hypersensitive and hyper contracted knot that occurs within a
muscle if you compress it if you stretch it if you load it it's going to cause pain and everyone
has experienced pain from trigger points if you've ever had neck pain or back pain
or shoulder pain or hip pain chances are your pain at some time was caused by a trigger point
and while most trigger points will improve with treatment options that are available at home some
can go on to be a persistent cause of chronic pain so my goal here is to teach people about
trigger points we'll talk about common treatment options and at the end i'll tell you why i think
therapeutic needling is one of the fastest and most effective ways to treat trigger points
so that they stop causing pain all my videos have time stamps found below so feel free to
jump straight to sections that are relevant to you if you enjoy this video please consider liking and
subscribing to my channel trigger points are overlooked as a cause of chronic pain the most
severe trigger points can cause pain when you're not even moving they are commonly referred to as a
muscle knot or a muscle spasm you can form trigger points in pretty much any muscle in the body
and they can form for all sorts of reasons trauma can do it injuries can do it poor
posture can do it repetitive movements or chronic tension can do it and other risk factors include
a sedentary lifestyle lack of exercise physical stress or mental stress sleep deprivation
nutritional deficiencies the list goes on and on any one or a combination of these things
can result in a hyper contracted muscle this then develops into a trigger point
and the problem with that is that once you get these hyper-contracted muscle fibers they start
a cascade causing pain trigger points clamp down on the blood vessels that supplies the muscle
this restricts blood flow and the reduction in blood flow causes an imbalance in muscle chemistry
the muscle can no longer get the nutrients or the energy that it needs to release
that contraction so it stays stuck in a contracted state this restricts range of motion it causes
muscle and joint stiffness it causes muscle weakness and all of this results in persistent
and chronic pain people often describe their symptoms as a deep ache or even a burning pain
some people feel a tingling or a numbing sensation the pain can often disturb sleep it can affect
day-to-day activities and it has a huge negative impact on emotions and mental
well-being unfortunately there is no test to diagnose trigger points there is no blood test
there is no imaging study x-rays ct scans mri studies none of these can diagnose a trigger point
a trigger point can only be diagnosed with a thorough physical exam through direct palpation
i recommend being extremely aggressive in treating trigger points and this is because i have found
trigger points to be so difficult to get rid of usually a combination of treatment options will
help make the trigger point go away this will include stretching and strengthening exercises
applying heat deep soft tissue massage tens units or massage guns tylenol or ibuprofen or aleve
these are all first line treatment options but for those with persistent pain
one of the fastest and most effective ways to treat a trigger point is something called
therapeutic needling inserting a thin needle into a trigger point stimulates a local contraction
this is called a twitch response a twitch response is a sign of successful treatment when
we needle and when we break down the trigger point the muscle is finally able to relax
this restores normal blood flow and the chemical imbalance and muscle chemistry is fixed
and when that happens the pain improves and eventually it goes away consider the
following analogy to better understand trigger points let's pretend that this long rope
is a muscle now imagine we tied a bunch of knots into this rope so that it looks like this
each knot here is a trigger point that lies within a muscle notice the rope is now shorter than
before shorter muscles restrict range of motion it causes muscle stiffness and it results in muscle
weakness now imagine we have a tool and this tool can be inserted directly into each one of these
knots this can help untangle and unravel this rope and once that happens the rope can extend
back to its normal length this is what therapeutic needling does it breaks up
muscle knots this promotes muscle relaxation it restores normal function and it reduces
pain thank you for watching this video if you found this information useful please share with
others who may also benefit please also share your thoughts in the comments below and let me know if
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to my channel i can also be found on twitter at @jeffreypengmd and i write on my blog at
jeffreypengmd.com