Myofascial Pain Syndrome (Muscle Pain): Causes, Symptoms & Treatments
Suffering from pain of any type can be difficult to handle. Sometimes the pain may be minor and can be worked through, while other times it can debilitating and hard to handle. One chronic condition that involves muscle pain that many deal with is called Myofascial pain syndrome. This involves inflammation that is in the soft tissues of the body and cause pain in different areas. It could involve one particular muscular area or a group of muscles causing pain. Here are a few things you should know if you’re dealing with muscle pain or if you think you’re dealing with myofascial pain.
Causes and Symptoms
The causes of myofascial pain can be due to an injury or strain of a muscle in the body. It could be due to repetitive motions that injury the muscle groups being used, an excessive strain that is put on the muscle, tendon or even ligaments, or it can be due to inactivity in a group of muscles. This could be due to having an injury to your arm and not being able to move it due to the cast or sling you’re having to wear.
This type of muscle pain provides “trigger” points that are the symptom of the problem. It can produce pain in these specific areas, or it can also produce other problems such as depression, behavioral problems, or fatigue due to the pain the patient is in.
When you’re being examined for myofascial pain, you may have two types of trigger points, active or latent. The active trigger point is very tender when manipulated whereas the latent trigger point can cause problems but isn’t causing them at the time. It is basically lying in wait to cause problems with pain.
Treatment Options
There are several options available to treat this type of muscle pain depending on what you’re dealing with at the time. You can opt for massage therapy to help reduce the trigger points and work out the kinks in the muscles. There’s physical therapy to help you gain movement back in those muscles if you’ve dealt with an injury that restricted your movement. You may also find that trigger point injection therapy works well for you. This is where the doctor will inject either anesthetic, saline, or corticosteroids into the trigger point and make it dormant so that it doesn’t cause pain any more.
One other method that may be used is the “spray and stretch” method. This is where the trigger point is sprayed with a cooling type spray and then it is slowly stretched out.
You can also take anti-inflammatory medications to assist with the pain as well.