When to Consider Trigger Point Injections

When your muscles tense up or spasm, they can form a knot that can lead to local and radiating pain. The key to untangling this uncomfortable development is to tackle the knot directly to relax the muscles, which is exactly what trigger point injections accomplish.

When it comes to managing pain, targeting the source of the problem is a far better solution than simply managing the symptoms. Our highly qualified and integrative team here at Valiant Life Medical understands this all too well, which is why we offer a wide range of treatments that deliver sustainable results, and trigger point injections are among the most effective.

In the following, we take a look at how trigger point injections work and the many conditions in which this approach can play a valuable role in helping you find relief.

Trigger point injection basics

When your body develops a muscle knot or a group of muscles start to spasm, we refer to these areas as trigger points. A trigger point can not only lead to local pain, but also radiating pain caused by the muscles pulling on other tissues, placing added stress on them.

With a trigger point injection, we use one or more of the following substances to relieve the tension in your muscles:

• Saline
• Local anesthetic
• Corticosteroid

If you’d prefer not to use medications or you have a known reaction to one of them, we can use a dry needling technique to relieve the tension. As the name suggests, we insert the needle, but we don’t push anything through, which can be enough to release the painful grip of your muscles.

Conditions that benefit from trigger point injections

We’ve found great success using trigger point injections for a number of conditions, including:

• Back spasms
• Tension headaches
• Neck pain
• Temporomandibular joint (TMJ) pain
• Pain in your arms or legs
• Fibromyalgia pain
  

In some of these cases, the muscle tension is the primary problem, but sometimes the muscle knot forms as a result of another issue, such as arthritis. This occurs when you start to favor a certain area, say an achy knee, which can lead to added stress in other areas like your lower back. In other words, the arthritis in your knee is largely responsible for the spasm that develops in your lower back.

Getting results from your trigger point injections

One of the many reasons we recommend trigger point injections is that relief is near immediate. After we administer the injection, your muscles relax and your pain subsides. Of course, you may feel some soreness for a day or two (think of it as a muscle hangover), but the primary tension should be relieved.

If you’d like to explore whether trigger point injections are right for your discomfort, contact our office in Fort Worth, Texas, to set up an appointment.