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Acupuncture &
Trigger Points
What are Trigger Points?
Trigger points are not the same as
acupuncture points.
Trigger points may refer pain both in the local area and/or to
other areas of the body, and the most common patterns have been
well documented and diagramed. These are called referral
patterns. Approximately half of the time, trigger points
are not located in the same place where you feel symptoms.
(For
more information on the physiology of trigger points, go to
Headache Book: What
Are Trigger Points?.)
Acupuncture and Referred Pain
There is no concept of referred pain in acupuncture.
So if a patient has temple pain, there is nothing in
Eastern medicine that indicates you should check muscles remote
to the area of pain such as the posterior neck, trapezius, and
sternocleidomastoid muscles. If
your acupuncturist was not trained in trigger point referral
patterns, they would likely check the local area for
pain, and in the case of temple pain, by coincidence possibly
needle temporalis trigger points because it is in the area of
pain.
Even though there is a high degree of correlation between
the location of acupuncture points and common trigger points,
there is no correlation as to how points are selected.
Acupuncture is very effective for
relieving pain from trigger points, if the practitioner
understands referral patterns.
Solving the Problem
Trigger Point diagnosis and treatment is methodical and analytical, kind of like detective work --
we use
the information you have given us to decide which muscles to search for active trigger
points, which are the ones that are causing symptoms even when they are not being pressed.
"Latent" trigger points can also cause symptoms and referral, but only
when pressed. We also aid you in identifying and eliminating the
factors that are causing your trigger points, which is
the most important factor in gaining long-term relief.
Please see triggerpointrelief.com for more
information about trigger points.
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