About Trigger Point
Trigger points are caused by muscle injury. Muscles can be injured suddenly in accidents or damage can occur slowly due to repeated movements or poor posture.
A muscle is composed of tiny fibres which contract and relax in response to messages from the brain when muscle fibres become injured or over stimulated and they cannot relax and form contraction knots. A trigger point consists of many contraction knots where individual muscle fibres contract and cannot relax.
Fibres extending from the trigger point to the muscle attachments shorten and form a tight band. From a tight band, the persistent contraction of muscle fibres compresses blood vessels and decreases their blood supply leading to oxygen starvation and the accumulation of waste products and this irritates nerves and causes pain. The activated pain receptors generate specific referred pain patterns depending on nerve passage and muscle anatomy.
HOW ACUPUNCTURE TREATMENT CAN RELEASE TRIGGER POINT AND PAIN.
The needle directly breaks dysfunctional motor end plates and tight knot. Rotating the needle rolls the myofascial connecting tissues on to the needle and stretches the connective tissues and associates fibroblast cells. The stretching activates fibroblast cells to synthesize and release pain releasing chemicals such as adenosine and straighten out fascial alignment which also has relieving pain effect.
