Trigger Point Therapy - Relief (Part IV)

After my post massage soreness and malaise (PSMS) relented, I continued to perform the trigger point massage routinely.  Due to the quantity of my identified trigger points (forty plus) and the hour it took to perform one session, let alone the six recommended by The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, I aimed for three sessions a day. 

I had a feeling that the trigger point therapy was providing relief well into the second week but it wasn't until I took a break from the therapy - a day's lapse - which allowed my muscles to rest and recuperate, that I felt the full benefit.  My calves, tight for over a decade, no longer felt like rubber bands at full stretch.  They felt somewhat relaxed.  Of course, as I rolled them on my 5" foam roller ball, they were still tender (and are still tender in some areas), but they were noticeably different - better.  Previously painful muscles in my deltoids  (shoulders) were no longer painful when rolled.  My pectoralis major, though still tender, felt less irritated.

The relief was real and definitively attributable to my work with trigger points.  Despite the noticeable relief in my calves, deltoids, and pecs, I still had major work to do.  My quads, hamstrings, subscapularis, trapezius, serratus anterior, scalenes, and many more muscle groups remained tight.  (sorry for the muscle names - as I learned in this process, most muscles only have Latin names).  I played with my massage techniques, using different balls, foam rollers, and a theracane in different positions, finding some new tools and positions that worked better than before.

As of today I have been exploring trigger point therapy for approximately two months, attacking tight and painful muscle group after tight and painful muscle group.  The results have been consistent and amazing - so much so that I can't stop talking about trigger point therapy to anyone that will listen.  I have long suspected that tight muscles were amplifying my symptoms if not actually causing them - and my experimentation with trigger point therapy has helped reaffirm that belief.  In addition to the relief in muscle tension and pain, my energy level has increased, I am less irritable, my digestion seems to be much better, and as long as I continue to work on my muscles I no longer react as severely when going off my diet.  Relief has been obtained on a number of fronts - with more expected as I continue to dig in to the tightest and longest-maligned muscles.

To read more about my experiments with trigger point therapy, click the following links:

Dr. Travell, the White House Physician of JFK (Part I)
Fumbling in the Dark (Part II)
Oh the Pain (Part III)
Relief (Part IV)

 

Recommendation (Website) - Dr. Ben King

My latest method for searching the internet for plausible alternative therapies is to type in a symptom combined with another keyword.  For example I'll type muscle pain and oxygen, which brings up a number of interesting leads.  Most of the websites that I come across are aggregator sites such as livestrong.com or the huffingtonpost.com or superficial websites designed to give no or misleading information in an attempt to get you to buy whatever products they are selling.  However occasionally, I come across a website with information that appears, to me, to provide actual content.

One website that I recently found was that of Dr. Ben King, an acupuncturist and chiropractor in Toronto.  I have read some very insightful articles on health, symptoms, and treatments on Dr. King's website and thought I'd share.  Click here to be taken to Dr. King's website.

Trigger Point Therapy - Oh the Pain (Part III)

Like most of my experiments, I decided to give trigger point therapy (as prescribed by Clair Davies) a thorough vetting, despite discomfort and pain.  Forty plus trigger points is a lot to deal with at one time.  In the Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, Davies recommends specific massage protocols for eliminating trigger points.  The basics of Davies' recommendations is to massage the trigger points at a pain level of 7 (out of 10) for six to twelve strokes three to six times per day.  For one or a few trigger points, this would equate to a few minutes per session per day.  But for my forty plus trigger points, I ended up spending over an hour per session and didn't end up treating all of my trigger points each session.  Fortunately, I started over Thanksgiving break so I was able to commit to three sessions per day - three very painful sessions.

There is something in the massage world called post massage soreness and malaise (PMSM).  PMSM is exactly what it sounds like - you feel sore and tired.  I was sore and tired and developed symptoms similar to a really bad cold (sore throat and stuffy head) in addition to the soreness and tiredness. Then my urine changed color slightly, was more brown than normal.  A search for the cause of this particular symptom resulted in discovery of the condition of Rhabdomyolysis, a term used to describe the breakdown of muscle fiber, which releases the contents of the muscle fiber into the blood stream.  To read up on Rhabdomyolysis, click here for the NIH link.  Rhabdomyolysis can be dangerous but it didn't seem to be overwhelming my system, so I opted to continue but monitor for worse symptoms.  After about a week and a half, my PMSM subsided, leaving only the pain of the massage.

To read more about my experiments with trigger point therapy, click the following links:

Dr. Travell, the White House Physician of JFK (Part I)
Fumbling in the Dark (Part II)
Oh the Pain (Part III)
Relief (Part IV)