Tag Archives: The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook

Body, together

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tree branchesSo it’s been a long time since I did a post on health-related stuff.

Partly owing to the evolution (de-evolution?) of the blog. When I first started blogging in whenever it was — 2006 I think? — I threw up posts on whatever was on my mind. Personal stuff, health-related stuff, politics, local news, etc. Today, I’m more active on Facebook than here. It’s easier to carry on conversations there — I’m not sure what FB the company thinks it is, but to me it’s an enormous open platform blog. I can post to my website and maybe somebody will chime in with a response. I post to FB and it can trigger a conversation among dozens of people. I like that :-)

There are two downsides. One, of course, is that the stuff I post on FB isn’t visible if you don’t have a FB account or aren’t my FB friend. The other — closely related actually — is that FB posts go down the rabbit hole. Whereas with my blog, once Google indexes a post, it will show up in the search results for-evah. Assuming it’s a decent post.

Which brings me to health-related stuff. Some of my blog pages on specific health-related topics get fairly regular hits from visitors, which I assume means they’re finding what I post helpful.

So I thought I’d update on my personal experience: here are the things I do today that I think have the most positive effects on my health.

DISCLOSURE: I am NOT a medical professional and this is NOT medical advice. It’s me blogging about my personal experience. Be smart and consider getting a professional opinion before you try anything you read about on the interwebs.

Iodine

Still taking it. Iodine is the only thing I’ve ever supplemented that had a huge, immediate, tangible effect on my health. Here’s my most comprehensive blog posts about it.

You do need to exercise some caution if you start exploring iodine supplementation, particularly if you have health issues. Educate yourself. The links at my old post are a good starting point. Another terrific resource is The Iodine Crisis: What You Don’t Know About Iodine Can Wreck Your Life, by Lynne Farrow.

Next up: Fluoride, Migraines, Resistant Starch, and my fave go-to alt-health blogs . . . Continue reading →

Trigger Points

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So this has been something of a revelation.

I’ve come across the term “trigger point” more times than I could hope to count, over the years. I’ve had massage therapists mention them. I’ve read about them on websites. I’ve noticed them in my muscles — spots where even a little bit of pressure is hugely painful.

I never looked into them very much.

The fact is, there is so much alt-health information out there, and 95 percent of it is either garbage or irrelevant. It’s hard to sort through it all. It takes time.

But in the past few years my hands have been giving me trouble. My fingers seemed stiff a lot. My knuckles have been sore. I’ve noticed that my forearms have developed numerous tender spots as well.

This started a year or so after I took up golf — but golfing itself never hurt or seemed to tire my hands, and resting from golf didn’t seem to have an effect.

That puzzled me.

My fear, of course, was that it might be arthritis, but none of the alt-health things I tried for that seemed to help. (My doctor concurred it could be arthritis, and suggested I use Ibuprofen. Fine for alleviating symptoms, of course, but I wanted a cure.)

Then a week ago I ordered a copy of The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook: Your Self-Treatment Guide for Pain Relief, Second Edition — this being Clair Davies’ classic trigger point book.

It turned out to be an eye-opener.

First of all, I had no idea how much science there is behind the trigger point-based pain model.

I also didn’t realize that the right kind of massage can get rid of trigger points. I thought massaging trigger points was itself a way to alleviate symptoms. I didn’t realize that you can heal trigger points, and by so doing eliminate referred pain at its source.

Anyway, for the last few days I’ve been attacking some of my most troublesome trigger points, and I’m amazed at the results.

Most notably, the pain and stiffness in my hands has resolved probably about 90 percent — and I’m only getting started.

I also have a strong hunch that I finally — FINALLY — have a way to get rid of my headaches.

And I’m gaining a new understanding of the source of specific little aches and pains. For years, I’ve had a problem, on and off, with a dull ache under my right shoulder blade. Who could have known that the source was a muscle in the front of my neck? Yet when I massage the right trigger point, it hurts in that spot inside my shoulder — the exact same kind of hurt, in the exact spot.

I bought the book hoping to make my hands feel better.

I entertain larger ambitions now!

I’m not only going fix my hands. I’m going to get rid of my tendency to headaches. And I’m to systematically hunt down and extinguish trigger points in ever muscle in my body.

Wish me luck — I’ll post updates here as I go.