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
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.
