Trigger Point Injections

Keystone Physical Medicine in Boise, Idaho offers trigger point injections to many areas of the body. Have you ever had that muscle spasm or knot that just will not go away or is always coming back?

Most people have chronic trigger points that are continuing to affect them on a daily basis. The purpose of a trigger point injection is to relax the muscle and allow it heal.

What is a Trigger Point?

Trigger points are discrete, focal, hyperirritable spots located in a taut band of skeletal muscle. They produce pain locally and in a referred pattern and often accompany chronic musculoskeletal disorders.

Acute trauma or repetitive micro trauma may lead to the development of stress on muscle fibers and the formation of trigger points. Patients may have regional, persistent pain resulting in a decreased range of motion in the affected muscles. These include muscles used to maintain body posture, such as those in the neck, shoulders, and pelvic girdle.

Trigger points may also manifest as tension headache, tinnitus, temporomandibular joint pain, decreased range of motion in the legs, and low back pain.

Alternative Care Vs. Trigger Point Injection

About 23 million persons, or 10 percent of the U.S. population suffer from trigger points to some degree. Many individuals choose to try therapeutic massage, topical creams, muscle relaxer medication, chiropractic care, different mattresses, and better ergonomics, which is all helpful depending on the severity.

But the most common question we get is, I have tried all of those things and I am still suffering. What else can I do? That is when the Doctors at Keystone Physical Medicine encourage a series of trigger point injections. The procedure is very minimal and only takes a couple minutes.

How to find trigger points?

Palpation of a hypersensitive bundle or nodule of muscle fiber of harder than normal consistency is the physical finding typically associated with a trigger point.
Palpation of the trigger point will elicit pain directly over the affected area and/or cause radiation of pain toward a zone of reference and a local twitch response. Most people will refer to a trigger point as a knot or painful nodule.

What is in a trigger point injection?

The Doctors at Keystone Physical Medicine use a combination of Sarapin, Lidocaine, and Sodium Bicarbonate. Sarapin solution is an aqueous solution that is actually derived from a pitcher plant.

Lidocaine hydrochloride injection, USP is sterile, nonpyrogenic, aqueous solution that contains a local anesthetic agent and is administered parenterally by injection.