Myofascial Pain Syndrome

What is Myofascial Pain Syndrome?

Muscle ache with associated spasms and localized taut band within the muscles  mostly of the back. Pressure on the taut band could elicit pain and are called trigger points with pain sometimes radiating to contiguous part of the body. There is associated weakness and shortening  of the muscles affected. A very common cause of pain especially among women aged 30-60.

Causes?

Many causes include repetitive injury of the muscles, especially in muscles not properly trained to withstand the repetitive stress, trauma from falls and motor vehicle accidents, stressful and tense environments, poor posture leading strain on muscles and ligaments. Sometimes, no definitive cause could be found.

What are the treatment options?

The treatment includes intensive physical therapy with aerobic exercises, deep massage, aquatherapy,  muscle stretching especially vapocoolant spray/stretch, heat (moist), ultrasound, electrical stimulations and sometimes proper posture training and re-training in proper use of the muscles to prevent future re-injury. Other treatment options include trigger point injections/needling with local anesthetics, medications mostly antidepressant, muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory and morphine derivatives and sometimes in severe cases immunomodulators like kineret, enbrel(most commonly used in Rheumatoid arthritis but are found to help in severe cases).