Carpal Tunnel Syndrome is very often caused by trigger points in
your muscles.
What ARE trigger points? Trigger points are hyperirritable (crabby) areas of muscle or other soft tissues (or myofascia). Trigger points can be found in any soft tissues. Soft tissues are everything except bone.
What do trigger points do? They cause pain and symptoms in other parts of the body, sometimes at a far distance from the trigger point. This is called “referred” pain.
What CAUSES trigger points? There are some nutritional related causes, but the most common cause is muscle overload.
Who gets trigger points? We ALL have the potential to have them, because we all have soft tissues.
When a nagging pain or symptom won’t go away with treatment, that most likely means that a trigger point is causing the pain and needs to be released.
When I was making my notes for a recent Carpal Tunnel Radio show, I noticed a relationship between Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and trigger points: All of the things that cause
trigger points also cause Carpal Tunnel Syndrome!
Here’s a list of some more causes of trigger points:
- abnormal bone structure that you may have been born with (a leg or arm length difference.)
- posture that causes muscle stress (poor or out-of-neutral posture is a very common cause)
- doing repetitive motions, especially doing them incorrectly
- vitamin & mineral deficiencies or incorrect levels of needed nutrients
- thyroid or certain blood disorders
- stress; allergies and chronic infections.
How are soft tissue trigger points treated? A manual or massage therapist can release trigger points by locating them, pressing into them AND releasing the surrounding muscles or postures that caused them in the first place.
There is a very good book on self-treating trigger points by Claire Davies. You can release many of your own trigger points when you understand where they are. Get it at Amazon or your local library.
Also, there are charts that show trigger points and the areas they distribute pain to.
A good manual therapist or massage therapist will know by your symptoms where your trigger points are and will be able to release them. They probably have trigger point charts on their wall, in a reference book or in their phone and they USE them. A skilled therapist will also help you get rid of the causes of the trigger points.
No there are no more trigger points in your muscles you’ll have no more carpal tunnel pain!