It’s hard enough winning a fight against osteoarthritis when your whole body is stiff, sore and dysfunctional. When you’re in a lot of pain that battle becomes infinitely harder. The first step then is to find ways to minimize pain – ideally without taking toxic, addictive drugs.

I managed to stay relatively pain free for most of the 8 years that I was suffering from osteoarthritis. I think that was mainly because I’d already discovered something called ‘Trigger Point Therapy’ before being diagnosed with OA. For the 20 years leading up to my diagnosis I practiced martial arts. We tended to train very regularly and very hard. Having muscle soreness was the norm. The art required extreme range of motion in joints. Myofascial release or trigger point therapy (essentially just massage or pressure on tight bands in the muscles) kept joints pain free and mobile. After the diagnosis I continued treating trigger points as and when they developed and it was rare for things to tighten up enough for me to develop anything more than stiffness and soreness.

When trigger points are allowed to take a hold they can wreak havoc on the body and cause intense pain and lost mobility. It’s possible that they are the sole source of your pain. It’s likely that they are at least contributing to your pain.

What are Trigger Points?

At this point no one knows for sure what trigger points are. They present themselves as tight knots or bands in the muscles. Often you can feel them with your fingers if you press deeply into the muscle. Pressing on them produces pain – both local and referred pain.

Trigger points cause a wide range of symptoms from pain, discomfort, tingling, numbness, lost range of motion or even nausea, dizzyness and headaches. Trigger points can lay doramant (referred to as latent trigger points) most of the time, only producing symptoms during a flare up. If you’ve ever suffered from stiff, frozen neck chances are you have trigger points in your trapezius muscles. The neck pain will come and go but the trigger points responsible tend to be there constantly – just waiting for enough irritation to flare up again.

What is their role in Osteoarthritis Pain?

Trigger points can occur as a result of a joint that is damaged. As the body adapts to stabilize the joint and avoid pain healthy muscle is put under abnormal strain. In time painful trigger points develop. The pain from those trigger points can cause further adaptations which in turn produces more trigger points. Severe pain can develop through your entire body.

It’s also possible that trigger points are part of the CAUSE of joint damage. Muscles can become strained through overuse, poor posture or faulty movement patterns. As they become painful and restrict normal movement joints begin to track abnormally. In time the joints could wear – just as your tyres wear when the tracking on your car is out.

The only way to find out how much of your pain is being caused by trigger points is to treat the trigger points and see what pain remains. It’s important to be aware that trigger point therapy alone normally won’t resolve all soft tissue pain. So if you’re still left with symptoms after treating all your active trigger points don’t despair – there is still hope for complete freedom from pain.

How are Trigger Points treated?

Trigger points are treated with self-massage and pressure. The approach I find easiest is to get a nice hard lacrosse ball, place it on the floor and lie on top of it so that the trigger point I want to treat is resting on the ball. Then I just let my weight sink into the ball to provide the appropriate amount of pressure. It hurts a lot, but gradually the tight bands soften and the pain subsides. As do the symptoms that the trigger point was causing.

For the most part trigger point therapy will only give you temporary, symptomatic relief. You’ll need to keep massaging those trigger points to keep the symptoms at bay. Normally there’s a reason WHY the trigger points are forming – typically bio-mechanical faults. Relieving the trigger points probably won’t address the root cause of the problem and it’s possible that abnormal joint wear is still occurring. But if you get significant relief from trigger point therapy then it’s proof that at least some of your pain is a result of soft tissue strain. Which CAN be treated.

75% of trigger points are not located where you feel the symptoms. This means that you’re unlikely to find the source of your pain if you don’t know what you’re looking for. Fortunately, due to humans all having the same basic mechanics, trigger points tend to form in the same place on everyone. If you understand your imbalances you will know where to look for those tight knots that are causing many of your symptoms. Those tight knots are also re-enforcing your imbalances so releasing them is an important first step in your treatment. Stay tuned as I’m working hard to put together a guide to help you understand what is going wrong in your body and how to put it right – including where to locate the trigger points that are responsible for many of your symptoms.

In the meantime, for getting started the good news is that there is a fabulous book called “The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook” by Clair Davies. This is the book I used in my karate days and it’s still the best book available for trigger point self treatment. It will tell you where to look for trigger points that are causing pain AND how to treat them. You will also learn a lot about how your muscles work and where they’re located. And that’s important if you’re going to embark on a mission to cure your osteoarthritis.

You can buy the book from Amazon in both paperback and kindle. Personally I find the actual book much more useful as there are lots of diagrams and charts to flick through. If you’re strapped for cash you can pick up the book very cheaply second hand via Amazon. Big sections of the book are freely available on line.

Paperback Version

Kindle Version

You need a small hard ball or similar to help you to get at the tight knots of muscles and apply pressure. I use a lacrosse ball. The only place I’ve been able to purchase these is online – either Amazon or Ebay. The book recommends the use of a Theracane – this is specially designed tool that lets you get at difficult to reach trigger points. I have never used a Theracane finding it perfectly easy to get at any trigger point with a lacrosse ball and a bit of imagination. However, if you’re not keen on rolling around the floor tying yourself in knots you might want to try a Theracane!

Lacrosse Ball

Theracane

View Sections of the Book Free of Charge Online
It’s worth having a quick look and trying out the techniques to get an idea if it will work for you (although I’m sure it will!) – click HERE and scroll half way down the page to see the book’s contents page. Click on the relevant section according to where your feel most pain and hopefully something relevant to you will be freely available.

I honestly believe that if the NHS gave everyone diagnosed with osteoarthritis a personalized trigger point self-treatment plan they’d slash their bill for pain relief drugs!

This is just one aspect of osteoarthritis pain relief. Don’t despair if you’re still left with pain after trying these techniques – there are other causes of pain that can be easily treated. In subsequent posts I’ll talk about some of the other approaches to relieving – even eliminating persistent, stubborn osteoarthritis pain. I’ll also be explaining the underlying muscle imbalances that lead to these tight knots forming in the first place.Sign up to my newsletter to have self help information delivered to your mail box.