neuro-muscular & trigger point therapy

Neuro-muscular & Trigger Point Therapy

Neuro-muscular Therapy is a highly specialized type of soft tissue therapy designed to relieve pain and return injured tissues to normal function. It utilizes specific, targeted soft tissue treatment, flexibility stretching and self-care to eliminate the causes of most muscular aches and pains. It can provide long-term pain relief where other approaches have failed.  Neuro-muscular therapy is complimented by Trigger point therapy.

​Neuro-muscular Therapy balances the nervous system with the muscular and skeletal systems and naturally brings the body back into alignment. It addresses postural and muscular imbalances, nerve entrapment, ischemia (reduced blood flow to an area of the body) and muscular trigger points.

Trigger Point pain is one of the more common ailments that affect the muscles in the human body. It is also one of the most painful considering the pain does not occur in just one area, but can cause tingling, numbness, and various other discomforts in areas at a distance from the source of the trigger point itself. To know if Trigger Point Therapy is required, you as the client need to understand exactly what a trigger point is!

A trigger point (also referred to as trigger site or a muscles knot) is a very tender spot in the body, often an isolated area within a particular muscle group - which will cause shooting pain in other areas of the body when stimulated. Trigger points can make themselves apparent in visible knots or in tight bands of muscle fibres. Due to the tenderness of these sites, people often feel that the long lasting benefits of Trigger Point Therapy are worth the temporary pain they feel as a result of treatment.

Considering that an untreated trigger point is likely to cause increased, spreading pain and future problems with balance and correct posture, the long-term benefit of the therapy outweighs the short-term pain associated with Trigger Point Therapy.

Benefits:

One of the advantages of Trigger Point Therapy when compared to other massage therapies that are used to manage and treat pain is that it identifies and works very specific points of the body…specifically, those locations where the pain occurs to provide the best method of treatment for the pain.

Method

Depending on where the pain is, and it usually occurs in the shoulders, back, or hips; the therapist will have the client lie down in a way which is both comfortable for the client, in the sense that other trigger points are not aggravated, and easy for the therapist to work the area. The therapist will then canvass the body in order to locate the exact area of where the trigger point is located. Location of the trigger point can be uncomfortable for many, especially if they have more than one.

After locating the trigger point or points, the therapist will use several different finger techniques of varying pressure on and around the points in order to break down the build-up of the knot. Because of the direct pressure applied to the area which is affecting the client the most, this can be uncomfortable. Depending on the size of the trigger point, it may take several visits to the therapist in order to be assured that the entire trigger point has been deactivated.