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Myofascial pain often appears as severe headaches caused by muscular trigger points in your neck or back. A trigger point injection places anti-inflammatory pain medicine at the problem trigger point. Trigger point injections for migraines, also called myofascial trigger point injections, have proven effective for easing headaches. Your pain after trigger point injections is vastly reduced. If you are looking for “trigger point injections near me,” check out our injury center in NYC to get your pain evaluated and treated. Sports pain specialist Melepura M.D. is one of the best back and neck specialists in New York.
Trigger points are spots in your muscles that — when poked, pressed, or massaged — cause the whole muscle to react. A trigger point can send a ripple of pain through the muscle. Sometimes, that pain travels to other parts of your body. When this happens, it’s referred pain, and often there are no other symptoms where this pain ends up.
You can experience referred pain anywhere, but it commonly causes headaches, a condition called myofascial pain. A myofascial trigger point is a spot on a muscle that starts your headache. A myofascial trigger point injection is a shot of pain medication into the trigger point, causing your headache.
Visit our leading pain treatment specialist, Dr. Melepura, for best-in-class treatment options and to relieve your pain with trigger point injections. Emergency, same-day trigger point injections are available in NYC at the Manhattan sports and pain management. Please contact our office for a consultation with the top pain relief specialist.
Trigger points can develop in any muscle. While there are many factors involved, it’s believed they appear due to the following:
If you already suffer from a headache-related condition such as migraines or tension headaches, trigger point pain can worsen your headaches while prolonging your current condition. In that case, you’ll welcome a myofascial trigger point injection.
In addition to headaches, you can experience referred pain in other parts of your body, most commonly as:
Your doctor asks you when your pain started and whether you suffered any injuries. After the medical history is completed, the next step toward a diagnosis is a physical exam. If no other symptoms are found, a trigger point is a likely cause.
A trigger point on a muscle feels like a knot, much harder than the surrounding tissue. When your physician presses on the spot, it should hurt not only on the muscle but also in the area where the referred pain has been an issue. If you’re getting headaches, a trigger point injection for migraines is a possible solution.
Our pain management doctor may initially prescribe rest, over-the-counter pain relievers, and physical therapy to treat your condition. But if those treatments don’t have an immediate effect, especially if you’re suffering from severe or debilitating headaches, trigger point injections for migraines may be the next option. It puts pain medicine and anti-inflammatory drugs right at your trigger point.
I saw Dr. Melepura because the right side of my back was extremely painful and bothered me a lot. After receiving a 'trigger injection' from him that did not hurt, the discomfort and pressure vanished quickly. Highly recommend!
Yosef KlineTrigger-point injections for migraines or other referred pain are done in our doctor’s office. Once the diagnosis is confirmed, and your trigger point has been identified:
The medication injected is a mix of saline, anti-inflammatory steroids, and an anesthetic. The steroid works to reduce inflammation. The anesthetic blocks the pain signals from the trigger point, so you should immediately feel a decrease in pain. The steroids often take a couple of days to begin working, but pain relief from the myofascial trigger point injection should stop your headaches and the trigger point pain.
There’s no downtime for this procedure. After the injection, you relax until the doctor clears you to leave. Your pain after trigger point injections is diminished. The injection site may feel temporarily numb or sore, but infection and bleeding are rare.
The effects of your trigger point injections for migraines last for several months. By that time, your trigger point should have relaxed and won’t bother you anymore. You can repeat the procedure if needed, but only once or twice, as steroid medication becomes detrimental if taken too often. One myofascial trigger point injection is completely safe and causes no significant side effects.
Trigger point injections, or TPIs, are shots of small doses of numbing medication and a steroid into the trigger point to alleviate pain arising from that point and break the pain cycle. Sometimes, a small needle is enough to inactivate the problematic trigger point, called trigger point dry needling.
Trigger point injections help target and release the tight knots causing muscle pain by relaxing them and disrupting the nerve signals causing referred pain.
Trigger point injections are very safe. Typically, there should be no side effects, mainly when performed by clinicians with advanced expertise and training. However, you may have temporary soreness or numbness at the injection site.
Trigger point injections are proven effective for relaxing stiff muscles and providing prompt relief of your symptoms.
Pain management specialists most often do trigger point injections or TPIs.
Trigger point injections are given directly into the tight trigger points, which are painful knots within your muscles. They develop when muscles don’t relax. You can often feel these knots or trigger points as raised bumps when touching the painful muscle. Pressure on trigger points may irritate the nearby nerves and cause pain in other areas of your body. This is called referred pain.
If you have active (painful) trigger points, trigger point injections can be used to relax those painful knots. Hence, any condition that sets off trigger points within your muscles can benefit from trigger point injections. Such conditions include fibromyalgia, tension, headaches, and myofascial pain. Fibromyalgia is a long-lasting disorder that causes unrelenting muscle pain and fatigue. Myofascial pain is when extremely sore points develop within the tense, ropey-like cords of muscle called fascia, triggering pains elsewhere.
The trigger point is first located, and the overlying skin is cleansed with alcohol. Your physician will insert a sterile needle at a small distance from the trigger point. Then the needle is advanced into the trigger point at an acute angle to your skin. A low dose of a numbing agent is then injected. Your physician will then partially remove the needle and reinsert it to instill the medication in all directions: above, below, and on both sides of the trigger point.
You will usually find immediate relief in the first few hours after the injection of numbing medication. The injected steroid takes about 48-72 hours to start working, but you’ll typically notice maximum benefits in about two weeks.
A trigger point injection involves injecting cortisone alone or combined with a numbing agent to halt the pain cycle. Cortisone is an anti-inflammatory medicine that fights inflammation and pain. It is injected in other areas of the body to treat various painful conditions other than trigger points. Some examples of cortisone injections include trigger point injections, epidural steroid injections, facet joint injections, and other joint injections.
A booster injection can follow most trigger point injections after 2 to 4 weeks. After that, limiting your injections to one session over two months is best.
The pain relief from trigger point injections can last between a few days and months, depending on the problem and its severity for which this treatment was required.
Typically trigger point injections don’t hurt, mainly when fine gauge needles are used for optimal comfort. You may feel a slight stinging and burning sensation. There may also be a temporary increase in your pain when the needle hits the trigger point. However, this pain is a good sign as it shows that the needle and the contained medicine are at the exact spot.
Sciatic pain spreads down the back of your leg to your heel and foot. Trigger points in your hip muscles (piriformis) can also cause pain shooting from the back of your leg to the foot. In such cases, trigger point injections can help relieve the taut bands of muscle in your hip and help sciatica.
All insurance plans cover trigger point injections as long as you have a documented record of trying conservative treatment first with no relief.
When looking for ways to effectively relieve trigger point pain and get rid of chronic muscle knots, choose a skilled sports pain management specialist who can alleviate musculoskeletal pain, tension headaches, and spine pain, as well as reduce symptomatic pain using trigger point injections.
Locate an injury clinic offering rigger point injections near you to effectively break the cycle of escalating persistent pain caused by sensitive trigger points and manage accompanying muscle spasms and inflammation. Dr. Febin Melepura, MD, of the Sports Injury and Pain Institute in New York City, can treat you with trigger point injections right away in the office and get you back to your favorite activities in no time.
Do you have any questions about the trigger point injections for back and neck pain? Would you like to schedule an appointment with the best-rated back pain management doctor Febin Melepura MD at a sports pain management clinic in New York? Please contact our office for a consultation with the top pain relief specialist in Midtown Manhattan.
Febin Melepura, MD is a top rated, best in class interventional pain management doctor. He is a nationally recognized pain relief specialist and is among the top pain care doctors in New York City and the country. He is an award winning expert and contributor to a prominent media outlets.
Dr. Febin Melepura has been recognized for his thoughtful, thorough, modern approach to treating chronic pain and, among other accolades, has been named a “top pain management doctor in New York”, and one of “America’s Top Doctors™” for an advanced sports injury treatments.