Trigger Point Injection

This out­pa­tient pro­ce­dure is designed to reduce or relieve the pain of trig­ger points. These small, ten­der knots can form in mus­cles or in the fas­cia (the soft, stretchy con­nec­tive tis­sue that sur­rounds mus­cles and organs). The trig­ger point injec­tion pro­ce­dure takes only a few min­utes to com­plete. In prepa­ra­tion for the pro­ce­dure, the patient is posi­tioned com­fort­ably. The physi­cian press­es and pinch­es the skin to locate the trig­ger point. Once it has been iden­ti­fied, the physi­cian cleans­es the over­ly­ing skin. A top­i­cal anes­thet­ic may be used to tem­porar­i­ly numb the skin. The physi­cian care­ful­ly inserts a nee­dle through the skin and into the trig­ger point. The physi­cian injects an anes­thet­ic mix­ture into the trig­ger point. This caus­es the trig­ger point to relax. If the trig­ger point does not relax com­plete­ly after the first injec­tion, the physi­cian may adjust the needle’s posi­tion and give addi­tion­al injec­tions. When the injec­tion is com­plete, the physi­cian removes the nee­dle. A small ban­dage may be placed over the injec­tion site. The patient may be encour­aged to stretch and move the mus­cle after the injection.

Click here to review an illus­tra­tion of the Trig­ger Point Injec­tion pro­ce­dure.
(Infor­ma­tion obtained from www​.viewmed​ica​.com 2012 Swarm Interactive).