Trigger-Point Acupuncture

Trigger-point acupuncture is a modern form of acupuncture where needle sites are selected first through palpation, then needling of the points happens in a quick ‘in/out’ process.

It is very affective against any type of pain both chronic and acute including but not limited to back pain, headaches and sporting injuries. Sports people find it excellent at releasing muscles to help reduce spasm, avoid injury and increase performance.

Trigger-points were first documented by Travell and Simons in their1983 book ‘Myofascial Pain And Dysfunction’. These doctors found patterns in the presentation of pain even though the root cause of the pain was different.

They systematically developed an understanding of how muscles themselves can generate both local and referred pain, which could be reproduced by pressing specific areas on symptomatic muscles. They called these specific areas trigger-points. The generation of a ‘local twitch response’ (a funning twitching of the muscle when the needle hits the ‘trigger-point’) seemed to both reduce the pain but also return function to the contracted symptomatic muscle.