Sock Doc: Trigger Point Video – Natural Treatment & Prevention

Hey this is Dr. Gangemi and in this quick little Sock Doc video I wanted to just address a couple little points and show you how I work a trigger point on a person and how you can work them on yourself. So sort of go along with the recent trigger point therapy post that I wrote for the Sock Doc site.

So, a trigger point if you’re finding a point I’m not going to go into what they are because that’s already been described, but once you find it let’s say we’re on our calf here like the Achilles tendinitis video. You’re looking for that sore spot and you’re going to hold the point sort of like that little nodule or knot that you feel in there if we’re talking about your Achilles and you’re working out your calf whether you’ve got shin splints, calf tenderness or an Achilles tendinitis issue. You’re going to apply pressure to that area and basically squeeze to your tolerance for at least 10 if not 15 seconds.

Now you do this a little longer. If you’re feeling the pain in there and it’s diminishing and especially if it’s radiating toward where you have your pain. In this case if I’m pushing on my calf here and I’m feeling it down more towards my Achilles and that’s, that’s resolving some of my Achilles pain, then you can continue to do that until it plateaus off or obviously you no longer feel pain in that area. And then once you do you’re pretty much good to go.

The other thing you can use is little tools like the stick or if you have a Thera Cane or something like that and you would just basically rolled back and forth up and down the calf like that. Again, you’re not trying to destroy your muscle, but it still should be relatively sore and to some discomfort. It’s not like you’re just doing the soft little massage in that area.

Now remember you need to have some understanding of anatomy which is part of the reason for this video and you also need to have some smarts about this. You don’t typically want to be on the area of injury, I say that a lot in my video, so for Achilles tendinitis. Very rarely my actually be working the Achilles tendon. You don’t want to be on ligaments too often. You’ve got to be careful of bursa and obviously if you keep on working a trigger point and it’s not getting any better then you should have that looked into if you haven’t already.

Usually people who are going to benefit from these the best they’re not getting help anywhere else and nobody has properly addressed the area. So, make sure there’s no fracture there and obviously if you’re working out close to your tibia here like for plantar fasciitis and you’re going down the inside of the tibia on that tibialis posterior muscle, you got a really sore spot actually on tibia bone, you can have a stress fracture there is it’s killing you that bad. But a lot of times its just tenderness from the fascial connections there.

And don’t forget if you’re working on trigger points two or three times a day, which isn’t necessarily bad but you shouldn’t have to keep on doing them all the time every day, week after week. If it’s just like stretching, you need to stretch to make yourself feel better which of course I’m very against, the same thing with the trigger points if you’re always having to work at trigger point but you’re not resolving the problem, well you’re not providing any benefit, any healing lasting benefit to yourself. So you’ve got to understand where those trigger points are coming from.

An Achilles problem for example that could be because you’re wearing the wrong type of footwear. Either you’ve been in thick shoes for too long and you adjust to minimalist or barefoot shoes too quickly that could hurt your Achilles. Or even vice versa if you’re wearing over supportive shoes orthotics too long that could be the result of an Achilles problem.

Another common thing people get trigger points in their traps all the time maybe from how you’re sitting at a computer or if you have a poor ergonomic position. But also these muscles and I talked about this a lot with the Sock Doc site and especially in the new trigger point post, these muscles are highly dependent on stress, lifestyle stress, dietary stress, emotional stress. Especially the dietary, what you eat and people who eat a lot of sugar will actually cause latissimus problems in their long back muscles and that will actually cause your upper traps to be tight.

This is exaggerating but basically you end up with tight shoulders, trap muscles because your lat muscles are unbalanced with your traps because they’re related to your pancreas and sugar imbalances and you’re always going to feel like you have trigger points in your trap. You can have those worked out all day, always want somebody to rub your shoulders, but if the trigger points are there because of the dietary imbalance.

So it’s still good to treat the trigger points. It helps a lot with local symptoms and will even help with muscle imbalances and resolve your problems, but you still need to resolve the actual calls of the problem to keep the trigger point gone. So, there you have it. Thanks for watching.

Dr. Stephen Gangemi "Sock Doc"

I'm a board-certified chiropractic physician and clinical nutritionist with a passion for true natural health care. I implement dietary & nutritional therapies, exercise & movement practices, and lifestyle changes along with manual therapy techniques to help the body heal and prevent illness and injuries.