MYOFASCIAL TRIGGER POINTS (MTrPs) have been observed and written about for centuries, but the idea that they cause a significant percentage of commonly experienced pain has achieved little acceptance in the medical community until very recently. Trigger-point therapy, the two-volume “Trigger Point Manual.” These books were an impressive achievement, but their audience was confined to medical practitioners, with procaine injection being the primary method of therapy; manual therapy was barely mentioned.

For these and other reasons, trigger point therapy has remained a minor player in the manual therapy industry. If massage therapists’ school curriculum covers MTrPs at all, they are generally taught simple ischemic compression of MTrPs with no coverage of joint movement, neurological distraction or key refinements like satellite referral and functional relationships.

MTrP therapy has largely been relegated to minor status, as yet another modality that works sometimes but not most. This is an extremely unfortunate situation, because properly trained therapists with robust techniques and analytical skills have a high degree of success in remediating even difficult chronic pain conditions.