What is a trigger point injection?
When you experience frequent muscle spasms or are always tense, they grow inflamed and very irritated. That triggers additional muscle spasms and creates small painful knots in your muscles or fascia, the stretchy material surrounding your muscles and organs.
A trigger point injection delivers medication into trigger points, calming your muscles to break the muscle spasm pattern, and end your pain. Trigger point injections can treat pain in many parts of your body, including the shoulder, lower back, neck, arms, legs, and other areas.
What is the trigger point injection process?
Your Athens Spine Center specialist gently manipulates your skin to locate the trigger point. They clean your skin in the treatment area and might inject a local anesthetic to numb the general area.
Next, your specialist inserts a needle directly into your trigger point and injects an anesthetic mixture. This calms your trigger point right away. If your trigger point doesn't immediately respond to the first injection, your specialist may reposition the needle to do another injection and force muscle relaxation. After withdrawing the needle, your Athens Spine Center specialist may apply a small bandage.
What happens after my trigger point injection?
The Athens Spine Center team gives you specific instructions, which generally include relaxing for the remainder of the day, with no driving.
Mild soreness in the injection area is normal. Ice the treatment area in 20-minute intervals to soothe this discomfort. On the second day, you can use either ice or heat, whichever helps most.
Unless specifically restricted from doing so, you can take over-the-counter pain relievers like aspirin, acetaminophen, or ibuprofen as needed. It's generally fine to resume taking blood thinners the night of your procedure.
It can take 7-10 days to know whether the trigger point injection works for you, so keep a pain diary after treatment. Note any periods of pain using a scale of 0-10. Report your results to the Athens Spine Center office at around the 7-10 day mark post-treatment.
If you develop a fever, severe skin reaction, sudden onset severe pain, sudden onset leg numbness, bowel function problems, or bladder problems, reach out to Athens Spine Center immediately.
Put your trigger point pain behind you. Book your appointment at Athens Spine Center by calling the office today.