Myofascial pain syndromes — the great mimicker
One article on PainSci cites Flax 1995: The Complete Guide to Trigger Points & Myofascial Pain
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
Five myofascial pain syndromes, some mimicking more serious diseases, have been presented. They were diagnosed as and treated for: headache, shoulder bursitis, lumbar herniated disc with radiculopathy, angina pectoris and appendicitis. An understanding of these pain problems, produced from trigger points in muscles and ligaments, is important in order to differentiate myofascial pain syndromes from more dangerous diseases and to avoid unnecessary and expensive diagnostic procedures.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
- No long-term effects after a three-week open-label placebo treatment for chronic low back pain: a three-year follow-up of a randomized controlled trial. Kleine-Borgmann 2022 Pain.
- Exercise and education versus saline injections for knee osteoarthritis: a randomised controlled equivalence trial. Bandak 2022 Ann Rheum Dis.
- Association of Lumbar MRI Findings with Current and Future Back Pain in a Population-based Cohort Study. Kasch 2022 Spine (Phila Pa 1976).
- A double-blinded randomised controlled study of the value of sequential intravenous and oral magnesium therapy in patients with chronic low back pain with a neuropathic component. Yousef 2013 Anaesthesia.
- Is Neck Posture Subgroup in Late Adolescence a Risk Factor for Persistent Neck Pain in Young Adults? A Prospective Study. Richards 2021 Phys Ther.