Myofascial pain: a bogus construct
PainSci notes
This is the unabridged version of Quintner, notoriously one of the only academic sources of skepticism and criticism of the popular idea of trigger points and myofascial pain syndrome. The authors had to drastically shorten the original version in Rheumatology, and John Quintner has repeatedly emphasized to me in correspondence that the full argument is only available in this text.
Unfortunately, it’s highly inaccessible: a chapter in a bizarrely expensive textbook, well over $300 USD for the Kindle edition, and the hardcover is more than $500! So hardly anyone’s ever going to see this.
Which is fine by me: I do not think Dr. Quintner’s argument benefits from length. It is just a more verbose version of the widely cited 2015 paper, with the same significant flaws. The full-throated argument strikes me as an amateurish and unpersuasive rant, composed with a motive to “throw shade” on a hated hypothesis, rather than shed light on a legitimate scientific controversy.
~ Paul Ingraham, PainSci Publisher
Related Content
“A critical evaluation of the trigger point phenomenon,” Quintner et al, Rheumatology (Oxford), 2015.
One article on PainScience.com cites this item as a source: