Yikes. Can You Get Trigger Points in Your Tongue?

Apparently you can. Or at least at the bottom of the mouth. Compression of this area to address the problem can be very unpleasant, but the results can be greatly reduced tension in the neck and face.

If you have persistent neck issues, you may want to check it out. I'm not sure what the best technique is, but I stumbled upon the tension in my own mouth by probing the floor of the mouth on either side. Very weird but it definitely felt like some very intense trigger points on both sides. And my neck felt much more relaxed after working them.

Then I did the front area, which is more the base of the tongue. Yowza! Definitely issues there.

I have this recurring tension in my neck that tightens up whenever I'm working for more than an hour or two and it definitely faded after massaging these trigger points.

Can't believe I've missed this area all this time. I guess that is probably something a professionally may have caught, but not clear on which brand of professional is aware of this problem.

Using Muscle Diagrams to Get Flexible

Image via WikipediaI have some tight muscles and work on them myself. Its not always easy, but without good information, it can be impossible.

Fortunately, there are great resources on the web that show you where your muscles are. Bartleby has Gray's Anatomy online and I can see all of my muscles.

Sometimes a diagram does not display both ends of a muscle. Using the name of the muscle, I can usually find it on exrx or another web site. Exrx shows a muscle by itself so its easier to see where it begins and ends.

Once I've identified the tight muscle, I massage both ends of it. Then massage the muscle all along its length. At this point, the fascia or outer covering of the muscle can also be worked and stretched more easily.

I'm not sure why massaging both ends of a muscle first makes the muscle easier to work overall. But perhaps there is some correlation between acupuncture points or the meridians of Chinese medicine. Maybe its some electrical phenomenon.

Visualizing Problems with Muscle

The problems of muscular trigger points and myofascial adhesions and how they interact are difficult to understand.

I would love to create a flash movie that depicts what happens and how treatment can work to resolve these problems. I think it would really help a lot of people and accelerate therapies that work.

I've scoped out the cost of creating something like this and it looks like it would cost $10-20k. Anyone want to finance this or help me create a non-profit that cold apply for a grant to do this? Contact me.

When Stretching Does More Harm Than Good

Both the muscle and the fascia that surrounds it can be stretched. But certain conditions can greatly reduce the ultimate length that either can be safely stretched.

When a muscle has significant trigger points, many of the myofibrils are very tight and shorter than normal. A myofibril is a string of sarcomeres, the actual structures that open and close when you use your muscles.

When you have a muscular trigger point, you have myofibrils where these sarcomeres are stuck in their contracted positions. Healthy sarcomeres in the same myofibril can still stretch and some may be stretching all of the time.

If you stretch a muscle where things are already stretched to the limit, you risk overstretching. And it does not make the muscle more flexible.

The stuck sarcomeres have to be unstuck. And that's not easy. But its the only way.

Trouble Sleeping?

A lot of people do. The causes are many. Sometimes the problem is muscular and circulatory.

At least that's my experience. When I had tight abdominal muscles, there seemed to be a throbbing that sometimes kept me awake. My theory is the throbbing is your heart trying to force blood into the tight muscles.

When I put ice on the tight muscles, the throbbing went away. Apparently the cold causes something to contract and blood can flow.

Indeed, cold has been used to treat muscular trigger points. Janet Travell, a physician that literally wrote the book on trigger points, used cold to alleviate trigger points.

Resolving trigger points and myofascial adhesions with massage also seems to alleviate the throbbing. Either way, sleeping is much easier when blood can flow freely into your abdominal muscles.

I wonder how many people are taking drugs to sleep when the problem is something completely correctable like tight muscles. We really need MRE.

What is Rolfing?

Rolfing is a form of bodywork that pulls apart myofascial adhesions, the binding that can occur in the containers of muscles.

Rolfing is much easier once the muscle sarcomeres have been opened with Qi Gong or some other method.

If you've been working on your sarcomeres and find the tightness keeps returning because of your activities (or lack of activity), you might want to check out rolfing.

Muscular Trauma, Disability, Homelessness and Early Death

In 2005, The San Francisco Chronicle told the story of Maria King, who was kicked to death in Berkeley.

This poor woman "tried to move a desk in her office". Big mistake.

"The resultant back injury would precipitate her long slide into despair. Surgeons fused her bottom three vertebrae, but it only made the pain worse." She eventually could not hold a job or afford an apartment and she became homeless.

I'm not sure what injury Miss King suffered, but clearly the system failed here. Not the first story of surgery making a problem worse and not the last either.

A fellow that used to cut my hair had terrible back pain and saw many doctors. I remember the day he told me he was to have surgery on his back. He would be away from work for awhile. He never came back as far as I know. The pain became much worse.

Which makes the mission of this blog all the more important. The average person seemly does not have the resources to solve this problem and the medical community is falling short.

We need technology that will the nature of muscular dysfunction and its solutions clear. And its my self-appointed task to get people thinking about whats really going on with our muscles.