Oh, the book that you recommended when we were near Mt Rushmore - I’ve put it to good use. Very helpful in understanding the weird aspects of back pain, and body pain in general.
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Hello... share, please!! I’m having some terrible back and neck pain. Got the shoulder pain to stop.
The idea behind it is that most chronic pain is caused my persistent micro-spasms in muscles. Due to injury or overuse, a muscle fiber may become "locked" in a mode where it's constantly pulling, and it can't release itself. It has become a "trigger point". This can produce localized pain and, by pulling on other muscle fibers, can eventually produce additional trigger points in the same area, making things worse. Stretching doesn't solve the problem and often makes things worse.
Dr. Janet Travell, JFK's back doctor, figured out that trigger points can be released in two ways. One way is to stick a needle into the trigger point. The other way is to apply localized pressure to the trigger point for about 15 seconds. This deprives the muscle fiber of oxygen, allowing it to release itself.
Sometimes this works almost miraculously. In my twenties I was having nasty back pain. My mom clued me into this method, pointing out that back pain is often due to trigger points in the buttocks. I use the rounded corner of a dresser to find and exterminate my buttock trigger points and my back pain disappeared.
The Davies book provides maps connecting common pains to related trigger points. The trick is something called "referred pain". The pain due to a trigger point is often felt at a location distant from the trigger point, so applying pressure where the pain is doesn't necessarily help. You may need to track down a trigger point distant from the actual pain, and this is where the maps in the book help.
When I first learned about trigger points there were very few practitioners who understood the concept. Now the Davies book is a standard textbook in massage therapy schools so it shouldn't be hard to find a massage therapist who knows about it.
Sorry that I'm slow to answer.
The book is called "The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook" by Clair Davies, updated by Amber Davies. It has some nice descriptive instructions and diagrams for dealing with pain based on manipulating trigger points.