There is another model, wherein the problem is trigger points. Trigger points crop up when a muscle is under strain, and then they tend to stay that way. Trigger points, once created, constrict blood flow or impinge on nerves, creating all sorts of problems. (My dentist referred me to an oral surgeon twice for things that later turned out to be trigger points: my teeth had gotten sensitive after dental work, but it turned out that I developed trigger points from having my mouth open for hours during the procedure. Now I know where to massage my neck and jaw to prevent tooth sensitivity from arising in certain areas of my mouth after dental work.)
I used to have wrist pain a lot, and tried a ridiculous number of things to deal with it until I discovered the trigger point concept. Over time I’ve learned to identify which trigger points produce what symptoms for me, and what postures or behaviors set off the trigger points.
Before that, I considered Sarno but didn’t get much benefit from it. I have nonetheless noticed that you don’t need a “sneaky” subconscious for Sarno to be meaningful, however: if you go around constantly suppressing rage, you can easily put some muscles under chronic strain. This isn’t really “subconscious” except in the same way that we “subconsciously” drive a car or perform any other habit. Most people tense their muscles when trying to “suppress an emotion”, or rather, trying to inhibit their expression of that emotion.
And before Sarno, I did Egoscue work—a bunch of exercises to improve posture, which did help with wrist pain, but they required an hour or more of exercise per day during which I couldn’t do anything else and the improvement was very gradual. I think the exercises were good in general and I still do some of the ones that produce fast pain relief in certain areas when a trigger point flares up and I’m still getting it to un-knot.
Anyway, my prior now for “mysterious chronic pain” is “check for trigger points creating referred pain”. Most often this consists of following the nearest muscles, nerves, or blood vessels in the direction of the spine or brain, checking for tenderness. A sharply sensitive spot is likely a trigger point, so I press deeply on it for a minute (as in 60 seconds) and see if the original pain is made worse or better. If nothing happens to it, it’s probably not the trigger point. (Pressing on a trigger point can make the pain temporarily worse, but the pain will reduce again when the trigger point releases or un-knots.)
This simple search algorithm is far from perfect, especially once you get up into tricky areas like shoulders, underarms, neck and head. Some trigger points are in muscles underneath other muscles, or otherwise difficult to get to, and others are in counterintuitive locations for what they do. (Like the spots on my chest that I need to massage if the tip of my index finger feels numb or tingling.) It’s generally a good idea to consult a proper reference chart of trigger points, but since “look for tenderness along the obvious-to-me paths” works well for a lot of limb stuff, and I’ve mostly looked up the weird ones most relevant to me, it saves me some time.
There is another model, wherein the problem is trigger points. Trigger points crop up when a muscle is under strain, and then they tend to stay that way. Trigger points, once created, constrict blood flow or impinge on nerves, creating all sorts of problems. (My dentist referred me to an oral surgeon twice for things that later turned out to be trigger points: my teeth had gotten sensitive after dental work, but it turned out that I developed trigger points from having my mouth open for hours during the procedure. Now I know where to massage my neck and jaw to prevent tooth sensitivity from arising in certain areas of my mouth after dental work.)
I used to have wrist pain a lot, and tried a ridiculous number of things to deal with it until I discovered the trigger point concept. Over time I’ve learned to identify which trigger points produce what symptoms for me, and what postures or behaviors set off the trigger points.
Before that, I considered Sarno but didn’t get much benefit from it. I have nonetheless noticed that you don’t need a “sneaky” subconscious for Sarno to be meaningful, however: if you go around constantly suppressing rage, you can easily put some muscles under chronic strain. This isn’t really “subconscious” except in the same way that we “subconsciously” drive a car or perform any other habit. Most people tense their muscles when trying to “suppress an emotion”, or rather, trying to inhibit their expression of that emotion.
And before Sarno, I did Egoscue work—a bunch of exercises to improve posture, which did help with wrist pain, but they required an hour or more of exercise per day during which I couldn’t do anything else and the improvement was very gradual. I think the exercises were good in general and I still do some of the ones that produce fast pain relief in certain areas when a trigger point flares up and I’m still getting it to un-knot.
Anyway, my prior now for “mysterious chronic pain” is “check for trigger points creating referred pain”. Most often this consists of following the nearest muscles, nerves, or blood vessels in the direction of the spine or brain, checking for tenderness. A sharply sensitive spot is likely a trigger point, so I press deeply on it for a minute (as in 60 seconds) and see if the original pain is made worse or better. If nothing happens to it, it’s probably not the trigger point. (Pressing on a trigger point can make the pain temporarily worse, but the pain will reduce again when the trigger point releases or un-knots.)
This simple search algorithm is far from perfect, especially once you get up into tricky areas like shoulders, underarms, neck and head. Some trigger points are in muscles underneath other muscles, or otherwise difficult to get to, and others are in counterintuitive locations for what they do. (Like the spots on my chest that I need to massage if the tip of my index finger feels numb or tingling.) It’s generally a good idea to consult a proper reference chart of trigger points, but since “look for tenderness along the obvious-to-me paths” works well for a lot of limb stuff, and I’ve mostly looked up the weird ones most relevant to me, it saves me some time.