Pain management

Let's say you bend over to pick up a sock and your back goes out. You wait a few days and think you are getting better, but then everything seems to go backward. You hurt more than ever.

When pain persists, it may be a matter of learning to manage it with methods such as heat or cold therapy, mindful meditation, or massage. But often, through some investigative work into the source of the pain, whether it be the postures, activities, or injuries compromising your muscles, it is possible to mitigate pain with "trigger-point" therapy or other therapies.

Trigger-point therapy is a hands-on approach designed to identify spasms in the muscles and then work to release them by putting pressure on the source to alleviate pain. The pioneer of this therapy was cardiologist Janet Travell, physician to presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson and the woman credited with discovering that left-arm pain signals a heart attack.

"The spasm," says Joy Colangelo, occupational therapist at Community Hospital, "impinges on the nerves which travel through the muscles, causing pain to radiate in a certain pattern. Knowing these patterns leads the therapist to the source, revealing the culprit of the pain. Dr. Travell was a master at this."

Whether it is the way you drive, sit, stand, or hold physical or emotional tension, or an old injury that predisposes you to pain, it's important to realize that your throbbing muscle is simply trying to solve the problem.

An irritable muscle is usually a sign that you're using the muscle for the wrong job, asking it to do something outside its job description. With some posture adjustments, allowing the correct muscles to come into play, the sore muscle no longer has to compensate.