We’ve often tried to account for the almost total lack of attention myofascial trigger points receive in the medical field—despite the fact that every day we perform therapy that relieves chronic pain in the great majority of people coming to us.

We’ve had many patients who were scheduled for surgery but after being treated with trigger point elimination techniques, chose not to go through with surgery because their pain was gone. We’ve also treated people who had already undergone surgery. Some of them qualified for the diagnosis of failed back surgery syndrome. Although pain relief is more difficult in such cases, we are usually able to help. Additionally, general anesthetic and surgical procedures sometimes activate latent trigger points, so we often treat painful conditions caused or exacerbated by surgery.

Myofascial trigger point therapy doesn’t require complex or expensive equipment. In fact, trigger point therapy is pretty low-tech. And although an X-ray or MRI won’t confirm the presence of chronic myofascial pain, hundreds of thousands of them are done every year just to conclude that “there’s nothing wrong with you.” In short, drug companies and purveyors of high-tech medical equipment have little incentive to invest in research confirming the efficacy of myofascial trigger point therapy. Of course, without such research, many physicians are understandably reluctant to recommend it.

And it’s hard for doctors who’ve already given seven years or more to the study of medicine to devote more time to a new, somewhat complex field. Plus, the economics of the medical profession, with enormous overhead and insurance burdens, pretty much rules out an approach to pain treatment that can take an hour or more to perform.

Given these considerations, it’s often easier to prescribe drugs or even surgery for serious pain problems. Even though there’s limited research to back up the efficacy of surgery for chronic back pain, drugs and surgery are usually deemed “reasonable and customary,” the magic words that guarantee bills sent to your insurance company get paid.

Since the early 1950s, U.S. medical costs have gone from 4 percent to over 15 percent of our gross domestic product, and the percentage is projected to climb higher as the population continues to age (California HealthCare Foundation 2008). Since back pain is the second most common affliction prompting visits to physicians, it accounts for a substantial share of this vast financial drain.

At times it seems a daunting task for us to bring myofascial trigger point therapy into the main¬stream of pain treatment. Too many things seem stacked against it. But a look at the history of medicine in the United States gives grounds for hope. Only sixty years ago, physicians were still doing lobotomies. Today, quite a few physicians recognize the dangers of surgery and drug dependency and the possibly damaging side effects of drugs, and they are more cautious in recommending surgery or prescribing medications. Perhaps some in mainstream medicine will embrace myofascial trigger point therapy as a low-tech approach to preventing and treating chronic low back pain and many other pain conditions all over the body.

excerpt from Trigger Point Therapy for Low Back Pain: A Self-Treatment Workbook by Sharon Sauer, CMTPT, LMT and Mary Biancalana, MS, CMTPT, LMT.