A trigger point is almost mistaken for a tumor

Trigger points (muscle knots) can causes surprisingly severe symptoms. A physician sent me her own interesting story:

I narrowly escaped a breast biopsy because of trigger points in the pectoralis major. I’d had bad chest pain for a month. I was on the table, permit signed, draped. The doctor wasn’t sure: she said she wanted another mammogram. I left confused, relieved … but still hurting.

Then I lucked out: my regular internist was puzzled, but thought it might be “soft tissue.” That made me go to a physical therapist. The physical therapist pulled out the big red books [see citekey: href="http://SaveYourself.ca/bibliography.php?tra"> tra, type: bookMyofascial Pain and Dysfunction] on trigger points, and we read together about pectoralis major trigger points. Treatment was a complete success. A month-old severe pain that I had been treating with ice packs in my bra and Lortab — gone!

Janice Kregor, competitive swimmer, retired pediatrician and medical school instructor

Indeed she was lucky. Her physicians acted with admirable caution and humility, and she ended up working with a physiotherapist who was not only familiar with trigger points, but had good information on her shelf and knew what to do with it. Many patients in the same predicament would have been biopsied and continued to suffer unexplained pain.