Once other pathological conditions have been eliminated, trigger points can be diagnosed. The best way to diagnose trigger points is to palpate your patient for them and look for a taught band of muscle, a painful nodule, and a referred pain projected from the nodule that will be confirmed by the patient. Please check out Diagnostic Criteria on this site.

The good news is not long at all! Most patients will respond favorably in 4-6 routinely scheduled visits and many times will notice significant improvements even sooner. If moderate improvement is not attained in this time frame, a patient should be re-evaluated for perpetuating factors, which inhibit the healing process of the body.

There are many medical conditions that can affect the body in a way that will cause trigger points, from joint disease to visceral disease to cancer. In these cases trigger points are secondary to these conditions. There are medical conditions that many times go unrecognized as a cause for trigger points, in the “normal” looking patient, to develop. The more common of these conditions are deficiencies in iron, vitamin B12, vitamin D, and thyroid deficiency. For more information about these conditions, please see Medical Perpetuating Factors.

Yes and No – only because some physical therapists do not spend the time focusing on this aspect of pain so it is important to understand the training of the therapist. This answer is not to, in any way, discredit the hard work and training of physical therapists, but the PT’s who specialize in myofascial rehab (by treating trigger points) can attest to this statement.