e) Chest, Abdominal and Genital

Never assume the root cause of a problem is at the place that hurts!

Symptoms from trigger points in chest and abdominal muscles may be subject to more misdiagnosis and misdirected treatment than in any other part of the body. This is especially regrettable because the solutions are so simple when trigger points are to blame. Trigger point therapy is the appropriate treatment for many kinds of symptoms in the chest, back, side, stomach, shoulder, arm, and hand that originate in chest and abdominal muscles (Travell and Simons 1999, 830-833, 848-851, 875-879, 894, 905, 951-959).

Trigger points in chest muscles can cause distorsion of your posture that promote shallow breathing and shortness of breath. Tenderness, pain, and breathing difficulties caused by these trigger points are often mistaken for symptoms of emphysema, hiatal hernia, or lung desease. Pectoral trigger points can cause back pain, heart arrhythmia, and false heart attack pain. They may contribute to development of a dowager’s hump. Their indirect effects on neck and upper back muscles sponsor headaches, jaw pain, and other symptoms of the head, face and neck. The numbness they cause in hands and fingers often leads to false diagnoses of carpal tunnel syndrome (1999, 830-833).

Abdominal trigger points cause heartburn, menstrual pain, false appendicitis, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, food intolerance, bloating, and gas. They commonly produce pain and other false symptoms in the oesophagus, kidneys, bladder, colon, and other internal organs, including bogus heart attacks. Colic in babies and stomachaches in both children and adults can be produced by abdominal trigger points. They’re even though to cause bed-wetting in older children (1999, 940-945, 956-959).

Myofascial pain from lower abdominal and intrapelvic trigger points is commonly felt in the groin, rectum, ovaries, uterus, vagina, penis, and testes, resulting in much needless worry and disconfort. Prostate symptoms and impotance in males from the effects of intrapelvic trigger points is not unusual (1999, 118-121).

Mistaken conclusions regarding many of these symptoms can lead to unnecessary surgery and hugely wasteful payments by health-care insurers and by the uninsured. When any of these symptoms are caused by myofascial trigger points, all but those inside the pelvis are easily self-treatable.

Source : Clair Davies, The Trigger Point Therapy Workbook, p.134.