Myofascial Pain Syndrome Support Group

Myofascial Pain Syndrome (or MPS) is a term used to describe one of the conditions characterized by chronic pain. It is associated with and caused by "trigger points" (TrPs), sensitive and painful areas between the muscle and fascia. The symptoms can range from referred pain through myofascial trigger points to specific pains in other areas of the body. It may be related...

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Brain & Nervous System
/ Myofascial Pain Syndrome Support Group

We made the front page

chimerical
chimerical
of this blog. Well, trigger points did at least.

http://www.dailystrength.org/health_blogs/dr-orrange/article/10-things-we-know-about-what-causes-fibromyalgia

The article is about fibromyalgia. At the end it says:

"10. Hot spots. Fibromyalgia patients often have areas of focal tissue abnormalities including myofascial trigger points or osteoarthritis of the joints and spine. In FM patients there are abnormal peripheral pain generators which means those above listed tender areas may initiate or perpetuate chronic pain."

I don't know really what this means. She seems to be describing MPS, not fibromyalgia. I definitely have "abnormal peripheral pain generators" and chronic pain, but not FM.
Pumpkin31
Pumpkin31
Is it just me that was more confused after reading the article??
Nina1959
Nina1959
I think what the good Dr was getting at is that you can have fibro and mps at the same time, but you don't have to. I don't have fibro, but definitely have mps. Some have fibro but not mps. I've always felt the differentiating area to be mps having secondary and tertiary trigger points activity; and fibro having bilateral tender points. I actually had an argument with a doc at one point explaining to her why I don't have fibro so it's not just us who gets befuddled by this stuff.
UkGuy86
UkGuy86
I'm not sure that article is very clear.

I thought one of the key differences with MPS and fibro is that MPS WAS thought to be a disorder of the muscles.

Yet the article suggests Fibro patients do not have pain in the muscle caused by direct muscle dysfunction BUT that they CAN have trigger points... this seems contradictory to me.

I wish there was a simple way to explain to people what MPS actually IS...... chronically sore muscles doesn't really seem to do justice to the seriousness of it at.