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Trigger points in thermography
'Myofascial trigger points or Trigger poinsin human condition are hyperirritable spots in the fascia area surrounding skeletal muscle. It is associated into taut bands of muscle with palpable nodules sometimes named knots. This musculoskeletal pain radiates from those points until sometimes broader area.
This is a controversy affection as sometimes threated so by pshychiatry as khinesiology disciplines like ostheopathy. The fact that the root cause are multiple or unknown drive some to push this affection as mental illness or placebo causing severe disturbance in the healing process.
The point as 80-90% of trigger points correspond to acupuncture points doesn't help the controversy but drives some to cure this conditions with acupuncture like with dry needling (a sterile one-use needle inserted cautiously into the knot to release pressure) and sometimes a great success but are maybe a great path to better understand acupuncture.
This pain is real but problematic as no traditionnal occidental medicine is usually able to cure it or not without secundary effect risks.
The points are only visible in case of pain, a normal thermography doesn't display them.
The elastography is a good complement of thermography here by doing an amplitude idea and later to validate success of the treatment:
As this medical method maps the elastic properties of soft tissue, this gives a better quantitative idea of the situation and helps to decide about treatment.
Below a demonstration how thermography can follow evolving of a "dry needling" treatement by Carlos Rio:
Controversy or not, treatment has a real effect on the body as described too in a recent research: Evolution of Skin Temperature after the Application of Compressive Forces on Tendon, Muscle and Myofascial Trigger Point.
Français:point de gâchette