Trigger Point Muscle Pain
Injury or disease can cause pain in muscles. The spot of muscle tissue injury causing pain is called the active trigger point. Now just because the active trigger point causes the pain does not mean that the spot is painful itself. When the pain causing spot is painful it is called a primary trigger point. However pain can also manifest in distant areas away from the active trigger point. Such pain is called referred pain.

Secondary Trigger Point
Secondary trigger points are painful spots in a muscle or fascia (the thin layer that helps separate one muscle from another) that became painful because the muscle it's in has a working relationship with the muscle that contained the primary trigger point.

Satellite Trigger Point
A satellite trigger point is simply one that receives pain because it is located in a zone of reference linked directly to the active trigger point, an area known as the essential pain zone. There are also areas known as spill-over pain zones that receive pain signals that spill out beyond the normal boundaries of the essential pain zone where it originates.
   
Besides the pain caused by active trigger points, there are symptoms other than pain that are caused by latent trigger points. Some common latent symptoms include weakness, stiffness or restriction of movement. Both active and latent trigger points cause dysfunction—but only active ones cause pain.

Myofasciitis is a general term used to describe pain or other dysfunctions in the network of muscles, tendons, and ligaments and other soft connective tissue that holds our bodies together.

Myofascial pain pain may start abruptly or gradually. Abrupt onset is usually the result of trauma to the muscle, such as a sudden overload or over-extension, while a gradual onset is due to chronic overload, virus, or other disease, or psychogenic stress.
   
Through an understanding of the various symptoms of pain, such as whether it occurs at rest or during activity, what muscles it is related to, whether it is primary or referred, and countless other factors, the doctor can isolate the problem and treat it with a technique known as trigger point therapy.

A Brief History of Trigger Point Therapy
Trigger point therapy is a fairly modern science which developed as a result of decades of observation and studies into the nature of pain by researchers around the world. Various techniques of therapy blossomed with each new revelation, evolving from deep massage to the needle therapies (i.e., acupuncture, trigger points, or Prolotherapy) used today.
   
The German physician Froriep took the first recorded steps in the trigger point arena in 1843. He coined the phrase "muskel- schwiele" (muscle callouses) to identify the hard cords found in muscle tissue in cases of rheumatic pain.
   
Other physicians adopted his ideas and continued studying the problem of muscle pain based on his assumption. But by the end of the century, one of his countrymen debunked the theory on the grounds that no real "callouses" of deposited material were found in these tender muscles.
   
Although German physicians held the lead for many years to come, Swedish and British researchers conducted their own studies and offered their own contributions, with the same mixed results.
   
American researchers in the 1930's were among the first to describe instances of referred pain, and a major breakthrough was achieved in 1939 when British researchers Kellgren and Lewis proved that the previously held, but not widely accepted notion of referred pain, was indeed rooted in fact. But even their observations were limited by the then rudimentary understanding of the complexities of the spine and nervous system.
   
Other brilliant researchers came forth with major findings shortly thereafter. Polish physician Gutstein, writing first in German, and later in English (as Gutstein-Good), after relocating to Great Britain, advanced the concept of trigger points, which he called "myalgic spots," as well as the importance of analyzing the patient's pain reaction, later called the "jump sign." Contributing over a dozen papers between 1938 and 1957, his observations on trigger points were highly astute, and steered his colleagues in the proper direction.

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