Trigger Point Therapy in Chandler
Pain shouldn’t be a “normal” part of your life. At Premier Functional Medicine in Chandler, trigger point therapy offers a targeted way to relieve stubborn muscle pain and restore healthy movement. It’s not your usual pain management technique.
Instead of using a pill to dull pain across your entire body, we identify the precise “knots” in overworked muscles and release them so the pain source actually lets go. With medical injections, your body begins to let go of the stress, pain, and damaged tissue. As energy moves freely, you finally feel better.
What is Trigger Point Therapy?
A trigger point is a small hyper-irritable spot within a tight band of muscle. Pressing on it can recreate your familiar, radiating pain—often in a different location than the knot itself. Trigger point therapy uses focused methods—sustained manual pressure, instrument-assisted release, therapeutic needling, or physician-guided injections—to deactivate that knot and normalize the muscle’s function.
Andrea Jullette-Fantigrassi, DNP, says, “Our goal with trigger point therapy isn’t just temporary relief. We want to restore healthy muscle length, improve circulation, and reduce the nerve signals that keep you in constant pain.”
How Does It Work? A Deeper Look
Trigger point therapy works by addressing the small tense knots in muscle fibers that develop when a muscle becomes overworked or injured. These knots slow circulation, trap waste products, and send constant “pain signals” to the nervous system. Over time, these damaged tissues cause pain at the damage point, but they can also cause referred pain. What’s referred pain? It means pain in faraway parts of the body.
Trigger point injections are a specialized method of therapy that combines mechanical release with medication to reset these stubborn pain spots and support real healing.
Trigger point therapy interrupts this loop in several ways:
• Mechanical release: Sustained pressure or needling causes the contracted sarcomeres to lengthen. Think of it as hitting the reset button on a cramped muscle fiber.
• Improved microcirculation: As the muscle relaxes, fresh, oxygenated blood moves in and congestion clears. That reduces the local “metabolic storm” that keeps a trigger point active.
• Neuromuscular recalibration: Stimulating the area modulates the nerve endings at the motor endplate. That helps quiet the overactive signaling that keeps the muscle guarded and painful.
• Referred-pain shutdown: When the original trigger point deactivates, the distant, radiating pain it was causing fades because the underlying driver is resolved.
• Movement re-education: With the knot released, we retrain the surrounding muscles to share the load correctly. This step keeps the pain from returning.
At Premier Functional Medicine, your session begins with a careful assessment: posture, joint motion, muscle testing, and palpation to map your pain pattern. Based on what we find, your clinician may use a blend of manual release, therapeutic needling, or physician-directed trigger point injections. We often finish with gentle mobility work, breathing drills, and home strategies—hydration, heat/ice guidance, and simple stretches—so you leave feeling looser and equipped to keep improving.
Six Symptoms Trigger Point Therapy Can Help
1. Neck and shoulder tension
Hours at a computer or driving can create taut bands in the upper trapezius, levator scapulae, and scalene muscles. These points commonly refer pain up the neck and into the shoulders, creating stiffness and limited rotation. Releasing them restores posture and reduces the “coat-hanger” ache many people wake up with.
2. Low back and sacroiliac pain
Trigger points in the quadratus lumborum, glutes, and hip rotators can mimic joint pain and make standing or bending feel unstable. Precisely treating these knots often calms the area quickly and allows the spine to move without protective spasm.
3. Tension headaches and some migraines
Myofascial points in the suboccipitals, temples, and jaw muscles frequently refer pain to the head and behind the eyes. Addressing these sources can reduce headache frequency and intensity, especially when combined with posture and stress-reduction strategies.
4. Sciatica-like symptoms in hips and glutes
The piriformis and deep gluteal muscles can compress the sciatic nerve or create referred pain down the leg. Targeted release reduces buttock pain, leg heaviness, and tingling that worsen with sitting or climbing stairs.
5. Knee pain from muscular imbalance
When the quadriceps, IT band, and calf muscles develop trigger points, they can pull the kneecap off track and create front-of-knee pain during squats, steps, or running. Releasing these areas helps the knee track smoothly and reduces strain.
6. TMJ and jaw discomfort
Clenching, stress, and dental changes can activate trigger points in the masseter and temporalis. These points refer pain to the teeth, ear, and temple. Targeted therapy eases jaw tightness, chewing pain, and associated headaches.
Frequently Asked Questions About Trigger Point Therapy
Maximize Your Results with Functional Medicine
Trigger point therapy shines when it’s part of a comprehensive plan. At Premier Functional Medicine in Chandler, patients can pair this service with other therapies to address the full picture behind pain, inflammation, and recovery.
• Weight management
Excess weight increases mechanical stress on joints and alters movement patterns that keep trigger points active. Our medically guided programs focus on metabolic health, nutrition, sleep, and sustainable habits—so your muscles don’t have to fight your day-to-day biomechanics.
• Bioidentical Hormone Replacement Therapy (BHRT)
Hormonal shifts can drive inflammation, cause muscle pain, and slow recovery. When appropriate, BHRT aims to rebalance hormones to support tissue repair, energy, and sleep—the essentials for keeping muscles calm and resilient.
• Peptide therapy
Select peptides are used in functional medicine to support tissue repair, inflammation modulation, and performance. When clinically appropriate, peptide therapy can complement manual therapies by accelerating recovery at the cellular level.
• IV therapy
Targeted IV nutrients may help correct deficiencies that contribute to fatigue, poor healing, and muscle irritability. By supporting mitochondrial function and hydration, IV therapy can make your post-release recovery smoother.
Your plan is personalized. We look at posture, workload, stress, sleep, nutrition, and movement habits—then stack the right therapies in the right order so improvements hold.
Why Choose Premier Functional Medicine?
We’re a Chandler-based team focused on root-cause care. That means we don’t just chase symptoms; we identify why your muscles keep guarding and why pain keeps coming back. Expect clear explanations, evidence-informed techniques, and a compassionate partnership built around your goals—getting back to the gym, working a full day without pain, or simply sleeping comfortably again.
Get Started with Trigger Point Therapy in Chandler
If you’re ready for a focused, targeted approach to pain relief, we’re here to help. Schedule a consultation at Premier Functional Medicine in Chandler and see how trigger point therapy—paired with integrative wellness—can restore comfort and mobility. Let’s find the knots, release them, and give your body the chance to move the way it was designed.
Ready to feel better? Contact our team today to book your first session.
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