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Pain Syndromes Related to Myofascial Pain

One of the most common forms of MFP is lower back and neck pain. Virtually all people will eventually demonstrate some form of lower lumbar spinal disease and lower cervical spinal (neck) disease on X-ray, even if they have no apparent pain (pain tolerance). 

New myofascial pain theories indicate that deep spinal muscles (the intrinsic muscles) are the cause of nerve entrapment, disc disease and spinal arthritis. If the average person injures their neck and back muscles every day with every day work, then these muscles will eventually accumulate muscle fiber shortening. 

At some point the accumulated muscle shortening will cause some degree of nerve entrapment somewhere in the neck, mid-back and/ or low back. 

As a result of nerve entrapment in the neck (cervical spinal neuropathy), many people will complain of tension or even migraine headaches. Others will complain of arm pain or numbness and tingling. Still others will complain of tennis elbow and golfer’s elbow. Chest and abdominal pain may occur. Fatigue seems to be related in part to disordered sleep and an actual neurological fatigue.

Neurological fatigue appears to related to a change in our brain’s neurotransmitter levels (i.e. drop of serotonin) as a result of a stimulus from a chronically pinched nerve. Low serotonin has long been associated with depressed sleep, fatigue and actual depression. 

This is probably a reasonable explanation for why chronic pain and depression are so closely associated. I am certain that time will show that emotional changes related to pain or other causes will be much more complicated than any one, two or even three neurotransmitters in the brain. 

Lower lumbar neuropathy (pinched or entrapped nerve's) in the low back) may have many effects including low pelvic pain in men and women, constipation, urinary retention, and gynecological pain and dysfunction in women. A common lower lumbar neurological (nerve) complaint is, of course, sciatica.

It is probable that, in most people, arthritis of the back, hip, knee and foot are related in some part to lower lumbar neuropathy and muscle dysfunction. Tendon and muscle problems of the foot such as plantar fasciitis, metatarsalgia and Morton’s neuralgia seem also related, in part to low back nerve disorders. Baker’s cysts seem to be related to chronic hamstring and calf shortening, again partially driven by the low back nerve disorder and Cannon’s Law. The list of problems and their explanations is vast. 

The main point to understand is that it would seem that the neck contributes to head, arm and chest pain of various types including arthritis, carpal tunnel, RSI and fibromyalgia. It would also seem that the middle and lower back contributes to lower body arthritis, as well as muscle and tendon problems in the leg and foot.