What does physical exam of tender points feel like?

Hi Malgal13:

I have had many Doctors pressing various parts of my body. Most of the time there pressing does not hurt. One Doctor did find the really bad pain which is at the base of my skull. When he gently pressed I could feel pain.

I have pain signals in so many different places in my body. They don't happen all at once. Sometimes the pain strikes in an area of a prior injury. I do sometimes find tender spots in my head and when pressed it causes pain. When these individual spots of pain go away you forget about it. I am not out of pain but that area stops sending signals. My Doctors did an ultrasound to check abdominal pain that I had for 2 months. They could not find a reason.

I am living with chronic pain for 12 years. I don't scream or squirm but I might scream if it was really bad - I did scream when I was giving birth to my son. One of my Doctors does not believe that I have pinched nerves, suggests I have myofascial pain. My muscle tense up to protect the nerves but in doing so they are irritating the nerves.

I have jaw pain. A Dental Specialist and my Dentist don't think my teeth are that bad. I do have overcrowding and have had 2 root canals and 1 wisdom tooth removed. Someone in a post suggested I see someone else for an opinion. I have thought about seeing my Endodontist for a check up. My Nurse Practitioner said she believes my Dentist must be doing enough with x-rays. I was told the jaw pain is from Neuralgia.

I look forward to seeing more responses. I, too, don't describe pain well. I know my head is heavy pain and yes the muscles are tight and sometimes squeezing the life out of me. I do use a muscle relaxer.

Hope you are able to get a firm diagnosis.

Take care.

Loring

Osteoarthritis in Multiple Joints, Fibromyalgia, Neuralgia, Chronic Daily Headaches, I.B., Hard of Hearing...

Post Edited (Loring) : 10/14/2014 1:25:45 PM (GMT-6)

Hi malgal13 and welcome!

Most Docs. Do not use this method to diagnose fibro anymore. It's just not really reliable. As the ladies have said you can have tender points almost anywhere and at certain times they aren't active or painful. Out of the 18 most common points you use to have to have 11 of them cause pain when the Dr. Applied 5lbs of pressure to them. They push on them til there thumb nail turns white. That is equivalent to 5lbs of pressure.

The points then had to cause pain, not just be sore or tender. Now days the rule is pain in all four quadrants of the body top , bottom and left and right sides that has been present for at least 3 months with no explainable causes.

Then they will do a bunch of testing to rule out other conditions that fibro mimics (see fibro 101 the first thread). If nothing is found then you are given the diagnoses of fibro.

<3 that painting by Edward Munch hangs on my living room wall. I love it. It sums my life up without a spoken word. LOL.

Sorry you found us malgal13 bc we feel you're pain. However you have landed in the most positive up lifting bunch of fibromites on the planet. Keep posting bc we really do care.

Take care
Michael

I had my first appointment with the rheumatologist today and she didn't mention fibro at all before beginning the exam but just pressed on my body in various places and said "Any pain?". she knew when she hit a spot because it would make me jolt, then kind jolt you feel when you are surprised. The pain felt like bad bruises, and I have an extemely high pain tolerance! I didn't know anything about trigger points prior to the exam, but I have points all over including my shins, elbows, neck, back, ribs, calves...seemed to be everywhere.

The way my doctor explained it to me was when she presses on a spot, my brain should read that as pressure but instead reads it as pain, creating miscommunication in my body's neuropathways.