The day’s schedule started with the very excellent Tasso Spanos, CMTPT, from Pittsburgh. Tasso’s myopain career goes back to the seventies and he can, and does, share many great personal Janet Travell stories. His animated topic centered on the weird and whacky non-painful things that trigger point can do, including a droopy eyelid that he spotted and treated on his bank teller by reaching through the teller window and grabbing her SCM (to her surprise).

First some of the non-painful things that trigger points can do:

• Ptosis of the eyelid
• Blurred or double vision
• Dimming of perceived light
• Reddening of the conjunctiva
• Excessive lacrimation
• Dry cough
• Sinus congestion
• ‘swollen gland’
• ipsilateral sweating of the forehead

These can all be caused by trigger points in the sternal head of the sternocleidomastoid

What about:

• postural dizziness
• hearing impairment
• stuffiness or itchiness in the ear
• dysmetria (inability to judge weight)

These can all be caused by trigger points in the clavicular head of SCM.

My question to you is, do you have the ability to distinguish the sternal from the clavicular heads of SCM with your fingers and thumbs?

If the answer is no you better stay tuned for our up-coming Myopain Seminars.