These days, many people visit clinics complaining of stabbing sensations in the back of the neck, and modern medicine diagnoses a significant portion of this chronic neck and shoulder pain as myofascial pain syndrome. This is a condition that occurs when a trigger point forms in the fascia, the thin membrane surrounding muscles. This trigger point can be felt like a small knot or taut band; pressing it produces severe pain, and it sometimes causes referred pain that radiates to an entirely different area. For example, a classic case is feeling pain in the temple or around the eye when a specific spot on the shoulder is pressed.
Myofascial pain syndrome is not simply an issue caused by overusing muscles. It arises from a combination of repeated poor posture, such as forward head posture and rounded shoulders, excessive stress, sleep deprivation, nutritional imbalance, and even emotional instability. In stressful situations in particular, our body's sympathetic nervous system becomes excessively activated, causing blood vessels to constrict and muscles to tense up, which impedes the blood supply to the muscles and promotes the accumulation of algogens. The whole body stiffens as if preparing for an emergency. A vicious cycle occurs where the nervous system responds hypersensitively to pain, muscle tension rises, and blood circulation is hindered as a result.
This trigger point is also explained by the energy crisis hypothesis, where oxygen supply inside the muscle decreases and waste products accumulate. Muscle cells fail to produce energy properly, falling into a state of sustained contraction, which repeats the vicious cycle of increasing pain sensitivity. Furthermore, an abnormality can develop in the central nervous system's pain processing, leading to the phenomenon of central sensitization where one feels pain more intensely even from small stimuli. This explains why pain becomes increasingly sensitive and widespread as it turns chronic.
Therefore, myofascial pain syndrome must be approached as a complex problem where releasing the painful area alone is not enough; whole-body condition management, stress relief, and lifestyle habit improvements must accompany it. What Donguibogam calls the circulation of qi and blood and accumulation of waste products can be interpreted in modern medicine as reduced blood supply, accumulation of inflammatory substances, and a hypersensitive nervous system. It is a signal that should never be taken lightly.
