Injections at Our Towson Clinic
Two kinds of injection are offered at our Towson location: one into a tight knot in a muscle and one into a joint. Services like these may be recommended depending on your condition, based on our comprehensive evaluation.
Trigger Point Injections
A trigger point injection uses a thin needle to place medicine into a painful knot in a muscle. It is a shallow injection, aimed at the muscle and not at the spine or a joint. You stay awake, with no sedation, and it is done in an office.
Many of these injections use a numbing medicine, and some add another medicine. Steroids are not used in injections at this clinic. Ask the nurse practitioner what would be in yours.
What Trigger Points Are
A trigger point is a sore, tight spot in a muscle. To the touch it can feel like a small lump, and pressing on it often hurts. Pain may also show up somewhere else in the body, which doctors call referred pain.
Trigger points may form after a sudden injury or after repeated small strains on the muscle fibers. Overworking a muscle can lead to them, and so can not using it enough. A problem in a bone or joint under the muscle can also irritate it.
What to Expect During the Visit
This is how the visit generally goes, though details differ from one clinic to another.
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Getting into position
You may sit or lie down on an exam table, depending on where the sore spot is. Your skin is cleaned first.
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Finding the spot
The provider feels for the knot and may mark it, then holds it between the fingers to keep it still. This can be uncomfortable.
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The injection
A thin needle goes into the knot and may move in and out slightly. You may feel stinging or burning, a brief jump in pain, or a twitch in the muscle. The medicine goes in before the needle comes out.
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Afterward
You can go home and use the muscle, but hold off on strenuous activity for a few days. Contact a health care provider about a fever or warmth at the injection site.
Call the clinic to ask about cost, insurance and how long a visit takes.
Who Provides It: A Nurse Practitioner
A nurse practitioner gives trigger point injections at this clinic, not a chiropractor. Call to ask about the nurse practitioner's training and which days injections are given.
Who Is a Candidate, and Who Is Not
Trigger point injections are meant for trigger point pain that has not improved with other care, such as over-the-counter pain medicine, heat or massage. A physical exam needs to come first, to rule out other causes of the pain. Tell us about the medicines you take and your overall health.
Physician reviews from 2002 and 2023 say not to inject with
- A blood thinner or a bleeding disorder
- Aspirin in the three days before the injection
- Active bleeding, or an open wound near the spot
- An infection in the area or elsewhere in the body
- An allergy to numbing medicines or anything else in the injection
- A recent, sudden injury to the muscle, such as a tear
- An extreme fear of needles
A 2023 physician review in American Family Physician says injections should be reserved for people whose muscle pain has not been controlled by other measures.
Tell us about any of these before an injection is considered. Do not stop aspirin or any other medicine on your own: stopping daily aspirin suddenly may trigger a blood clot and lead to a heart attack. Ask your prescriber first.
Fellowship Forest, Greenbrier and Towson University
Greenbrier is about 0.6 miles west of the clinic and Fellowship Forest about 0.6 miles southwest. Towson University, at 8000 York Road, is about 1.6 miles west.
