Yes, muscle knots (myofascial trigger points) can become serious, potentially causing chronic pain, reduced mobility, and affecting daily life, especially if left untreated or if they become inflamed, swollen, or drain fluid, indicating a need for professional medical attention to rule out other issues like swollen lymph nodes. While often just annoying, severe knots can lead to widespread referred pain, impacting other muscles and joints, and may even involve muscle fiber strain or tearing if intense.
The duration of a muscle knot depends on the severity of the knot, its underlying cause, and what you decide to do to address it. In general, muscle knots can last from a few days to several weeks or longer, depending on the cause.
Johnson shares these tips for treating and preventing muscle knots: Use heat and/or ice to treat a sore muscle. You can alternate between heat and ice packs or focus on whichever one seems to bring you more relief. Get a massage.
Common for other trigger points to mistaken for a nerve problem. Muscle knots around your jaw, face, head and neck also cause multiple referred pain issues. These include earaches and toothaches, sinusitis and tinnitus (ringing in the ears).
Chances are, you've experienced the tender, achy feeling of a muscle knot at some point in your life. Research has shown that muscle knots may affect up to 85 per cent of the population.
Symptoms of myofascial pain syndrome may include:
If left untreated, a muscle knot can cause increased pain over time. This can lead to the development of poor habits, such as poor posture, which can cause even more severe conditions.
While MRI doesn't show muscle knots directly, it can highlight changes in the muscle tissue, like swelling or fat buildup, that might suggest the presence of knots. It can also help to rule out other problems, like tears or structural issues, that could be causing your symptoms.
Although muscle knots aren't usually harmful, trigger points can be uncomfortable. That's because tight muscles can put pressure on your nerves. Your muscle knots can also be a sign of a long-term, chronic pain condition, such as myofascial pain syndrome.
Differentiating Benign vs.
Texture & Mobility: Benign lumps (muscle knots, lipomas) often feel soft or rubbery and move freely under the skin. Worrisome lumps tend to feel hard, irregular, and fixed to the surrounding tissue.
The muscles around the area will tighten up to prevent more injury. Knots are persistent and most will remain until the knotted area is broken up and the muscles contract. Limited range of motion, pain and tightness will persist until the muscles are loosened and circulation returns to the constricted area.
Best Natural Muscle Relaxers
Care and Treatment
The knots you detect in your muscle, which may feel as small as a marble or even as large as a golf ball, are called myofascial trigger points. The fascia is the thin layer of connective tissue that surrounds the muscle.
You may be more likely to develop knots in your shoulder blades if you're dehydrated or if you have a poor diet or trouble sleeping. Many people notice knots when they're under a lot of stress. Repetitive movements, poor posture, and injuries can also contribute to knots of tension.
Medication: Over-the-counter (OTC) pain relievers, like nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), can help muscle knot soreness. Possible prescription medications include antidepressants or muscle relaxers. These medications can relax tension, lower pain, and promote sleep.
Muscle knots or myofascial trigger points can often be treated with simple home remedies, self-massage, and stretching. However, some knots can cause chronic pain and disability, and interfere with a person's everyday life and activities.
Symptoms of myofascial pain syndrome
Myofascial trigger points—tender spots in muscles or connective tissue that hurt when pressed—are common. These knots or small bumps may cause pain in the same area or elsewhere. Other common signs include: Aching, throbbing, or tight muscle pain.
What's going on inside the muscle? Lack of blood supply to the muscle causes lactic acid to build up, over time this can solidify with calcium deposits and is often the reason we hear a crunching sound when trying to realise the knots.
Almost all fibromyalgia patients are aware of knot-like areas of exquisite tenderness in their tight, ropy muscles. Pressing on these knots hurts and radiates pain elsewhere. Most of these areas were the tender points used for diagnosing fibromyalgia until 2011.
If your magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan came back normal, but you're still in pain, it may have failed to detect an injury. Even with advanced diagnostic imaging like MRI scans, some injuries, including soft tissue injuries and nerve damage, can be challenging to identify definitively.
A muscle knot may feel like a small, hard lump under the skin that is painful to the touch. You may experience aching, throbbing, stiffness or soreness in the affected area.
Because these joints are located just below a couple of layers of muscle and fascia (connective tissue) in the upper/middle back, the enlarged, irritated joint(s) can be mistaken for knots in the muscles.
Vitamins to avoid muscle cramps and spasms
This myofascial release has a comparable sensation to being rocked by your mother when you were a baby. It causes a pleasant wave sensation to travel throughout the body. It is, in fact, a relaxing experience. That wave infiltrates the restricted areas to allow for softening.