• Arch Phys Med Rehabil · Mar 1998

    Case Reports

    Myofascial trigger points in intercostal muscles secondary to herpes zoster infection of the intercostal nerve.

    • S M Chen, J T Chen, T S Kuan, and C Z Hong.
    • Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, National Cheng-Kung University Hospital, Tainan, Taiwan.
    • Arch Phys Med Rehabil. 1998 Mar 1; 79 (3): 336-8.

    AbstractChronic pain in the chest wall is a major complication after herpes zoster infection of intercostal nerves. It is usually difficult to control pain of such origin. Two cases are reported of postherpetic neuralgia after herpes zoster infection involving the intercostal nerves. Both patients had shooting, burning, aching, and localized pain in the muscle supplied by the involved intercostal nerves 1 to 3 months after onset. Compression palpation of a tender spot in one of these muscles induced a referred pain that followed the corresponding interspace, usually in the distal anterior direction. Local twitch responses could be elicited during injection of 0.5% or 1% lidocaine into one of these tender spots; the pain in the interspace was consistently eliminated immediately after injection. One patient had complete pain relief after three series of injections. The effect of pain relief for the other patient lasted for 1 to 2 weeks after the initial injection and lasted progressively longer (up to 2 months) after repeated injections. It appears that many of the tender spots formed in intercostal muscles after herpes zoster are myofascial trigger points that respond to injection with referred pain, local twitch responses, and immediate pain relief.

      Pubmed     Full text   Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…

What will the 'Medical Journal of You' look like?

Start your free 21 day trial now.

We guarantee your privacy. Your email address will not be shared.