Soft tissue pain

Soft tissue pain contributes to pain symptoms from all body regions, often confounding spine-related pain, enhancing mechanical disorders and systemic inflammation, and contributing to common pain referral patterns. Common soft tissue pain conditions include myofascial pain syndrome, fibromyalgia, bursitis, and tendonitis. While deemed muscular in etiology, at least in part, treatment for these disorders includes pharmacologic treatments other than just muscle relaxants: antidepressants, anticonvulsants, anti-inflammatory drugs, sedatives, and others. Furthermore, other notable therapeutic interventions vary from massage, acupuncture and trigger point injections to ultrasound therapy and biofeedback. In general, strong evidence-based treatment recommendations for this group of pain disorders are lacking, but management focuses on the chronicity of the condition and response to initial non-pharmacologic treatments before prescription of the aforementioned medication classes.