REVELATION AND EASY MANAGEMENT OF RHOMBOIDS MUSCLE TRIGGER POINT AS A CAUSE OF DISTRESSING NON – CARDIAC CHEST PAIN- A CASE SERIES.

Introduction:- Non-cardiogenic chest pain is a major health problem all over the world. Besides, non organic musculoskeletal pain affects up to 85% of the general population at any point of time. Patients with musculoskeletal chest pain remain under diagnosed, untreated and potentially continuously disabled in terms of anxiety, depression and ability to carry out activities of daily living [1]. Here we present a new dimension in this area by revealing Rhomboids muscle trigger point as the cause of referred chest pain, which in itself lacks enough description in the available literature. Method: - A prospective study was conducted between January 2013 to September 2014 at Physiotherapy Unit in the Department of Orthopedics and Trauma of North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health and Medical Science (NEIGRIHMS) Shillong, Meghalaya (India), a tertiary teaching health care institute which comprised of 30 patients with age group ranging from 12 yrs to 60 yrs. All patients were ruled out of cardiac and other known causes of chest pain by evaluating them based on a properly designed Performa. Ischemic pressure was applied on Rhomboids muscle after establishing Rhomboids muscle trigger point as the possible cause of chest pain. They were subjected to Ischemic pressure therapy and all of them had fulfilled the new ACR criteria for fibromyalgia. The duration of Ischemic pressure varied from 2 to 7 days, and subsequent follow up was done till 2 months. Visual Analogue scale (VAS) and Modified DALLAS Pain Questionnaire was used as measurement tool for assessing the treatment outcome. Result: - The results were analysed by using two tailed paired ‘t’ test and was performed using SPSS version 20. The two-tailed P value of <0.005 considered extremely significant for our data. Conclusion:- Our study has highlighted that while evaluating a clinician should remember that Rhomboid Muscle trigger point can be a distressing cause of chest pain and which can be effectively taken care of by Ischemic compression therapy. It may help such patients of “Non Specific cardiac chest pain” who otherwise run from pillar to post or one department to another, in vain.