BY: Kupluthai Pungkanon

Do you suffer from numbness, pain in your shoulders and back and have problems sleeping? If you answered yes, chances are you have office syndrome, a modern-day complaint brought on by poor posture, repetitious work at the computer plus an overload of stress.

If left untreated, the muscle problems persist and worsen, becoming known, in medical terms, as chronic myofascial pain.

Symptoms, which include migraine, chronic headache, nausea, blurring of vision and loss of balance, often seem unrelated to office syndrome. Over-the-counter pain medicine is unlikely to help and sufferers are likely to start double dosing with nasty side effects.

Myofascial pain affects both the muscles and the fascia, the connective tissue that covers the muscles, and may involve a single muscle or a muscle group. In severe cases, the site of the strain can set off trigger points that, in turn, cause pain in other areas. This is known as referred pain.

Suggested treatments include medication, massage and heat, all of which relax the muscle spasms but fail to eliminate the trigger points, which are the cause of recurrent pain.

Dr Vaesarming Vaehama, an expert in Applied Traditional Thai Medicine at Doctor Care Migraine and Chronic Pain Clinic, says trigger-point pain can be cured, or at least significantly reduced, through acupressure.

The Pattani native, who's been practising acupressure for eight years, says some 30 per cent of the population is currently experiencing chronic pain, most of them office workers.

"Treatment begins by stretching and pressing on the muscle above the painful area until it relaxes. Then we use acupressure to get blood and oxygen into the trigger-point area."

He cautions that initially the treatment is quite painful and while patients will feel some relief after a couple of days, they will need to six to 10 days for full recovery.

An exercise regimen is essential to prevent a relapse. The therapy is contraindicated for those with high blood pressure and diabetes.