This is an effective treatment, for sure.  However, it is unlikely to affect a trigger point several layers of muscle deep (i.e., a trigger point in SPS which is covered by rhomboids, trapezius.  Hope we don't argue, but I don't think myofascial trigger points that restrict ROM due to the pain on movement are likely to be affected by working with the skin.  Touch-- mechanoreceptors-- located in the skin can create mild pain, yes, but the more intense nociceptor pain arises from dysfunction in muscles, tendons, ligaments attached to bone.  A TENS unit works by flooding the nerve pathways by mild mechanoreceptor pain so that harsh nociceptor pain is blocked or at least diminished for a while. 

Stacey, I am aware that the CNS originates all perceptions.  However, they are merely in response to messages received from muscles, fascia (yes, it does contain some nerve and muscle cells), internal organs, skin-- the entire body.  The brain doesn't decide in a vacuum, "I think I'll send a stabbing pain to that LMT's shoulder."  Pain is always a result of what is perceived to be harmful.  For instance, your auto is struck from behind at a traffic light.  Whiplash-- muscle fibers, even ligaments in the spine may be injured, but even if the damage is relatively minor, when the CNS gets emergency messages from neck, shoulders, erector spinae, it will send a harsh jolt of pain movement-restricting pain.

There are 3 types of sensation sent to the body.  A mosquito dances across the fine hairs on the back of your neck; the sun heats your skin and sweat is released--that's mechanoreceptors in action.  Someone shoots you with a Taser, that is debilitating nociceptor cascade.  Someone yells Catch and throws a ball, you whip around, your CNS correlates the position of your hands and the speed and location of the oncoming object, and without conscious thought, your arm lurches up and either catches or knocks the ball aside-- that's your proprioceptors in action.  The latter can be trained to reaction faster and more skillfully.  Actually, the power of the conscious mind can decrease and / or increase all physical sensations as recent research has shown.  I am thin compared to the majority of 67 yr old men, so I am sensitive to cold-- hell, I react now to a cool weather that won't arrive till next week.  If a powerlifter couldn't purposely defeat his golgi sensors and muscle spindles, no world records would ever be set.  When I was fourteen, my 96 pound mother lifted a car off my uncle when the jack failed and pinned him beneath the axle; the next day she couldn't lift the spare tire off the ground.  And the body-mind connection sometimes fails; that's how trigger points come to life.

Several friends belong to that FB group, I applied this morning but haven't been accepted yet.  I am more skeptical than most, maybe even more so than you.  For instance, in my opinion CST, Reiki and Reflexology are scams conducted on the gullible-- the practitioners probably believe in a higher percentage than most priests believe in the Jesus they serve.  In a LI discussion this afternoon an obviously intelligent LMT proclaimed that he uses a magic pendant to foretell how many drops of each essential oil he should use on a client.  Seriously?  Yeah, he actually said that!  From browsing the group Skeptical, I get the impression that not all members are as skeptical as their name implies.  I practice evidence-based therapeutic massage.

I believe that adhesions develop in fascia and aid trigger points in restricting movement in what the CNS perceives to be injured tissue (and imo, trigger points are indeed injuries at the sarcomere level). Therefore, I practice MFR and NMT.  I don't torture my clients with Rolfing because the combination of the former does all I and my clients need, in a fraction of the sessions required by structural integration, and without creating nearly as much pain.  Until it is proven with scientific instruments, I cannot accept the notion that cupping the skull in palms for half an hour or half a month is every going to cause a 1 cm shift in the plates of the skull.  Reflexology points in the feet communicate directly to organs in the body, how exactly?  I apply a few droplets of chosen EOs to selected clents, mainly b/c they smell nice and doing so does no harm even though I personally think they provide zero health benefit.  In short, no, they won't challenge / reform my thinking.  Everything I hear and read, I examine with a critical eye, if it doesn't appeal to my logical mind, I move on. 

I know with 100% certainty that trigger point therapy relieves pain and restores client ROM, because I relieve on average 10 or so trigger points every day.  I do not care what some guy in a lab coat writes about TPs, I do not care that Erik Dalton twists and turns and prods and does gentle spinal adjustments to clients in his seminars instead of doing the same work in 10 minutes of NMT.  I am not interested in learning how to break people down emotionally while performing John Barnes' MFR and Upledger's CST "unwindings.

Sorry, I apologize for the rant.