What is Dry Needling?
Is it the right treatment for me?
Dry needling is a technique used to treat dysfunctions in skeletal muscle, fascia, and connective tissue. That specific dysfunction may present in the form of pain, decreased flexibility, and in some cases weakness. These are common impairments seen in some combination in all musculoskeletal ailments leading to activity and participation limits.
How does it decrease pain ?
The mechanisms involve some pretty heavy biochemistry but putting it simply dry needling treatments resulted in:
- Increased activity in the bodies natural pain inhibiting pathways.
- Decreased concentrations of inflammatory soup (chemicals and substances present with inflammation) at the site of injury. Your bodies first stage of healing is the inflammatory stage and persisting irritation means it has been unable to progress on its own.
Sounds good but…
What can Dry Needling be used for?
Decreasing pain and improved healing works for pretty much anything right?
We have effectively used dry needling over many regions in the body including:
- Back pain related to osteoarthritis, stenosis, disc disease, muscle pain
- Neck pain related to osteoarthritis, stenosis, disc disease, muscle pain
- TMJ/jaw pain
- Headaches: tension and cluster headaches
- Tennis elbow, golfers elbow
- Tendinitis: knee, shoulder, ankle, foot,
- Plantar fasciitis
- Shoulder blade pain, tightness
- Post surgically: typically will wait 12 weeks after procedure
- Sciatica
- Hip pain: Bursitis, osteoarthritis, impingement
Is Dry Needling in Physical Therapy the same as Acupuncture?
Dry needling is not acupuncture. It is based strictly on Western medical principles and research. This technique employed by a physical therapist is just a small part of your treatment program.
Reducing pain is great but if you don’t figure out the root cause contributing to that hot spot it will keep coming back.
Physical therapists are unique in that we employ a wide variety of manual treatment techniques, exercise prescription, and training in functional movement patterns to effectively eliminate the root cause our your problem.
If you have any questions about this technique or how it may apply to your condition please feel free to reach out to me by email, phone, or complete the form below.
Eric Combs MSPT, ATC, CSCS, Cert DN
Clinician emails are available here.
Below is a demo video applying dry needling to the muscle at the shoulder blade commonly associated with headaches. I want to reinforce that while this may reduce local pain it does not address why that region is being overstressed. Treatment that addresses local pain but not the global problem is not worth your time or money. You must find the root cause of your condition and fix it.
