Only recently becoming popular in North America, dry needling is widely used by all physiotherapists in Australia and many other regions across the globe. Typically, the technique is used for treating musculoskeletal conditions, including acute and chronic neck pain, back pain, tennis elbow, runner’s knee and Achilles tendinopathies. Many sporting clubs use dry needling as part of their in-house recovery treatment for the athletes.
Dry needling is based on Western medicine and neuro-physiological principles. It is different from traditional Chinese acupuncture, which includes diagnosis and reasoning based on Chinese medicine assessment. Both traditional and western dry needling work on meridian points and 71% of trigger points actually coincide with acupuncture points.
How does dry needling work?
Dry needling involves the use of a solid filament needle to stimulate a twitch response to release muscle tension and pain, allowing the body’s biochemistry to produce a natural analgesic. It helps to treat the limitations and restrictions that are found during physical assessment. For most conditions, dry needling has little or no post treatment side effects with equal or better therapeutic effect than other manual therapies.
The needles are inserted into trigger points to deactivate and resolve them. Your muscular pain then disappears.
What is a trigger point?
A trigger point is a hyperirritable spot within the muscle. It is usually painful to touch and may refer pain elsewhere. Your trigger point may give you abnormal movement and “autonomic” changes such as temperature and skin changes at the site of a pathology.
The benefits of Dry Needling
Alleviate neck pain
Cure headaches or migraines
Reduce jaw pain
Ease muscular tightness
Shorten sports injury recovery
Treat shin splints
Become a Dry Needling practitioner and better serve your patients
Like you, we are continually honing our approach to our practice. Find educators and courses near you to become a dry needling practitioner.