Dry Needling Acupuncture

By inserting acupuncture-like needles into dysfunctional tissue at specific points, Dry Needling influences soft tissues through mechanical & biochemical mechanisms – the effects of dry needling can relax “tight” muscles, alter muscle pain and chronic pain perception and reduce the sensation of fatigue/soreness that dysfunctional muscle tone creates. Additionally, dry needling promotes better nerve communication & triggers the release of natural pain-relieving substances within the body.

• Musculoskeletal pain (neck, back, arms, legs, etc.)
• Sprains & strains
• Overuse injuries (i.e. tennis elbow, Achilles’ tendinopathy, etc.)
• Headaches & migraines
• Nerve pain (sciatica, carpal tunnel syndrome, etc.)
• Post-op pain
• Muscle spasms & cramps
• Whiplash-related symptoms

Benefits of Acupuncture and Dry Needling

Dry Needling is a term used for many therapeutic techniques that use a solid, filiform type of acupuncture needles to release a motor point in the muscle. In contrast, a ‘wet needle’ is a needle used to inject a substance into the body (i.e. getting a shot at the doctor’s office). Intramuscular Stimulation (IMS), Functional Dry Needling (FDN) & Biodynamic Dry Needling (BDN) are essentially brand names that depict the practitioner’s specific training background. They are based on scientific, neuro-physiological principles & have a common goal of altering dysfunctional muscle tone & improving muscular pain.

In conventional treatments, Dry Needling can help neuropathic & myofascial pain & dysfunction by:

• producing local twitch responses to change the muscle tone (sometimes called “releasing” the muscle or “trigger point”) to decrease neural sensitivity & improve pain
• altering electrophysiological output & normalizing motor nerve input to the muscle
• decreasing biochemical markers associated with dysfunctional muscle tone
• increasing local inflammatory response and blood flow to promote tissue healing