Electric Dry Needling

Dry Needling is great for local, pinpointed pain that sometimes radiates to other areas of pain when pressed on. Dry Needling is not appropriate for arthritis, recently torn/strained muscles, pain from nerve neck or low back nerve impingements. Dry Needling is great for tight muscles causing headaches, nerve pain from muscle knots, or weak muscles from trigger points. If you aren’t sure if you should choose Medical Acupuncture or Dry Needling, schedule for whichever you think might suit you best and we will evaluate the problem and give you the best recommendation once we are able to actually see and feel the problem. If we see you for Dry Needling and we are able to get any tight tight knots to twitch, called a fasciculation, then you should be a good candidate for Dry Needling.

Dry Needling is the insertion of an acupuncture needle into a trigger point or muscle knot to help break up the adhesion. The needle is a powerful tool which can be used both as a scapula to slice up the trigger point, and as a metal conductor to help the surrounding nerves stimulate pain relieving substrates (opioids and endoprhins) and stimulates actin and myocin to contract and release the trigger point.

Trigger points occur when a muscle is trying to hold and stabilize itself either because it is weak, injured, or overworked. Trigger points often occur in athletes, people with muscle imbalances, and people who do repetitive activities (musicians, office workers, or people who drive a lot). Often trigger points cause distending pain which is pain located in areas other than where the trigger point is, except when it is pressed on. A good test for a trigger point is, if you suspect it is causing a problem, to squeeze the suspected muscle knot. If it is painful when you press on the muscle knot, and the pain travels to another location, it is likely that is a trigger point.

Medical Acupuncture takes a comprehensive approach to conditions. Dry Needling is a very short treatment to help only the local problem. If someone has, let’s say elbow pain, and we do Dry Needling on the elbow, we are helping that person’s immediate pain by relieving an impinged nerve from a tight muscle knot, but we are not treating the potential core/root cause of their pain. Their core/root cause of their elbow pain could be coming from their neck, it could be coming from a B12 deficiency, or plenty of other issues. Dry Needling is a quick and easy treatment to help with pain but does not usually address the core problem, nor does the effectiveness of Dry Needling typically last as long as Medical Acupuncture (due to the Opioid Peptide Metabolism).