22 Facts About Dry needling

Dry needling, known as trigger point dry needling and intramuscular stimulation, is a pseudoscientific technique used by various healthcare practitioners, including physical therapists, physicians, and chiropractors, among others.

Acupuncturists usually maintain that dry needling is adapted from acupuncture, but others consider dry needling as a variation of trigger point injections.

Dry needling is mainly used to treat myofascial trigger points, but it is used to target connective tissue, neural ailments, and muscular ailments.

Currently, dry needling is being practiced in the United States, Europe, Australia, and other parts of the world.

However, Travell did not elaborate on the details on the techniques of dry needling; the current techniques of dry needling were based on the traditional and western medical acupuncture.

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Dry needling using such a needle contrasts with the use of a hollow hypodermic needle to inject substances such as saline solution, botox or corticosteroids to the same point.

Dry needling has its own theoretical concepts, terminology, needling technique and clinical application.

Dry needling is a neurophysiological evidence-based treatment technique that requires effective manual assessment of the neuromuscular system.

Research supports that dry needling improves pain control, reduces muscle tension, normalizes biochemical and electrical dysfunction of motor end plates, and facilitates an accelerated return to active rehabilitation.

Dry needling for the treatment of myofascial trigger points is based on theories similar, but not exclusive, to traditional acupuncture; both acupuncture and dry needling target the trigger points, which is a direct and palpable source of patient pain.

Acupuncture and dry needling are similar in the underlying phenomenon and neural processes between trigger points and acupuncture points.

Technique for dry needling depends on which tissue is being targeted and what the overall objective of the treatment is.

Deep dry needling for treating trigger points was first introduced by Czech physician Karel Lewit in 1979.

Dry needling can be divided into categories in terms of depth of penetration: deep and superficial dry needling.

Deep dry needling will inactivate myofascial triggers points by provoking a local twitch response, which is an involuntary spinal cord reflex in which the muscle fibers in the taut band of muscle contract.

Many studies published about dry needling are not randomized, contain small sample sizes, and have high dropout rates.

Similarly, a second review of dry needling found insufficient high-quality evidence for the use of direct dry needling for short and long-term pain and disability reduction in patients with musculoskeletal pain syndromes.

Acupuncturists claim that dry needling is a form of acupuncture that does not fall in the scope of physical therapists, chiropractors, or the majority of other healthcare professionals; whereas those healthcare professionals claim dry needling is not acupuncture, but rather a procedure that is rooted in biomedical modern sciences.

Much of dry needling research has been done with reference to acupuncture.

Many acupuncturists have argued that dry needling appears to be an acupuncture technique requiring minimal training that has been re-branded under a new name.

Whether dry needling is considered to be acupuncture depends on the definition of acupuncture, and it is argued that trigger points do not correspond to acupuncture points or meridians.

North Carolina Acupuncture Licensing Board has published a position statement asserting that dry needling is acupuncture and thus is covered by the North Carolina Acupuncture Licensing law, and is not within the present scope of practice of Physical Therapists.