What is Dry Needling?

More and more often we are getting patients who walk in our doors with a referral that mentions dry needling, or people coming in off the recommendation of a friend who may have received dry needling during their course of treatment. A pretty common thread we see is that these patients have no clue what dry needling is or how it is used in a PT plan of care. So follow along for a look into this tool!

It’s the same as acupuncture, right?

Wrong! 

While dry needling uses the same needles as an acupuncturist would, the technique is completely different. 

Dry needling targets the muscular level, either to release a trigger point or reset the firing of the nervous system to that particular muscle. 

The technique is named “dry” because the needle is solid with no well in it for delivery or extraction of fluids. Because of this, the needles are extremely thin and often a patient doesn’t even feel it when the needle breaks the skin. 

Is dry needling a quick fix for my pain?

Short answer, no. 

We use a lot of different tools in PT to help alleviate pain, and this is just another tool. It does have the ability to quickly decrease pain, which is great because then we can train the associated muscles or movement patterns. 

However, our overall goal is to figure out WHY you are having that pain, and attack it at the source. 

Are there different ways to dry needle? 

As with anything, there are varying techniques to this tool we use. 

One technique is “pistoning” where the needle is moved in and out to target a trigger point release. 

Another technique is “functional dry needling” where the PT inserts the needle into the muscle and leaves it there, connecting electric stimulation at varying levels to either fatigue that muscle out and force it to relax, or create more input to get that muscle to activate. When that happens, patients’ feel a heartbeat sensation in the muscle. 

As with anyone that walks through our doors, we perform complete evaluations of your entire body, not just the particular part ailing you, and use that to inform our clinical decision making for the best plan of care that is individualized to you.

With that being said, this dry needling tool may not be used on your first visit, but we are constantly thinking through what the best tools are to use in your case! If you have any questions about how dry needling could pertain to your injury or symptoms, don’t hesitate to reach out!

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