Dry Needling & Total Motion Release

What Is A Trigger Point?

A trigger point is a highly localized, hyperirritable spot in a tight band of skeletal muscle fibers that causes discomfort, severe pain, and even referred pain to other parts of your body. Trigger points can develop in muscle for a variety of reasons including referred or local pain, injury, repetitive movement, poor posture, sleep patterns, and other causes. Trigger points can be painful, tender, and refer pain to other muscles upon touch. Studies from the United States have shown that trigger points were the primary source of pain in as many as 85% of pain-related appointments with a primary care doctor.

Dry Needling vs. Acupuncture

Unlike dry needling, acupuncture is a practice based on traditional Chinese medicine and performed by acupuncturists. Dry needling is based on modern Western medicine principles and supported by research. While the only similarity between the two is the use of the same needles, traditional acupuncture practitioners follow Eastern Medicine’s key principle of holistic treatment, which is based on normalizing the energy imbalance, or Chi, in the body to cure syndromes. Physical therapists perform a thorough examination, have an extensive knowledge of anatomy and the patient’s condition, and prompt an immediate change in the patient’s signs and symptoms while dry needling.

How Does It Work?

When the needle is placed into the muscle or connective tissue structures, a local twitch response (a visible, quick contraction of a tight muscle when pressure is applied) is produced. This dramatically reduces muscle activity and leads to relaxation and a decrease in pain and dysfunction. The needle removes the muscular compression on joint, nerve, and vascular tissues, which leads to pain reduction. Occasionally, the insertion of the needle will also reproduce the referred pain symptoms, which confirms and remedies the trigger point as the cause of pain. Dry needling leads to many benefits including: release of muscular knots leading to increased flexibility, increased blood flow and oxygen to musculoskeletal tissues, immediate pain relief, improved sensation and range of motion, and finally the stimulation of endogenous opioids which initiate a new healing process. All these benefits can help speed up a patient’s return to active rehabilitation and normal function.

How Will I Feel?

Typically, patients will feel some level of discomfort and even pain, however it is very short-lived. If you do not feel the treatment at all, it is not yet working. There may be some soreness and a feeling of greater flexibility (“loose and sore”) immediately after treatment in the area of the body that was dry needled. This is normal, although does not always occur. Occasionally, soreness develops a few hours later, or even the next day. The soreness may vary depending on the area of the body that was treated, and also varies person-to-person, but typically it feels like you have had an intense workout at the gym. Even more occasionally, patients can experience some bruising with this soreness. A patient may also feel tired, nauseous, emotional, and/or somewhat “out of it” after treatment. This is a normal response that only lasts an hour or two after treatment.

Needling & Physical Therapy

Dry Needling alone does not replace the hands on approach to physical therapy, however will be an adjunct to our current level of care. It is another very specific tool to help reduce patient's pain, which will then allow the patients to tolerate their exercises much better. To truly be successful at this type of therapy, the therapist must first and foremost be a skilled manual therapist, as the techniques require very specific palpation skills and excellent knowledge of anatomy. We strongly recommend dry needling as part of a comprehensive and individualized treatment program.