How Dry Needling Can Help You
Are you fed up with pain and stiffness dictating what you do EVERY day? Do you wish you could do more with friends and family but find yourself shut in at home because you’re worried about your back, knees, or hips giving you fits after a day out and about? Would you like to lose some weight and improve your heart and lung health but don’t even try because of nagging pain and stiffness…that you’re terrified will only get worse with exercise?
Do you pop tylenol, ibuprofen, or even narcotic pain killers just to get through the day? Do you pop even more if you have to go out or know you’re going to be active and up on your feet for an extended period?
Have you had to stop taking so much ibuprofen or tylenol because it started bothering your stomach? Do you have to take an over the counter or prescription drug to get your bowels moving because you’re super constipated from your narcotic pain killers?
If you can honestly answer “Yes” to any of these questions, dry needling can help YOU
Look, turning down fun, exciting, fulfilling activities with friends and family because of pain and stiffness is NO way to live. Taking pain killers and anti-inflammatories EVERY day for months or years is NO way to live…and will eventually cause some serious side effects.
Allowing your body to become more and more weak, deconditioned, and sloppy is only going to make matters worse. Not to mention make it more difficult and challenging to get back in shape.
“Yea, but I can’t get in shape because I have so much pain!” I know, I know, it’s a catch 22 right? If you didn’t have so much pain and felt better you would get it together and start right? But you never start because you always have pain, right…
Well, you have to start somewhere and that’s where dry needling can be a great tool. Dry needling is simply a NATURAL, EFFECTIVE way to reduce pain and stiffness…Allowing you to start moving, exercising, and becoming active without pain and stiffness that make you have to stop.
How is this possible? Dry needling causes your body to release its own NATURAL pain relieving chemicals. These chemicals are similar to those found in pain killers and anti-inflammatories but don’t come with the side effects…because YOUR body made them, for YOU.
In addition dry needling increases blood flow to injured or compromised tissues, promoting the healing process.
So, to recap…dry needling can be used as an effective tool to reduce your pain, stiffness, and pain medication use and to allow you to begin exercising and getting your body back on track.
What is Dry Needling?
The Arizona Legislature defines dry needling as follows.
“Dry Needling” means a skilled intervention performed by a physical therapist that uses a thin filiform needle to penetrate the skin and stimulate underlying neural, muscular, and connective tissues for the evaluation and management of neuromusculoskeletal conditions, pain, and movement impairments.
Dry needling is based on western medicine principles while acupuncture is based on eastern medicine principles. Dry needling is used ONLY to treat neuromusculoskeletal conditions while acupuncture is used to treat systemic medical conditions in addition to pain that may be related to the neuromusculoskeletal system. Dry needling treatment is applied based on an evaluation of muscles, nerves, and connective tissues. Acupuncture treatment is applied based on meridians. Dry needling is NOT acupuncture.
Recent research shows that dry needling is effective in reducing neck pain, shoulder pain, elbow pain, and myofascial pain related to trigger points. Dry needling can be used to treat any type of neuromusculoskeletal pain syndrome. Nerve issues such as sciatica can be treated with dry needling. Arthritic knees and hips respond well to dry needling. Headache pain related to tension type headaches, migraine, and cervicogenic headache can be treated with dry needling. Temporomandibular joint disorders respond to dry needling.
Dry needling is not especially painful. If a trigger point in a muscle is needled a local twitch response is elicited. When this happens patients usually feel a momentary electrical shock type pain or a cramping sensation. These sensations last for less than one second.
Following treatment with needles you may be sore in the area treated or along areas of referred pain. This generally lasts only a few hours to two days. The soreness sensation can be reduced with heat and specific movement work. When the soreness subsides, if it’s even present as sometimes people do not get sore at all, the familiar pain you are being treated for is often reduced.
Give us a call today to start living an active life free from pain!