The use of using needles to benefit the body without injecting anything has been around for donkeys years! The one we are talking about here is acupuncture. Acupuncture is an eastern medicine approach to helping with the energy in the body. It works in a way that can help with many issues that body the may face from stomach ache, headaches, allergies and much more.
Dry Needling is very different. It's purpose is to treat musculoskeletal pain and discomfort. The needle is usually inserted through the skin and aimed directly into the centre of trigger points of pain or in areas of soft tissue to stimulate the soft tissue to trigger a reaction. The sole purpose of this is to work directly with soft tissue to help decrease pain, adhesions, tension, tightness, release contracted muscles and stimulate the area, increasing awareness to the body of the injury and creating a twitch response.
Dry needling is regarded as a none invasive treatment which is almost pain free, low risk and is becoming more and more widely used in western medicine. It is used for a various amount of injuries, both new and old including some chronic pain symptoms. As with standard sports massage, it can be used all over the body including the stomach (often neglected area) to treat soft tissue pain and injuries.
One of the beauties of dry needling is often the results of reduced pain are straight away. This is an important factor for most people suffering with pain and dysfunction. Common conditions dry needling is used for include:
💪 Reduced range of movement through over training
💪 Piriformis syndrome or similar pain and dysfunction
💪 Rotator cuff injuries
💪 Carpal tunnel syndrome
💪 Hip flexor tightness
💪 Tight achilles tendon or stiffness in ankles
💪 Period pains
💪 Chrohn's disease
These are just some examples, the list is goes on! The point is that if you have a soft tissue injury, disfunction, discomfort or pain then dry needling can help.
Dry needling is used alongside other modalities such as sports massage, manual therapy, Dry cupping and taping. You can often go for a treatment and the therapist will use more than one modality to help with your issue. I often work needling with sports massage as they work together to target the pain, lengthen the soft tissue and drain the area of its toxins once they have been released from trapped areas.
So to summarise, dry needling is great for helping get rid of soft tissue pain, acupuncture is great for making energy flow. They both use the same needles but do different things. Acupuncture is an eastern medicine approach whilst dry needling is now regarded as western medicine.
To book an appointment for dry needling with me, use the link below and select sports massage whilst booking.
