What is dry needling?
Dry needling (as the name describes) is a treatment in Glasgow KY and Tompkinsville KY involving needles that are performed by qualified, professional physical therapists, chiropractors, and other doctors certified in practicing the technique. The treatment involves applying sterile, liquidless needles to the affected tension-tight, inflamed areas of the body, or trigger points. Your muscle fibers may naturally respond with a sudden spastic twitch response. It's a part of the process and is commonly painless. The name comes from the actual needles used with no liquids injected into your body. During dry needling, a practitioner inserts several filiform needles that pierce into and under your skin. Filiform needles are sharp, short, stainless steel dry needles.
How does dry needling work?
In short, it works by stimulating your brain when the needles are gently pierced through your myofascial trigger points. Stay with us here. Myofascial is just an intelligent way of saying chronic muscular pain disorder. In plain English, it's a pain caused by muscle irritation.
Is it painful?
Dry needling is considered to be painless by many. Why? The insertion of the needles doesn't hurt because they're pretty sharp and thin. It's similar to getting blood drawn or a shot. Quick and painless. Naturally, you'll twitch when the needles pierce through your skin. Your muscles will slightly ache or become sore for a day or two after your session. The after feeling is similar to the soreness experienced after an intense workout.
What are the benefits?
Dry needling helps reduce:
- Hip pain
- Neck pain
- Knee pain
- Shoulder pain
- Lower back pain
- Myofascial pain
The list goes on. We'll talk about the other benefits in the next sections. Read on.
Accelerates your body's natural healing processes.
Inserting a sharp, thin needle into your body's trigger points relaxes the muscles, boosts blood flow, diminishes inflammation, and triggers a healing response.
This healing treatment also improves nerve communication and triggers signals in your body to release natural pain relievers like endorphins which act as analgesics. In simple words, this means they lessen the perception of pain.
Resolves headaches and migraines.
Dry needling aims for trigger points in the muscles and tissue to help soothe and relieve tension. This prevents headaches and helps ease the pressure caused by headaches.
Increases blood flow
Using the dry needling technique as treatment can loosen stiff muscles, ease joint pain, and improve blood flow and oxygen circulation within your body.
Lowers muscle tension
It helps reduce muscle tension and relieves pain. Twitching (from the needle piercing one of your trigger points) is a clear sign that the therapy is working.
Helps with tendonitis
It helps calm soreness. This means a specially trained physical therapist, chiropractor, among others who know the art, use thin needles to release muscle tightness, ease tendonitis and inflammation while promoting healing.
What is the recovery time?
It depends. However, most of the time, mobility is immediate, and decreased pain is felt within 24-to-48 hours. After undergoing needling treatment, you can expect to feel slightly sore. It's natural. Normally, it may take a few treatment sessions (once a week for 2-3 weeks) for a long-lasting, noticeable impact. How long do the effects last? We can't say for sure or give you an exact number because the lasting beneficial effects are different for everyone. There are too many variables, such as:
- Your age
- Severity level
- Treatment frequency
- The cause of the pain
And so on. The first few treatments usually have a short length of pain relief, spanning over several days.
Should you try dry needling?
You should definitely give it a try if you're dealing with:
- Hip pain
- Neck pain
- Knee pain
- Shoulder pain
- Lower back pain
- Myofascial pain
As we're sure you know by now, dry needling can help reduce pain and soreness. If you're OK with thin, sterile needles that don't involve little to no pain (if any), you might consider this therapeutic technique if your physical therapist recommends it.
How will dry needling help you?
Anyone experiencing body aches can benefit from dry needling. Such as athletes wishing to return to the field, to those who have collided in car accidents. It's a powerful technique because it allows experienced users to treat almost any muscle in the body at depths impossible with other methods. There are endless trigger points too deep in the tissue to reach through massaging. You can get the most out of dry needling by eliminating deep knots and restrictions that are otherwise unreachable.
At Active Health Chiropractic in Glasgow KY and Tompkinsville KY, our goal is to help our patients recover from back pain, neck pain, lack of mobility, joint issues, range of motion issues, and more—without the use of prescription drugs. We believe in taking a holistic "whole-body" approach to your health. We don’t want to just temporarily fix your pain—we want to determine and treat the root cause so you live an active and pain-free life.
Call us today to schedule an appointment, or to learn more about how chiropractic care can help you.
