DRY NEEDLING

• By administrator
• September 26, 2021January 15, 2026
• dry needling holistic My Blog pain spasm treatment
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Hey everyone,

I recently went to experience the art of “Dry needling” at a local physical therapy office and wanted to share my experience.  I injured my shoulder a few years ago playing tennis and pickleball and despite the pain, I continued to play because I love it so much.  Consequently, I have had a lot of problems since then (no surprise).  I have found that as I get older, if I don’t pay attention and listen to what my body is trying to tell me, I end up causing myself much more grief, pain and aggravation.  In this case, I have been paying the ultimate price of not being able to play at all.  Hindsight really is 20/20.

I had heard about this technique but always thought it was just another version of acupuncture so I didn’t pay too much attention to it.  That however, is not the case.  There are similarities, but also very significant differences between the TCM style of acupuncture and dry needling.  Acupuncture follows rules and beliefs that have been established since ancient times, whereas dry needling ignores ancient acupuncture philosophy.  Most, if not all of TCM, is based on pre-scientific ideas, whereas dry needling is totally based on modern scientific neurophysiology and anatomy.  Dry needling is purely for pain relief and based on recent understandings in pain science.  There is much less mystique surrounding dry needling for pain abatement.  Most sources describe dry needling of trigger points, which are not the same as  acupuncture points.

My practitioner inserted three separate needles into specific areas of my shoulder that were stressed, impinged or spasmed.  The depth of the needle varies and the practitioner is attuned to whether it is deep enough to be effective or not.  In my case, she asked specifically if I wanted to go deeper for a better release.  It was virtually painless aside from the initial insertion of the needle which I didn’t mind.  She likes to follow up the treatment with some form of e-stim therapy to calm down the area and help alleviate soreness after the fact.  I will keep you posted on the results as I progress.

I am always amazed at just how many holistic modalities are out there for people to learn about and utilize for our specific conditions.  This is part of the reason I wanted to create this website in the first place.  To educate people to what is available, while promoting practitioner’s and their gifts is a win/win situation from my perspective.  Email me if you want me to share the contact information of this practitioner.  Unfortunately, she works for a large Physical Therapy corporation so she won’t be shown on this website.