Dry Needling
Dry needling in Leland NC and Shallotte NC is a therapeutic technique gaining popularity in physical therapy and pain management. This minimally invasive procedure at Coastal Integrative Health involves inserting thin, solid needles into specific trigger points within muscles, tendons, or connective tissues to alleviate pain and improve range of motion. Unlike traditional acupuncture, which is rooted in traditional Chinese medicine and focuses on balancing energy flow, dry needling targets muscular and myofascial issues.
What is Dry Needling?
Trigger point dry needling involves inserting a very thin monofilament needle into tender points. In the body (trigger points) that have developed in muscles identified by the clinician to help relieve pain, discomfort, or dysfunction. This is done without the injection of any substance.
What are trigger points?
Trigger points are hyper-irritable spots in a tight taut band of muscle fibers. These presentation of trigger points are painful upon compression, stretch, and or movement. Trigger points present with characteristic pain patterns, referred tenderness and movement dysfunction such. as restricted mobility, stiffness, or weakness in that muscle. Trigger points form through an injury, overtraining, poor posture, overuse of muscles, or through an irrationality of nerves coming out the spine that innervates those muscles then leading to pain.
How can dry needling help patients?
At some point, virtually every adult with experience trigger points and myofascial pain. 20% of the population at any given moment suffer from myofascial pain at this moment. 95% of chronic pain patients have a myofascial pain component. Dry needling can help increase the range of motion, decrease pain, restore the function of a dysfunctional muscle, and induce therapeutic inflammation promoting the healing process and bringing blood flow to that area.
In one study that looked at 52 subjects with neck or shoulder girdle pain of more than 3 months duration and active trigger points were needled 3 times weekly for 3 weeks focusing on one active trigger point. They looked at dry needling mainly in the upper trapezius muscle in reducing pain in these subjects with chronic Myofascial pain and were reexamined at the end of the 3-week course of treatment. The results showed that there was a significant effect on pain reduction in myofascial pain. Also, with this, they were checking the cervical range of motion and after 3 weeks of treatment there was an improvement in cervical spine side bending and rotation, the patient improved physical and emotional well-being and mood, and a reduction in disability.
Sources
- Lynn H. Gerber MD, Jay Shah MD, William Rosenberger PhD, Kathryn Armstrong DPT, Diego Turo PhD, Paul Otto BS, Juliana Heimur BS, Nikki Thaker BS, Siddhartha Sikdar PhD
- Skootsy, Jaeger, Oye. ”Prevalence of myofascial pain in general internal medicine practice.” West J Med. 1989. 151:157-160.
- Gerwin. “Classification, Epidemiology and Natural History of Myofascial Pain Syndrome.” Current Pain and Headache Reports. 2001 October.5:5, pp 412-20
