The scoop on "Dry Needling".

Let me set the record straight...the core issue is a political one regarding laws and the scope of practice of physical therapists.  By calling the practice of putting an acupuncture needle into the body to bring about a therapeutic result something other than acupuncture, physical therapists can now go through the legal process to add "dry needling" to their scope of practice.  Period. End of story.  All other debates as to whether dry needling is different from acupuncture are hair splitting affairs done by people with little knowledge of the subject.

Many of my patients at Acupuncture and Healing Arts Medical Group have asked me about dry needling.  They want to know what the differences are and if it is the same as acupuncture.  The short answer is that dry needling is really just a basic form of acupuncture.  A senior acupuncturist, Mark Seem, has been teaching this form of acupuncture including the muscle twitch response for probably 15 years.  In fact he wrote a book entitled Acupuncture Physical Medicine that I have read many many times.  He thoroughly researched the roots of Travel and Simons work on tender points and developed an integrated model of treatment with acupuncture long before PT's thought about Dry Needling. It is not a new form of physical therapy. An acupuncturist can dry needle but dry needling does not fully represent the strength of acupuncture as a whole.

Unlike my colleagues, I have no beef with physical therapists practicing dry needling in the context of physical therapy.  They have training in a very limited use of acupuncture. Most PT's are extremely knowledgeable, compassionate and professional.  I do not see them as competition. I find that I receive patients who have had dry needling for pain management from a PT and then want to explore other uses of this ancient and comprehensive modality.  The difference is that they have received limited training to use on a very specific pattern of disharmony in the body. Whereas an acupuncturist receives comprehensive training that address a wide variety of health issues other than just pain.

With in the next few days I will write a follow up post giving a brief history on dry needling and how it came by it's name.

The level of discomfort from acupuncture is minimal.  It ranges from no pain at all to the type of pain you might feel from a mosquito.  Very occasionally it will feel worse than that.  Once the needles are in the patient feels a pleasant state of euphoria and often fall asleep.
Here is a video of a patient getting some acupuncture:

There is absolutely no need to suffer from migraines.  Odds are if you are reading this post you know the signs and are looking for relief.  Acupuncture can help many people with this type of headache as well as tension headaches and sinus pain.

Please take a look at this article found at WebMD that states that traditional acupuncture provides long term relief from chronic migraines.

Give me a call at the office (901 763-0909) to schedule an appointment if you would like some help.

Acupuncture has been proven a useful adjunct therapy for patients going through chemo. Here is an ABC news article about this topic. Barrie Cassileth, Ph.D, Sloan Kettering Jan. 13, 2010 b>Question: Is it safe to have acupuncture if I'm undergoing cancer treatment? If so, how might it help? Answer:Acupuncture is a wonderful complementary therapy that can be used actually prior to cancer treatment or during cancer treatment or after it. It helps in many different ways. Acupuncture can reduce nausea and vomiting, which these days is not as commonly associated with chemotherapy as it was years ago. These days there are very good antiemetics, anti-nausea agents that are given along with chemotherapy. So that it is rare or much rarer than it was even a few years ago for patients to experience nausea and vomiting, but acupuncture does a great job of that and can be used along with and during chemotherapy. A side effect of chemotherapy, when the nerves are damaged either by surgery or chemotherapeutic agents, is a tingling painful sensation in the nerves called neuropathy, and acupuncture can do a very good job of treating that as well. Acupuncture's also useful for a variety of other things.