One way of relieving muscle pain is the so-called dry needling which is characterized by inserting a very thin needle into the muscles without the use of any drugs or other substances. To get a therapeutic effect, there must be some muscle jerking response upon administration of dry needling. A Czech Physician named Karel Lewit introduced this kind of treatment in 1979 and over the years, it has been improved and this is now what we call dry needling which is being practiced by chiropractics and physiotherapists.
Dry needling is effective whenever muscle tension is experienced, which may be brought about by neck strain, lower back pain, headache, and postural changes. This is also effective for those suffering tennis elbow, calf injuries and other athlete-related injuries and could ease out arthritic-like pain.
A complete assessment by the experienced practitioner is done in order to determine if dry needling is necessary, based on the patient’s condition. The physiotherapist will determine the patient’s posture, strength and length of the muscles as baseline data. Location of trigger points are also examined, which is done solely by palpation. Not everyone needs dry needling, and such will be discussed by the physiotherapist after the assessment.
Some physiotherapists and acupuncturists are having debate over this method since some acupuncturists argued that this is just similar to acupuncture with a different name. But actually their only similarity is the using of needle as their most important instrument. Acupuncture is based on the ancient traditions and beliefs while dry needling is based on modern scientific neurophysiology. Aside from that, acupuncture can practically take care of both internal disorders and musculoskeletal problems, while dry needling is only utilized for the relief of musculoskeletal pain.
Acupuncture is practically painless when administered by an expert, while dry needling results in muscle twitching and may even result to extreme pain and soreness after the session. Acupuncture also uses several needles inserted at the same time to different body areas, while dry needling makes use of different needles depending on the patient’s condition and are inserted to a myofascial trigger point.
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