Tag: Dry Needling

1. What is Dry Needling? 

Dry needling is a popular method of easing muscle pain. While somewhat related to acupuncture, dry needling is very different in practice, specifically targeting sore and tired muscles for the relief of pain, and to stimulate healing soft tissue injuries.

2. How Does Dry Needling Work?

Practitioners will insert a very fine needle into ‘trigger points’ on the muscle. These areas are points of knotted or hard muscles that are causing pain. This creates a minuscule lesion in the muscle tissue when it enters the body. 

The micro simulation of the pain receptors increases blood flow, subsequently altering the chemical balance in the muscle. This assists with muscle healing and relaxation. This is because a signal is sent to the brain to restore muscle function by improving and healing the muscle tissue. 

3. Is Dry Needling Safe?

Modern dry needling is based on current medical science and research, with a growing body of scientific evidence supporting the practice. All needles are sterile and disposed of carefully in a medical sharps container. Further, all our physiotherapists at City Physio have completed post-graduate training in advanced neuromuscular trigger point dry needling treatment. Our physiotherapy clinic is also a primary world-class education facility for the teaching of dry needling in Adelaide. 

It is therefore completely safe. 

4. Why Should I Get Dry Needling?

Dry needling provides pain relief for muscular aches, pains, and stiffness. It is usually more effective than a remedial massage because it provides more release, with less surrounding tissue damage or soreness. It can also be used to improve flexibility and range of motion to help perform everyday tasks.  

Common injuries treated with dry needling:

• Sports injuries
• Headaches & migraine
• Tennis elbow
• Carpal tunnel syndrome
• Achilles tendonitis
• TMJ pain
• Muscle tears, strains or tightness
• Bursitis
• Plantar fasciitis
• Arthritis
• Hip & knee pain

You may experience temporary increased pain a day or two after a session – this is a good thing. The technique increases blood flow to the area and stimulates the muscles in a new way. Any delayed onset soreness is a physical response to the inflammation as your body heals. 

5. Why City Physiotherapy?

Our knowledge and ongoing education in clinical dry needling is of the highest standard, meeting AHPRA requirements. The effects of dry needling are often best felt when coupled with other remedial treatments such as stretching, massaging, and physio-recommended exercises. Our trained physiotherapists can determine the appropriate treatment plan for you. 

Contact us today for a same-day appointment with one of our highly experienced and qualified physiotherapists. 

Dry Needling for Elbow Pain

You play golf and your elbow hurts. You play tennis and your elbow hurts. You’re at the gym doing push-ups and your elbow hurts. Gardening? Elbow hurts. Computer? Elbow hurts. The list goes on. You may say to yourself, “I don’t remember injuring my elbow”.

You’re probably right. You may not have ever injured your elbow directly, so why is it suddenly painful?

Most of us are aware of what “Middle Child Syndrome” is and how it can cause that child to play up. The middle child is more often than not blamed for everything that goes wrong, but is rarely ever to blame. It is usually the older and or younger children that create the drama, but the poor middle child gets the blame anyway. Yes, you have it right, your elbow is your middle child and the wrist and shoulder are your younger and older brothers and sisters causing you grief.

The majority of your wrist muscles also attach to your elbow.
The relationship between your elbow and your shoulder is somewhat different though. Your shoulder muscles don’t attach to your elbow. However, your shoulder joint movements can affect your elbow joint. If you swing your golf club or tennis racket and your shoulders are not aligned correctly or you do not follow through with the swing properly, then your elbow will take the majority of force from the contact as an over-compensatory reaction.

From your wrists’ perspective here is what happens. Ideally, when we contract any muscle, we want to keep relaxed prior to performing the movement so that way we can fire our muscles more quickly than if we were already tensing our muscles.
If you use a tight death grip on your club, racket, computer mouse etc., then the muscles of your wrist that extend up to your elbow are already overactivated.

This tension or death gripping, in these particular movements (golf, tennis, computer mouse etc.), will have consequences that lead to a painful elbow.

Using Dry Needling for Elbow Pain

Dry Needling is a very useful therapy for helping to break up the “knots” in your muscles. Dry Needling is also effective for improving blood flow into the painful area to promote healing and relaxation of your muscles to make it them softer and in turn decrease your pain.

Because there is often a much more complex problem causing your elbow symptoms, dry needling alone is usually not enough to fix the issue altogether.

Pain and injury at the elbow usually also require additional physiotherapy techniques such as hands-on soft tissue and nerve release, taping and exercise therapy. This active rehabilitation will teach you how to perform movements in a much more functional way. This may include looking at office ergonomics. When you can move more functionally you can avoid injury and further pain whilst still keeping up with your favorite activities or get your work done without pain.

Do you currently suffer from elbow pain? Schedule an appointment today to get started on your treatment City Physiotherapy & Sports Injury Clinic & Pilates Adelaide CBD

Dry Needling Clinic |  Are you fed up with being injured? 

Trying to cure or fix an injury by sticking needles in it may seem odd but it actually works.

Dry needling is similar to acupuncture in that it involves inserting needles into your skin near the point of your injury or pain.

What is Dry Needling and is it Safe?

Dry needling is a type of treatment performed by City Physiotherapy Physiotherapists who have been trained to treat neuromuscular injuries in our dry needling clinic.

Dry Needling historically came out of scientific studies into acupuncture and injections of liquid medication like cortisone. It has developed into its own specialised area of treatment and due to its success in treating pain, it continues to grow in popularity.

Your City Physio Physiotherapist will use individually packaged, sterile dry needles. The needles come in various sizes and widths depending on where the needle is applied.  Needling is very safe, especially as our Physiotherapists have undergone specialised training to become certified in the practice of Dry Needling and we already have extensive anatomical knowledge of the body to know where to insert the needles.

How is Dry Needling applied?

Your Physio can insert the needle through your skin into areas of your muscles, known as trigger points.

The number of dry needles used will vary depending on the size of the area of your pain.

Most treatments can involve 5-20 needles.

What is the difference between acupuncture and dry needling?

This is one of the most common questions we get asked about.
Dry needling is based in western medicine and is used to target pain relief in specific areas of your body. Acupuncture is based on traditional Chinese medicine. They insert the needles into areas along meridian lines, which refer to various body parts including your organs.

Physio’s use this type of needling to relieve pain by using the needles to release trigger points of specific muscles.

Do the needles hurt?

Dry needling does not need to be painful at all.  As the needle is inserted through the skin into the muscle, there may be a slight contraction or twitch within the muscle. This may be experienced as a slight pain. These twitches in your trigger points are considered a good sign, as we know we have targeted the centre of your offending trigger points Your muscle fibres will be lengthened after a dry needle twitch response.

Why Does Dry Needling Work? 

Some scientists suggest that needling works via a mechanism called the gate control theory. This is your nervous system’s response to the pain caused by the needle insertion into your muscle, therefore the chronic pain from your injury goes away.

Dry needling can stimulate your brain to release endorphins, which are mood-stimulating chemicals and these can also alleviate pain.

Dry needling also deactivates muscular trigger points when they are inserted into the right location, relieving tension and referred pain.

The direct microtrauma of the needle puncture can also kick-start your body’s natural healing process.

What is Dry Needling used to treat?

Your Physiotherapist can treat most musculoskeletal injuries and pains with needles at our dry needling clinic.  Anything from sports injuries, tight muscles, muscle and soft tissue sprains, strains and tears, bursitis, tendonitis, headaches, arthritis, jaw pain, heel pain, shin splints, sprained ankles, ligaments, tennis elbow, plantar fascia, Achilles tendon issues, shoulder rotator cuff injuries and more.
Ask your City Physiotherapy Physiotherapist if Dry Needling can benefit your aches and pains.
www.cityphysiotherapy.com.au

Dry needling is widely used by all physiotherapists at City Physiotherapy & Sports Injury Clinic and has become an increasingly popular technique for treating a range of musculoskeletal conditions, including acute and chronic neck pain, back pain, tennis elbow, runner’s knee, arthritis, headaches and migraine, Achilles tendinopathies and many other conditions.

Dry needling is based on Western medicine and neuro-physiological principles. It is different from traditional Chinese acupuncture which includes diagnosis and reasoning based on Chinese medicine assessment. Both traditional and western needling work on meridian points and 71% of trigger points actually coincide with acupuncture points.

How does it work? – Dry needling involves the use of very fine, sterile needles to stimulate the flow of chi or energy throughout the body. It helps to treat the limitations and restrictions that are found during your physical assessment. For most conditions needling has little or no post-treatment side-effects. The needles are inserted into trigger points to deactivate and resolve them. Your muscular pain or headaches then disappear. The needles can also stimulate your brain via activation of your nervous system to produce natural pain relieving chemicals in your body such as endorphins.

What is a trigger point? – A trigger point is a hyperirritable spot within the muscle. It is usually painful to touch and may refer pain elsewhere. Your trigger point may give you abnormal movement and “autonomic” changes such as temperature and skin changes at the site of a pathology.

Benefits of dry needling – Dry needling reduces the referred symptoms of trigger points and can be used to treat your:

• Neck pain – wry neck, headaches or migraines
• Jaw pain
• Muscular tightness – neck / lower back problems
• Sporting injuries
• Shin splints and many other conditions.

All Physiotherapists at City Physiotherapy are highly trained in advanced needling, so don’t put up with pain anymore and contact us today to discuss whether needling can be an appropriate treatment option for you.