Accelerate the path from injury to painfree with Trigger Point Dry Needling.
This simple technique utilizes thin filament needles to treat muscle pain. The needles are applied directly to trigger points, areas of exquisite tenderness within a muscle. The treatment is quick and effective.
At Sun Physical Therapy, Trigger Point Dry Needling is the most efficient tool to resolve muscle pain that we know and have available.
Here are answers to frequently asked questions as well as links to some of the latest research involving this specialty treatment.
DRY NEEDLING, DEFINED
Dry needling is a technique to address muscle pain and dysfunction. Muscles become unhappy for any number of reasons – from driving in the car too long to sleeping on too soft a mattress. This can cause myofascial trigger points. Trigger points are especially tender areas within muscle. They can cause pain directly where they are located and also can be the source of pain which radiates into other areas. For example, it’s been found that trigger points in the neck can radiate to the ear.
Dry needling involves the use of very small diameter filament needles. They are inserted into the trigger point. The needling treatment usually lasts only a few seconds. After treatment, blood flow and oxygen are restored to the area and the pool of pain-signally chemicals is diluted. This promotes muscle relaxation, improves muscle function, and decreases pain.
Patients may experience soreness after the treatment, which can last anywhere from a few minutes to a day or two.
FAQs
Early practitioners utilized hypodermic needles to inject muscle trigger points. Dry needling was thus named to differentiate from needling that involved pain management substances, such as anesthetics and corticosteroids.
The techniques are greatly indebted to the work of Janet G. Travell, a physician, researcher, and pioneer in the treatment of myofascial pain. In the 19060s, Travell served as the first female personal Physician to the President under John F. Kennedy and, later, Lyndon B. Johnson. Her book: Travell and Simons’ “Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual” is a groundbreaking and enduring text for practitioners in the area of myofascial pain treatment, medicine, and physical therapy.
Dr. Jan Dommerholt, a physiotherapist and owner of Myopain Seminars, was the first PT in the United States to teach dry needling and injection techniques to healthcare practitioners. His Myopain Seminars courses have helped to spread the technique to many clinics throughout the U.S. and abroad.
Sun Physical Therapy Owner Sophia Maines is one of the thousands of practitioners to attend Dommerholt’s courses.
Maines also had the enormous privilege to work in Dommerholt’s clinics and contribute to Myopain Seminars in 2015 and 2016. In this capacity, she also contributed to the revision of “Myofascial Pain and Dysfunction: The Trigger Point Manual.” Look for Sophia work on the chapters on the latissimus dorsi and teres major muscles.
