The great thing about Dry Needling  and Acupuncture is that they provide rapid  healing of the causes as well as symptoms of pain conditions without the damaging and dangerous use of drugs. All drugs have side affects. None of them are beneficial side effects.

Whether it is the liver toxicity of Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and Naprasyn, the damage to the lining of the stomach and risk for GI bleeding from aspirin and ibuprofen, or the weight gain of Gabapentin, or the depression, constipation, fatigue, and risks for addiction of opiate drugs, all drugs have side affects.

And what is worse, is that drugs do nothing to cure the cause of the pain. They do relieve the symptoms, with some degree of success, but it comes at two costs–one, the side affects, and two, the tendency to neglect the causes and leave them untreated.

Whether its lack of exercise, over-exercise, insufficient post-workout stretching, bad biomechanics, bad alignment, shortened muscles and fascia, what ever, unless you treat the causes, you have not cured the problem.

Dry Needling and Acupuncture, along with therapeutic exercises, Chinese herbs, mindfulness meditation, and corrections in ergonomics and posture, go a long way towards correcting the causes of your pain.

Whether its herniated discs, bulging discs, nerve entrapment syndromes, or tendinites, Dry Needling and some kinds of acupuncture have an amazing success rate.

These are the places on your shoulder or leg or back you just want someone to press real hard on. Mild trigger points generally feels better with pressure and heat. But for sever trigger point pain dry needling is a miracle..

Trigger points arise through overuse or excessive tightness and when the myo-neural unit of a muscle gets activated into an excessively coiled state, like a rubber band that needs to snap, as a result of chronic physical or emotional tension, poor posture, or due to sudden unusual exertion like lifting a heavy weight.

Even a sudden pull by a large dog on her lease can trigger a rebound activation of trigger points. This causes irritation, inflammation and pain in a specific area, like between the shoulder blades, or at the hip.

Trigger Point Pain Can Seem like Nerve Pain

Trigger points can be excruciatingly painful, and often people will think they have some kind of nerve pain, because trigger points have pain referral patterns, another words pain can radiate away from the trigger point to other parts of the body.

One of the most common cases is with headache, where trigger points in the upper trapezius and base of the skull refer pain all the way to the inner eyebrow.

Another common example of this is Piriformis syndrome, where the person has pain in the buttock and down the leg, and they think they have sciatic pain. This is the most commonly misdiagnosed trigger point pattern, even by M.D.s. And as soon as you release the pirifomis and quadratus femoris muscles the pain goes away, sometimes even in just one treatment.

Carpal tunnel is often misdiagnosed this way, too, or, the person has Carpal tunnel syndrome, but also has trigger points in l the forearm flexor muscles; they have the surgery, but ignore the muscles and fascia, and the surgery is unsuccessful, or they need it again in 3 years.

Areas where trigger points are found feel tense, tight, are tender to pressure, and often refer or radiate pain down the arm or leg away from the area the T.P. s are found in.

Typically people have multiple trigger points. Release, or deactivation of Trigger points is a key component in the treatment of headaches, TMJ, shoulder pain, back pain, neck pain, tennis elbow, fibromyalgia, and carpal tunnel syndrome.

Back and neck pain injuries involve various combinations of tense, shortened irritated, locked tight fascia and muscles. There are always active trigger points, and i always want to stimulate the motor points that tell the muscle to “unlock.”

Nerve Entrapment Syndromes

Nerve entrapment or compression can occur in the buttocks, low back, shoulder, thoracic outlet, forarms and upper and lower legs.

In the low back they can be entrapped at their roots by bulging or herniated discs. bit also at the periphery by shortened tense muscles. 

Sciatica or Sciatic Pain, involves the large nerve that runs through the buttock and leg into the foot. Irritation of the sciatic nerve involves intense pain that radiates from the low back into the buttock and down the back or side of the leg.

This pain might be accompanied by numbness or tingling. Numbness and tingling is usually signal that an entrapped nerve is involved. Muscle weakness tells us the nerve is beginning to be damaged, and if not treated immediately, may become permanent. 

Dry Needling into the muscles and fascia compressing the nerve, whether from a disc bulge, a tight piriformis or brachial plexus is often all that you need to bring the nerve back to health. You have to stop doing what you were doing that caused the pain. You also have to start therapeutic exercises.

Nerve Pain from Muscle Entrapment is Relieved by Dry Needling

Nerve pain can be due to herniated or bulging disc, but again what led you to the disc bulge?  Acute trauma can be one cause. But more  often tight shortened muscles have compressed the spinal vertabrae.

When you release the muscles through by dry needling  you actually relieve the pressure on the disc.

Nerve Entrapment Syndromes such as piriformis syndrome and ulnar nerve entrapment respond very very well to dry needling, because when we release the motor point of the muscle the entrapment goes away.

Now the nerve has a chance to heal, especially if the patient is good about stretching properly.

Bursitis Treated with Dry Needling and Acupuncture

What Are Bursae and How to they Become Inflamed and Painful?

Bursitis involves swelling of the bursae. Bursae are small fluid filled sacs around the joints that act as ball bearings do on machines. If not for bursae our tendons would have to glide directly over bone, which would cause them to fray over time.

Instead our tendons glide over the bursae; they serve as a lubricated buffer between bone and tendon. Most of the time bursa become inflamed because of shortened muscles which tug on the tendon.

The Effects of Friction on the Tendon and Bursa

Over time friction leads both tendon and bursa to become inflamed. This inflammation involves swelling, and since the bursa and ends of the tendons are located together in closed spaces, this swelling causes further pressure on the swollen bursae and tendon end tissues.

Dry Needling and  Acupuncture is so helpful here. It is because when you release the motor points of the muscles, like the supraspinatus that passes over the shoulder bursa on its way to attach to the bone at the top of the shoulder, it gives “wiggle room” for the tendon and the pressure on the bursae and tendon is relieved.

Needling Directly into the Tendon

At the same time we needle right into the tendon (but never the bursa) and that relieves the inflammation directly in the tendon.

So you have accomplished two things–you have removed the cause of the inflammation that causes the pain, and you have relieved the inflammation itself that causes the pain. Also the natural opiates released by acupuncture and dry needling chemicaly reduces your inflammation and pain.

How Dry Needling and Acupuncture Help Locket Tight Muscles

Muscles Work By Shortening and Lengthening

This forces our joints closer together, or compresses them. And when we overuse, without compensatory stretching under relaxed conditions, our muscle are again left shortened.

The Role of Motor Points in the Muscles and Fascia

The process by which this shortening occurs, in sum, is that the brain sends a signal to the muscle through a nerve. Where the nerve meets the muscle is called the motor point.

The motor point is a specialized bundle of tissue that tells the muscle when to shorten or lengthen. Through overuse or chronic tension or injury such as from a car accident or sleeping funny, or also imbalances in posture or gait, a motor point can be left turned on.

The Science behind the Benefits of Dry Needling and Acupuncture

Endorphins

Dry Needling and Acupuncture stimulates the secretion of opiate-like neurotransmitters called endorphins that have been proven to relieve pain in the same way opiate pain meds do, but without the side affects

Endorphins also help take the body out of the stress response and bring your body into the Relaxation Response. This relaxes muscles and improves blood circulation, bringing new oxygen to tissues and reducing inflammation and pain.

Cortisol

Acupuncture and Dry Needling  stimulates the adrenal glands to secrete our body’s own natural hormone called cortisol that powerfully fights inflammation throughout the body.

Localize Anti-inflammatory Effect

Dry Needling and Acupuncture releases “motor points” causing your muscles to actually lengthen. This releases mechanical pressures on tendons, ligaments, nerve roots, and vertebral spaces.

Acupuncture and Dry Needling deactivates the painful trigger points that are at the root of many repetitive use injuries and much back and neck pain.

For chronic pain , acupuncture and dry needling helps “turn the pain messages to the brain off, and is combined with therapeutic exercises that creats new neural pathways without pain.