Dry needling is called “dry” because there is no liquid injected into the body. The needles are only used without any medicine as for example in the traditional chinese accupuncure. Dry needling is mainly used to treat trigger points.
It is used by specially trained Physiotherapists around the world.
A trigger point is a painful spot that “triggers” pain in other regions. It is more than a tender nodule. It affects not only the muscle where the trigger point is located, but also causes "referred pain" in tissues supplied by nerves. The therapist will locate and deactivate them using this needling technique.
Indications for dry needling:
- Headaches and migraines
- Pain in face, jaw joints, ears
- neck pain
- shoulder-arm syndrome
- Tennis- Golfer ellbow
- Backpain
- joint pain
- calf cramps
- Fibromyalgia
- Restless legs syndrome
- Nerve pain
- pain after operations, or sport
The trigger-point-treatment consists of
- Dry needling: The triggerpoint is found and deactivated with the needling
- streching of the complete area around the trigger-point
- manual stretching of the superficial fascia to improve the slide surface of the muscles and release agglutinations
- exercises as homework
