Dry Needling

Dry Needling is available in any session with its qualified therapists. It’s just a fantastic add on to our normal session.

Here’s a Little Info About Dry Needling:

Dry Needling is a fantastic way to get into those tender and tight spots that are deep within the muscle tissue. When we touch or strip these areas with massage, they usually hurt. This is great to specifically target the tissue and aid restoring the normal tissue function. Also it’s good for anyone who is hypersensitive to pain/ doesn’t like firm massage.

This method helps stimulate blood flow, endorphins, speeds the healing process and helps the muscle to relax in a less painful way than pushing onto the trigger point. In some instances dry needling can be more effective than massage. However 99.9% of the time we find that a combined approach achieves far superior results.

It is a fantastic addition to your remedial massage treatment. For more info about remedial massage click here.

The Main Questions We Get About Dry Needling….

“Is Dry Needling the Same as Acupuncture?”

The answer is no. We do use the same needles used in acupuncture, but acupuncture is used in Chinese medicine to alter Qi flow through the meridians.

Here at Rapid Recovery we use Dry Needling in conjunction with manual therapy to get your muscles functioning. We do this by increasing the range of movement, improve flexibility and decreasing pain and stiffness.

“Does Dry Needling Hurt?”

We very quickly insert the needle into the tissue. It passes through the pain receptors without much sensation.

Some clients have said they don’t feel a thing. But others have said that they feel the initial prick (which is like getting flicked) but then nothing other than that. You may also feel a dull ache in the area being worked on or a twitch which is completely normal as this is the muscle reaction to having treatment.

“Is Dry Needling Backed by Science?”

Evidence to date supports that dry needling improves pain control, reduces muscle tension and normalizes dysfunctions of the motor end plates, the sites at which nerve impulses are transmitted to muscles. This can help speed up the patient’s return to active rehabilitation.

Dry Needling for Muscular Pain:

A normal response for most people when they have aches and pains, would give it a squeeze, or give the area a quick rub to try get some relief. On occasion you might come across some weird bumps that we all refer to as a knot.  

When you use the same muscles repeatedly, they can become sore and tight. This is when they develop these knots which are called myofascial trigger points. 

The trigger points in the muscle act like a blockage for blood flow. Think of your drain, when that is blocked, water cannot drain in through the sink. Water will start getting trapped and can overflow if there is constant water flow. 

Muscles work the same, since the trigger point is blocking the blood flow, there is no way to get blood to the areas past the blockage, which in turn the muscles won’t be able to go back to normal, tissues near and around the trigger point become more acidic causing other issues and can become sore and painful. 

With Dry Needling, the needle stimulates the trigger point, allowing it to relax and help blood supply flush the area which will also ease some of the pain. The fresh blood supply going through can help your muscles to heal as well. 

How Dry Needling Helps Back Pain:

Have a sore back? Let’s stick you with needles to make it feel better! That makes complete sense……. right? 

Dry Needling is pretty much that, BUT there is a science to it as well.  

Needles will be placed with precision, not just thrown in randomly. There are certain points that the qualified therapist can locate to help ease pain. 

No, there is not any anaesthetic on the needles to ease the pain. It is just a filiform needle, the same as what the acupuncturist uses, and No, Dry Needling is not the same as acupuncture! 

Why are they not the same? Dry Needling is focuses on muscle tissue, whilst acupuncture focuses on energy flows. 

So hence why Dry Needling is highly effective in easing back pain as back pain (a lot of the time) is caused by the muscles not functioning properly. 

There are so many muscles that help with your everyday movement and like most things they can only take so much. 

It will help to ease and change the Trigger points that can refer pain to other areas. Also it can help if pain and tightness are limiting you range of motion.

Like most therapists, we would all love to say, “There you go, your fixed!’, after one session. If that were the case, we would be a millionaires! 

You will, however, notice some difference in either pain levels and/or increased movement, depending on your body’s reaction. 

In every therapy, it may work for some but not others. Your therapist may offer Dry Needling if they feel it would benefit your situation.

Dry Needling for Headaches

Dry Needling along with massage & manual therapy has shown to be highly effective to help ease frequency, intensity, and length of a headache

Trigger points in the muscle can refer pain up to the head and cause a headache. So that’s where it comes into play. 

We insert the needles into trigger points.  The goal is to deactivate or change those trigger points and enable a twitch response. This response can sometimes reproduce the headache symptoms. 

This will help reduce the referred pain, encourage blood flow, increase range of motion, but can also make your muscles feel, in a sense ‘tired’. 

The next day, you may feel some soreness and/or minor bruising, which has been described as a ‘good pain’, or nothing at all depending on your body’s reaction to the treatment. 

There have been several studies conducted with clients which showed that Dry Needling worked well on them. This is not to say that it’s for everyone, (especially if you have a phobia of needles) but it is an effective treatment. 

Book your dry needling appointment in Healesville, by clicking the button below or give us a call, click here for contact details.