Dry Needling Therapy
What is Dry Needling Therapy?
Dry Needling Therapy is a treatment technique used to influence your body’s natural healing mechanisms, and target those internal treatment mechanisms to specific parts of your body. Dr. Humphrey completed additional education and licensing to be able to perform Dry Needling Therapy legally in the State of Texas.
How Does Dry Needling Therapy Influence Healing?
Dry Needling Therapy influences healing by tricking your body’s natural healing response to target specific areas of the body. The natural response of the body when healing an injury is to first send inflammation to the area, and then proceed to send healing proteins to the affected area until that tissue is either completely healed, or is no longer responsive to healing. In either acute or chronic injury cases, we can target your body’s healing response by inducing micro-trauma to the specific injured area with the tip of the needle. This tricks your body into sending healing proteins, and kickstarts your body’s natural ability to heal.
Does Dry Needling Therapy Hurt?
Generally speaking, Dry Needling Therapy does not hurt during the treatment. The needles used for Dry Needling Therapy are quite small and are not inserted deeply in many treatment areas. However, many patients experience an increase in pain level for 24-48 hours after care - with a significant reduction in pain at 48-72 hours after the Dry Needling Therapy Treatment. For this reason, we never Dry Needle more than once per week at Evolve Chiropractic, and we always start out with a minimal amount of needles (1) and increase our treatment based on patient tolerance to care, and presentation in the clinic.
Is Dry Needling Therapy The Same As Acupuncture Therapy?
No! Dry Needling Therapy is different from Acupuncture Therapy, although many people think these terms are interchangeable. Dry Needling Therapy is a technique that affects the direct point of injury - a muscle belly, tendon, ligament, or entheses (tendon-bone junction). Acupuncture Therapy is directed towards Meridian Points, and affects the flow of Qi energy within the body, according to Traditional Chinese Medicine. These techniques require different licensing to be performed, however both are extremely effective treatment modalities.