The Difference Between Dry Needling and Acupuncture
It’s very easy for a layman to get confused between acupuncture and dry needling. After all, both practices sound the same. Both of them involve a professional of their field inserting thin needles into your flesh and muscles to get some form of benefit. Most people undergo these procedures because they’re experiencing muscle pain or stiffness and want to relieve it.
Because both these practices are so similar, there are many who would like to argue in favour of one or the other. Here are some straight facts about these forms of therapy.
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What is Dry Needling?
Dry Needling involves introducing a thin filament needle into the patient’s muscles for the purpose of elevating any soreness or pain. This is done by introducing the filament needle directly into the muscles of areas that are experiencing pain. As the needle used isn’t a hypodermic one and there’s no liquid pumped into the muscle, it’s called dry needling.
Most patients that undergo this procedure admit to experiencing slight pain. That’s because this procedure deliberately aims at the active trigger points to relieve pain. Patients will not notice the effects immediately, but after going through 3-4 sessions, they’ll notice a marked decrease in pain.
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How is Pain Relief achieved?
As mentioned above, needles are introduced to the muscles that are producing the ache in your body. These needles usually produce little to no pain when introduced into a healthy muscle that’s strong. However, weakened, strained, and sore muscles have trigger points.
When these muscles are agitated, they immediately send a message to the spine, which triggers a twitch response. The degree of pain that you might feel at this response varies from person to person. It also depends on just how sensitive that muscle group is.
You get pain relief because once the response is triggered, the trigger point becomes inactive. After a series of sessions, you’ll feel the pain lighten as all trigger points in the muscles are stimulated and the overtaxed muscles start healing. The experience is slightly unpleasant at first, but after a while patients start to welcome the pain as they know it leads to relief. This therapy is great for people who experience acute and sometimes chronic pain in their muscles. It’s also great for people who’re recovering from injuries.
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What is Acupuncture?
Acupuncture is a very ancient Chinese medicine and physical therapy. Unlike dry needling, it’s usually treated as an alternative medicine; it’s very commonly used by medical practitioners to address pain and stiffness. The idea behind acupuncture is to balance the flow of Chi, or life energy. The needles are filaments that are introduced into specific points of the body along the meridians, the energy carrying pathways.
Western therapist, unlike their Chinese counterparts, will introduce needles into nerves, connective tissue, and muscles to stimulate them. The technique is said to release the natural painkillers in the body and encourage better blood flow.
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How it’s Done
The therapist would introduce anywhere between 5 to 20 needles into your body during a session. While during dry needling the needles penetrate the muscle enough to cause pain, acupuncture needles don’t. The needles might be manipulated slightly after insertion. The therapist would either move them or warm them to get different effects. The needles are removed after 10 to 20 minutes.
If you want to know more about these similar but effective practices, you can get in touch with us at New Body Physiotherapy and Postural Management. Just fill in this contact us form and we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. You can also give us a call at 02 9958 2277.
Best Regards,
Corey Iskenderian