Kicking Off a Dry Needling Series

by Mitch Hauschildt, MA, ATC, CSCS

As I recently announced, I’m super excited to be partnering with Master Dry Needling to teach Dry Needling techniques as a part of their education team and become the first ATC in the US to teach this powerful modality.  As I have been preparing to teach a new course on a new platform (there is a ton of work that goes into education), I have been performing some daily reading and research to make sure that I am prepared for every student that attends my classes. 

What I love about this process is that it makes me a much better clinician.  If forces me to dive deeper into the research and read textbooks, searching for concepts that are a bit on the fringe of what is considered normal in an effort to offer the most comprehensive approach possible during the education process. 

This preparation process has led me to some new thoughts on the practice of dry needling along with the tried and true methods that many of us have become familiar with as dry needling practitioners.  In an effort to share some of these thoughts in a full and complete manner, I have decided to launch a series of blog posts over the next few weeks to share my thoughts on the practice. 

I fully realize that many of you reading this blog post can’t perform dry needling due to state regulations, professional limitations, lack of a certification or a lack of a desire to use your patients as a human pin cushion.  For those of you who do perform dry needling as part of your practice, I hope that you pick up a few nuggets of information in this series that can enhance your skills.  For my friends who don’t perform dry needling, I hope that you will take some time to read this series to learn more about the practice so you can better understand who and when to refer your patients or clients for dry needling and also know who you want to refer your customers based on treatment principles.  And, if you can legally needle in your state, but have been sitting on the fence as to whether or not you should get certified, my hope is that you will pull the trigger and get educated on this powerful modality.

First thing’s first…what is dry needling?

According to Dommerholt, “Dry Needling is the use of a solid filament needle for the treatment of pain and dysfunction of various body tissues.  Dry Needling is an invasive technique within the scope of practice of multiple disciplines such as physical therapy, chiropractic medicine, dentistry, and acupuncture.  There are a variety of conceptual models…including trigger point dry needling and surface dry needling, which are commonly employed to treat pain and dysfunction…”

I personally utilize dry needling as a second line of defense to go after stubborn pain and shortened or tight musculature, among other conditions.  I say that it is my second line of defense, because it is invasive and there are risks to both myself and the patient, so I don’t treat every patient with a needle and I certainly don’t do it to them every day.  If my basic, less invasive treatments aren’t working, or if I need faster results, I reach for my needles. 

When do I use Dry Needling?

• Muscle soreness/tightness/spasm: My favorite time to use needles is on sore and hypertonic muscle tissue.  It is pretty crazy to me how well it works on hamstrings, calves, forearms (pitchers), and scapular stabilizers.  When muscles are tight and cranky, needles are a great solution.
• Anterior Knee Pain: Needles can be a great solution for patellar tendonitis that isn’t responding to other treatments.
• Shoulder Impingement: There are a lot of causes of shoulder impingement , but needling can be a great way to break that pain-spasm cycle and get to work on the root causes.
• Shin Splints: Shin splints can be a challenging and frustrating issue to deal with, so needling can down-regulate soreness in the lower leg related to posterior tib tendon pain. 
• When other treatments don’t work: Anytime my traditional treatments fail, I’m grabbing my needles.  It doesn’t always work, but it’s a big tool in my toolbox that I rely heavily on when I don’t have a lot of other options.

In this blog series, I’m going to be covering a lot of topics related to dry needling.  I hope you’ll stick with me and read each post.  In the series, I’ll be covering the following topics:

• The mechanisms of dry needling
• Dry Needling for improving mobility
• Beyond Trigger Point Dry Needling
• Combining needling with other modalities
• What to do if you can’t dry needle