Dry Needling (IMS)
Dry Needling helps to release muscular tension, normalize the inflammatory response, and reduce pain
What is Dry Needling?
Dry needling involves inserting a sterile, solid needle through the skin and underlying soft tissues (muscle, fascia, etc). The insertion of a needle into soft tissue creates a small lesion that will last for a few days, but not cause the formation of scar tissue. The needle stimulates physiological processes that release muscular tension, decrease nerve activity, normalize the inflammatory response, and centrally mediate pain (due to brain stimulation). Dry needling is growing in popularity due to its ability to quickly alter pain and muscle tension and speed recovery from injury or surgery. It is also showing to be quite effective for treating chronic pain and nerve pain.
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How is it done?
The type of needling we offer is referred to as neurologic dry needling (this does not mean we place a needle into the nerve), but we place the needle in the same region that it interacts with the muscle. We do this because when pain is present there is also inflammation and edema. This inflammation and edema causes the nerves to become sensitive, which causes you to feel pain. By placing needles in the region where the nerve interacts with the muscle we can decrease the inflammation around that nerve and by doing so decrease pain. In addition to this we may also insert needles into the painful muscle as a means of trying to get it to release its tension.