A "myofascial" trigger point is a painful, taught band in the muscle. These microscopic changes occur in muscle fibers creating a contraction and causing a chronic shortening. This is typically due to overloading or incorrect loading of the muscle therefore compromising bloodflow and oxygen. Functional dry needling is a technique used to "deactivate" the trigger point. The needle is inserted into the painful, taught band, and immediately relaxes the muscle fibers, disperses the chemical AcH, and allows bloodflow to return to that area.
The needle is very thin, and does not damage the skin. Typically, the patients are more nervous about the suspense of the first needle than actually complaining about any pain. Patients are typically sore around 24 hours (like you had worked out that muscle).
Because there is nothing on the needle being inserted; It is simply just a needle.
Risks of dry needling include, but are not limited to:
Precautions are taken to avoid these complications.
Functional Dry Needling (FDN) and Acupuncture use the same monofilament needles, but with different intentions. Acupuncture is based on Traditional Chinese Medicine where the needle is inserted along the "meridian" energy poitns. FDN simply looks for the myofascial trigger point and directly inserts the needle into the taught band of fibers to focus on decreasing pain, improving range of motion, and improving function.
FDN can help with a wide range of symptoms with multiple purposes. Needling is going to target muscular issues with the purpose of decreasing pain, increasing range of motion, activating a lazy muscle, or deactivating an overactive muscle.
Common Symptoms/Injuries that benefit from FDN:
Are you nerdy, and want to know more of the science behind functional dry needling?
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