How is dry needling different than acupuncture?

The technique now called "dry needling" has been a form of acupuncture for centuries (In Chinese medicine, it is referred to as "ashi" style acupuncture. The term dry needling goes back to when Dr Janet Travell - the doctor who mapped out all the myofascial trigger points - would inject saline into the point to release it.  Later, it was observed that the saline was no more effective than using a "dry" needle without saline.  Myofascial trigger points have a large degree of overlap with acupuncture points. Additionally, dry needling can be quite painful.

My style of acupuncture is very different.  I use a more distal style of acupuntcure  For example, for sciatica, I  have amazing results needling the abdomen. For low back pain, points on the back of the head are fantastic.  Or for frozen shoulder, I release that "adhesive capusulitis" with points on the scalp.  And while this may seem confusing and counterintuitive, I have found it to be far more effective, exceedingly safer, and completely more comfortable to receive than directily and deeply putting a needle into a tender area of the body as with ashi style acupuncture/dry needling.

Additionally, dry needling is only used for myofascial pain where as acupuncture has far wider ranging applications. With a few exceptions, acupuncture can help with just about any health conditon you can think of. Acupuncture, like all of Chinese medicine, incorporates "pattern diagnosis" to identify what parts of the body are out of balance and then using the appropriate acupuncture points to correct that imbalance.

Do you have to believe in acupuncture for it to work?  

Absolutely not.  Acupuncture may be an ancient technique, but its effects are physiologically based; we can explain a lot of acupuncture's effects in western terms:  C nerve fibers vs. A nerve fibers in blocking of pain signal, Hilton's Law states that  nerves stimulated by needles at the skin surface penetrate deeper structures, studies (at the University of Michigan no less) showing how acupuncture stimulates far more opiate receptors in the brain than "sham acupuncture" (where a retractable pen like device is used to simulate a needle inertion and so on.

Funny story: I've actually had a patient say to my face, "I don't believe in your Asian nonsense." (He actually used stronger language than that but we're keeping this page family friendly).  Five minutes into the treatment, he was in a very relaxed state and then conceded, "okay, maybe there is something to this Asian stuff."

If acupuncture was strictly a placebo effect, then it wouldn't work on animals. Pretty cut and dry there.

But even if there were some placebo effect for argument's sake, if you're getting sustained relief and recovery from a placebo... isn't that still good medicine?  

There is some overlap between the two.  In fact, the tai chi form is a chigong in and of itself.

Chigong refers to any number of slow moving movements that cultivate "chi" for health. They can also be used toeveloping certain types of attributes in the internal martial arts.

Tai chi (or taijichuan as is its actual name which translates to "extreme opposite fist") is originally an internal martial art... although, it is largly practiced now soley as a health exercise/chigong.

So when I apply an acupuncture needle, it usually is for the most part painless. I use very thin .16mm sized needles (for comparison, a human hair is .1mm).  I would say most acupuncturists use at least the thicker .20 needle and upward. Personally, I have never found that thicker needles result in better therapeutic outcomes.  Additionally, my approach to needling is in line with the Japanese style, which is very superficial.

So in general needles can be felt but are not painful.  That being said, points at the extremities for example will always be more sensitive.  Fortunately, I rarely have to needle those points and if I do, I have a way to test if they will be useful before inertion so as to not cause any uncessary discomfort.  

Click HERE to see me applying acupuncture to myself to show that it isn't painful.