Dry Needling

Dry needling reduces pain and restores movement

The team at Watsonia Physiotherapy offers dry needling to clients in and around Watsonia in Victoria (16 km north-east of Melbourne CBD). If you are suffering from neck, back, shoulder or hip pain, dry needling might just be the treatment that tips the balance. It’s usually offered alongside other physiotherapy treatments and is a proven clinical method for relieving chronic pain and treating injuries.

What is dry needling?

Dry needling is a treatment that’s designed to ease muscular pain and injuries. When you book in for a dry needling session, a trained practitioner will insert a very fine, solid, stainless steel needle into your skin to reach trigger points in a specific muscle or tissue. These trigger points are areas of knotted muscles that cause pain or tenderness, and can even be so painful that they reduce your range of movement.  

The problem is caused by contracted muscles not relaxing, forming a knot in the muscle that’s painful when you try to use the muscle and even when you don’t! This pain can be so severe that it stops you from using that particular muscle, limiting your movement.

What dry needling actually does is stimulate these trigger points, decreasing the knot or tightness in the muscle and increasing blood flow. The overall goal of dry needling is to inactivate these trigger points, restore function and movement, and reduce pain.

Dry needling vs acupuncture

Whilst acupuncture and dry needling are very similar, they are founded on very different belief systems. Acupuncture heralds from Eastern Medicine and focuses on  treating a host of medical conditions by restoring the flow of energy through meridians, returning balance to the body. Dry needling however, is a safe western technique that’s based on sound scientific theory and is used to reduce pain and restore function by releasing the trigger points in muscles.

To make an appointment for dry needling at our clinic in Watsonia, call us on 03 9434 3088, send us an email or book online.