Dry needling involves introducing fine, single-use, sterile acupuncture needles into “trigger points” of a muscle.

A “trigger point” is a hyperirritable spot within a muscle caused by injury or overload. Trigger points are tender on compression and may cause a pattern of referred pain (Travel and Simons, 1993). Movehappy Healthcare practitioners use dry needling in two ways. Myofascial trigger point dry needling to elicit a twitch response from a tight band of muscle. This immediately alters the state of the muscles tension and can leave a transient muscular ache.

Leave in ‘Western acupuncture’ needling to cause the release of chemicals and their affect on the spinal cord to reduce pain sensitivity. This can be a precursor to more manual therapy.