What is dry needling and who is it good for?
What is Dry Needling?
Dry needling is a specialized technique used by certified medical doctors, physiotherapists, and chiropractors. The technique, depending on clinician training, can be termed: Dry Needling, Intramuscular Stimulation (IMS), Biomedical Dry Needling or Functional Dry Needling (FDN) but all tends to follow the same treatment approach.
Dry needling is used to treat musculoskeletal systems based on pain patterns, muscular dysfunction and other orthopedic signs and symptoms after an initial patient assessment.

How does Dry Needling work?
Dry needling works on several levels within the body to assist in releasing tight and sore muscles that can be found in common conditions. The technique itself involves the insertion of fine acupuncture needles into taught bands of muscle that contain a knot or “trigger point”. During treatment, patients will generally feel the muscle grab or twitch briefly as the needle hits the target tissue. This feeling is not painful, though is somewhat uncomfortable – but is over within 2-3 seconds! After the target tissue has been released, your therapist can provide appropriate exercise to maintain proper function and mobility of the area.

What conditions can Dry Needling help?
Many common orthopedic conditions can be helped by Dry Needling, including:
• Neck pain and stiffness • Whiplash • Sporting injuries
• Upper Back pain • Tension headaches • Muscular strains
• Lower back pain • Migraine headaches • Repetitive strain injuries (tennis elbow/patellar tendonitis/achilles tendonitis)

Is Dry Needling only for pain?
No! While Dry Needling is often able to offer instant pain relief, the main goal of needling is to allow proper movement and function. When pain is reduced after needling, joint range of motion is improved and proper corrective exercise can be prescribed to patients. Also, there are often times when your therapist will perform Dry Needling away from the site of pain, to release adjacent or compensating muscles, which can enable proper body function as a whole and relieve patient pain even faster.

Is Dry Needling safe?
Yes! As in all advanced therapy practices there are risks involved, but the most common side effect is local soreness around the needle insertion point that lasts 12-24 hours. Your treating clinician will review all relevant contraindications to Dry Needling prior to treatment.
Therapists at Polyclinic Rehabilitation Institute have over 20 years of combined experience performing Dry Needle treatments and have a high success rate in resolving many clinical issues in less than 8-treatments. Treatments can be scheduled by contacting our office.

Phone: (416) 477-1101
E-mail: reception@priclinic.com
Web: www.priclinic.com