Dry Needling

Dry needling is the insertion of a fine solid needle into a myofascial trigger point or other soft-tissue target without injecting anything, which is what "dry" refers to. It is used mainly for myofascial pain, alongside exercise and manual therapy rather than as a treatment on its own.

It is practised in sport and exercise medicine (SEM) by physiotherapists, doctors and other trained clinicians. The needles are the same fine filiform needles used in acupuncture, but the reasoning differs: dry needling is framed in Western anatomical and neurophysiological terms, whereas traditional acupuncture uses a different explanatory system. In practice the techniques and theories overlap considerably.

This page covers:

• •How dry needling is performed and what patients should expect afterwards
• •What the evidence supports
• •The safety issues that matter most, above all pneumothorax