Greetings,

I have had both Accupuncture and Dry Needling. While I can not say whether accupuncture gave me any real benefit, Intramuscular Dry Needling has been a fantastically successful therapy to aid me with chronic and accute muscular and myofascial issues.

My three main points:

1) Dry Needling is NOT accupuncture. The complaints of the Accupuncture community are not relevant. The only similarity is in the tools they use. Accupuncture works on a completely different sytem, with completely different objectives. So the complaint that PT Dry Needling is poorly trained Accupuncture is, at best, naive and or misguided, and at worst, a cynical and myopic attempt to manipulate regulatory frameworks.

2) PT Dry Needling is Efficacious. There is nothing, in my experience, that works better, or more quickly, to alleviate muscular / myofascial overuse issues.

3) PT Dry Needling is 'state of the art'. We need rigorous training for those who want to employ this therapy. It is new, there are relatively few experts at this point. It is a specialty to be taken seriously.  Training programs and certifications / standards should be established by the experts. Dr. Jan Dommerholt, of MD, and Dr. Carlos Berio, of VA, would be excellent resources.

Thanks for your time,
Dan Cohn

Falls Church, VA