I am a client of a NOVA group of physical therapists who perform dry needling.

My first experience with dry needling addressed repeated tightness and pain in psoas muscles of my hips. Previously diagnosed with arthritis that would lead to hip replacement, physical therapy worked to regain full mobility, but the pain persisted until dry needle therapy. My hip sockets have remained pain-free for three years, and I am not taking the dangerous drugs associated with arthritis.

My second experience with dry needling corrected a “dead arm,” a completely immobilized arm and shoulder injured during lifting. After one session of dry needling, I regained mobility in my shoulder so that I could pick up and carry my laptop and also drive with ease.

My third experience with dry needling  has eliminated the stiffness and pain in one shoulder’s muscles and the numbness and tingling sensations in my arm and hand that had occurred post-surgery. With three sessions of dry needling, my pain and stiffness were gone; my numbness and tingling reduced to almost negligible. Through regular personalized physical therapy and exercises, all of this is gone. 

In all instances targeted physical therapy exercises provided by these same highly educated, knowledgeable therapists have kept me mobile and pain-free for years.

I had gone to acupuncturists—some of the best located in California—who never got to the root of my pain and immobility as does dry needling. So I repeatedly went for more acupuncture, but never felt the relief nor pain-free existence that I now have from dry needling. To me the difference between acupuncture and dry needling is not only reflected in the advanced education and licensing required to perform dry needling, but the method of targeting “trigger points.” These, I learned from my experiences, are anatomical markers of a body that a trained and licensed person who performs dry needling identify after thorough analysis of the patient’s mobility, landmarks that are directly involved with, or related to, the affected muscles and joints. Instead of practitioners of acupuncture, who, also from my experience, follow a chart of a human body indicating meridians and the points for appropriate needle placement.

Targeting these trigger points through dry needling are said to improve the ability of muscles and a person to move and function and to decrease muscle tension and associated pain.

From my experiences with dry needling, all of this is true. Yet what also needs to be addressed but might be overlooked is that dry needling restores a person to well being, to a point where crippling pain and it’s associated immobility is lessened or, as in my three cases, completely gone. I’ve regained my energy for living. I’m happier, healthier because I can walk, exercise and lift weights, drive, carry groceries, walk my dogs, shovel snow—all normal activities that were beyond my reach before I had dry needling and physical therapy, and all without pain, without medication, and with free and easy movements. That’s priceless.

So please consider the benefits that dry needling by licensed physical therapists offers.  

I am an absolute supporter of dry needling in Virginia, of physical therapists performing dry needling, AND I AM LIVING PROOF OF THE SUCCESS AND REWARDS OF DRY NEEDLING.  

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