What’s the difference between acupuncture and dry needling?

A large amount of people come in to Surf Life Physio and want to know – what’s the difference between dry needling and acupuncture is.

Essentially the biggest difference lies in the framework that we base our clinical reasoning. A physio practices “dry needling” where most “Chinese Medicine” is based on TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine) and often referred to as “acupuncture”.

What makes this all confusing is that the term “Acupuncture” comes from the Latin term, ‘acus’ (needle) and ‘punctura’ (to puncture). So essentially meaning the insertion of a needle. However there are some major difference in their methods

TCM Acupuncture:

• is a traditional part of “Eastern” Chinese medicine

• is based around knowledge of “Qi” and balancing energies/meridians within the body, which refers to the Yin and Yang body balance

Dry needling:

• is within the “Western” medicine framework

• is aimed at releasing trigger points within target muscles, based on the research by Travel and Simons from the 70’s and 80’s.

Depending on the framework that you base your needle insertion on, what we do know is that at any point, insertion of a needle causes dilation of the blood vessels, increased blood flow, activation of the inflammatory response and stimulation of A-delta and C nerve fibres and stimulates endorphin release which can dampen pain signals.

All these add to aiding the recovery and rehabilitation process when used by a competent Surf Life Physio practitioner as part of your treatment protocol.

Written By Josh Carter