Dry Needling and Acupuncture

I agreed to be taped up on Monday but I need more information on what type of needle stuff is going to be done. The PT said something about ‘dry needling’ which to my understanding is when you place a needle intended for acupuncture directly into a trigger point without releasing a pain reliever medication (analgesic). Basically she’s going to poke a trigger point with a needle, period. Acupuncture, as I hear has more training involved and has more studies behind it to prove its effectiveness. To me, and this could just be me, but to me, it sounded as if dry needling is sort of a watered down, low training version of acupuncture.

I guess my thought is this, if I’m going to submit to needles and put myself through a ton of PTSD responses, its not going to be for a watered down version of anything.

I’m going to lay down on my stomach in a vulnerable position and have needles put in me. I’ll do it because the pain has gotten to the point where its necessary BUT I’m not going to half ass it. At this point the company hasn’t skimped on a thing so lets not start now. I figure I’ll do the acupuncture but I’m not sold on the dry needling thing. If I’m wrong about it then someone please correct me.

So far there’s been very little touching. She’s good at showing me how to do things and guiding me. She’s also good at helping me not get lost in my head. It’s not as if I tell her it hurts, its that I get very quiet and stop responding to her voice. She tells me to tell her when it hurts and we’ll stop but…… sure. okay.  She says she wants me to face her while doing certain exercises so she can see my face and tell me to stop because I won’t say, “this hurts.” I do my best not the grimace. This is where PTSD and physical therapy collide. Showing pain isn’t something I do naturally.

The doctor ordered me my own TENS machine but it hasn’t come in yet. Right now I’m using an industrial size one. Like most things, it helps when it helps. It’s got 6 electrodes on it and I can change the intensity and frequency of it. It doesn’t have an time limit thing on it either. I hear some will only work for about 20 min then won’t reboot for a whole hour. This guy doesn’t do that.  I hope the one they ordered me doesn’t do it either. As I said, so far they haven’t skimped on taking care of things, lets not start now.

Now that I think about it, they’ve dropped the ball on one important thing. I still haven’t gotten my insurance to approve a naughty nurse for me. I’m sure its just a matter of paper work. Anyhooo….

Monday my ‘pure nurse’ will come for a few tests then my ‘questionable physical therapist’ will bind me my shoulders and neck with pink tape. She will not stab me with needles though. Tuesday psychotherapy begins again. Dr. D  will be off vacation and so will I.