Category: dry needling

Business has been slow here at the clinic this past year. I blame it on the endless stream of competitors that seem to be cropping up everywhere… the clinical Pilates studios in particular are going crazy down here on the coast, and people seem to be turning to them for help with sports injuries. I’ve thought about offering group classes here, but we don’t have the space.

I’ve come to the conclusion that, instead of trying to mimic our competitors, we need a point of difference. That’s why I’ve signed us all up for a clinical dry needling course. Melbourne doesn’t have a huge amount of sports medicine clinicians who are equipped to administer this treatment, so it’s something we can say hold up as point of difference.

It’s all to do with trigger point stimulation, which is something I’m sold on. I’ve heard really good things about the technique as far as treating musculoskeletal conditions like tendonopathies and movement impairments, and believe it will add genuine value for our clients.

The clinical dry needling course we’ve booked in for is a one-weekend thing, which means we don’t need to take time off to head into Melbourne to complete it. Kerry pointed out that it’s not a bad networking opportunity, either, given that a requirement of entry is having a degree in a manual therapy discipline, and preferably being a practising clinician in that field.

I’m not much of a networker, myself. But I recognise that we can do with all the professional connections and referrals we can get at the moment. I’d be interested to know if other clinicians are having trouble or if it’s just us, and if there’s anything we can do differently to bring us up to speed.

At the end of the day, our main goal is to help our patients improve their sporting performance while experiencing a higher quality of life, particularly after an injury. If dry needling can enhance our ability to do that, we’ll be on the right track. 

My shoulder has never been quite the same since I injured it playing baseball. It’s not always in pain but every now and then it bugs me. After seeing osteopaths and chiropractors I decided to get some trigger point dry needling and see if that would be any better. Amazingly it really worked for me. What they do is they stick some fine needles into your muscles to release the tension. This lightens the load on your tendons too which helps with joint mobility. After receiving this miraculous manual therapy, I’ve decided to follow some students in dry needling courses around New Zealand for a new documentary I’m making.

It’s still in its formative stages but I’m thinking the focus will be on complementary medicine and the recent popularity of Eastern systems within the health industry here in New Zealand. The problem is that eastern traditional medicine and the newer things like dry needling and osteopathy are still considered ‘complementary medicine’ even though most of the time they’re as effective as the recognised and government subsidised treatments. For example, the government sanctions prescriptions for dangerous sedatives and reduces their cost for the public, when there are safer, natural alternatives that actually cost twice as much or more.

I’m documenting many of the opinions of the students in the dry needling courses. In Adelaide there are more alternative medicine institutions than in other parts of the country so I plan on getting in touch with some of the directors and professors. I’d also like to speak with patients to see if their dry needling treatment are helping to alleviate pain and improve mobility. 

I’ve already started to see a shift. Hopefully in the future we’re going to see an even greater move away from chemicals and towards more holistic health options. The western world is only now discovering what the eastern philosophers knew all along – that you need to treat the whole person in order to improve a discrete ailment.