Dr Claire Rathjen PT, DPT, SCS, CSCS
CORE Physical Therapy and Sports Performance, PC
Confessions of a Dry Needling Session with Acute Low Back Pain
Having gone through the entire Dry Needling certification process of pretty much having every part of my body dry needled, I always feel fairly confident in being able to describe what my Physical Therapy patients will be feeling when I explain the process to them.
It is an ENTIRELY DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE when you’re acutely injured. You’re whiney. You’re super sensitive to pain. You’re exhausted and in a bad mood and the last thing you probably want to is have a needle ever-so-gently-inserted into your muscle.
Nevertheless. Here’s my first hand experience.
Short version – I’m at the gym, I’m finished with my workout, I bend down to pick up my towel from the ground – INSTANT SPASM. My back just totally locked up. No warning. No bad body mechanics. No crazy heavy weight on my back. Just my body being all “you’re done.”
I held a little pity party for myself for roughly 4 hours before I couldn’t stand the pain anymore (aka after Mark reached his limit of hearing me whine). We trotted down to the clinic. 10 seconds to assess and we knew EXACTLY what was going on (for those interested, it was my Quadratus Lumborum aka QL). 10 more seconds and I was positioned to take a needle straight into my side. 10 MORE seconds of me whining and telling Mark for the millionth time to “please be nice to me.” 10 seconds of dry needling.
With the amount of pain and discomfort I had, I didn’t even feel the needle going in. 3-4 good “twitches” that felt like deep pressure, and it was done. No pain. No blood. No bruising.
10 seconds. That’s legitimately as long as it took. And I immediately felt 50% better.
The next day, I did it again. 10 seconds, Dry Needling to the QL in sidelying. 75% better.
And a 3rd day, today. 10 seconds. 90% better.
My point here IS NOT that Mark is the 2nd best Physical Therapist here in Omaha (give you 1 guess who #1 is…). My point is that I could have EASILY waited. I could have been conservative, focused on stretching, heat, taken Ibruprofen, asked my MD for muscle relaxers. It might have slowly gotten better, on its own, after weeks – months? – of rest. But likely it would have gradually gotten worse, creating weird compensation patterns with other muscles working harder, limiting my bending and twisting, with the spasm getting worse and limiting more and more of my mobility.
Instead, I capitalized on the fact that I had immediate access to someone who was specifically trained to assess my injury as an ATHLETE. Someone who knew what muscles might have been fatigued, annoyed or just plain overworked after my workout. Someone who understood what the needs of an athlete are.
But instead I got to someone who could assess me RIGHT AWAY. Immediate access. Immediate results. No waiting room, no referral, no Xray, no prescription needed.
So maybe, just MAYBE, the first call you make when you have an injury that takes you out of your game/sport/practice/run, should be to someone who knows what to do RIGHT AWAY.
CORE Physical Therapy and Sports Performance PC,
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This is What we do…