Son is starting to get treatment for tendinitis in throwing shoulder and dry needling was discussed as part of the treatment plan. Has anyone ever did this and was it beneficial in pain reduction and or recovery time speed up? HS season is a couple weeks away and looking at all options. Thanks.
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My son has had dry needling done several times and he felt as if it was very beneficial! He tweaked his back last spring, last summer and again in the fall. He ended up doing several weeks of PT after each incident. Then again in early January he tweaked the same spot during indoor BP. We went to see his ortho to make sure everything was okay as he grew 4 inches between April - December and we wanted to make sure nothing was structurally wrong with his spine. Anywho...doctor said we could do more PT or just do the ice/heat, stretch, rest a few days routine AND he suggested dry needling. We did 3 rounds of dry needling, along with the ice/heat, stretch and rest a few days, and my son said it was much more beneficial to him than all the PT he did the prior times. He finished his last session first week in February and has been perfectly fine. No pain, no tenderness and full ROM in his back.
My son had it done by his physical therapist during rehab from shoulder surgery for a torn labrum. He thinks it definitely helped but didn't really provide me any specifics as to why. I think it's tough to really know unless you've had another situation to compare it to. Having seen my son go through it, I can't really think of a downside if "traditional" PT is already being performed. Good luck!
@Burger posted:Son is starting to get treatment for tendinitis in throwing shoulder and dry needling was discussed as part of the treatment plan. Has anyone ever did this and was it beneficial in pain reduction and or recovery time speed up? HS season is a couple weeks away and looking at all options. Thanks.
So, dry needling compared to sham dry needling results in the same outcome. That doesn't mean it can't help, it's just the reason why it helps isn't because of anything the needle is doing (it is the contextual effects). If you want me to elaborate further on that I can.
Basically, sure it can help to temporarily decrease pain, as can a lot of things. No it doesn't break up adhesions, no it doesn't stimulate healing or anything like that.
Ideally you'd want to structure a progressively loaded program to build up strength, tissue capacity, and restore any limitations noted in the evaluation (whether that is strength, or range of motion, or kinesiophobia, etc...) and you'd want to do this while also gradually building up pitch intensity, volume, frequency, over a period of time.
