Anyone who’s had to continue working in the office with muscle spasms knows that there’s an added layer of difficulty to their physical pain from your mental fatigue. One common cause of muscle spasm is the development of trigger points due to continued damage sustained by the muscles.
The formation of trigger points in the body can affect both office workers and physically active individuals. You don’t need to experience major trauma to your body to form trigger points because they can form inside your body from the overuse of muscles through sustained micro-tears that break without warnings or earlier symptoms.
How do you treat trigger points?
The Journal of Electromyography and Kinesiology found in their studies that the upper trapezius is prone to trigger point formation from just half an hour of computer use. Another study shows that continuous typing past one hour can easily create trigger points just as much as blunt contact, muscular trauma, and fall injuries.
Dry needling is a form of Intramuscular Stimulation (IMS) which relieves trigger points located around the body. Muscles that suffer from trigger points induce constant localised pain, limited joint movement, and damage to tissue flexibility.
In this article, we’ll share with you the five benefits of undergoing dry needling therapy to treat your muscle pain:
1. It improves blood flow
A dry needling session mainly involves locating the body’s trigger points, which restrict blood flow and oxygen delivery.
Inflammation in the muscles from muscle damage is where the throbbing pain of your muscles comes from. Dry needling deactivates these trigger points, allowing the injured area to receive a healthy flow of oxygenation to speed up the healing process of the damaged tissue.
2. It reduces the localised pain
Through the insertion to specific trigger points, dry needling reduces the focus of local pain while at the same time reducing radicular pain. Besides the soothing effect it gives to your muscles, chemical changes are also attributed to blocking and unblocking the nerves that affect the transmission of pain signals from your brain to your body.
3. It speeds up muscle healing
The primary use of dry needling is for promoting faster healing towards the muscles. Tiny injuries, such as microtears and dysfunctional muscles, are relieved by inserting a needle through trigger points. This stimulation triggers the body’s inflammatory response, which alerts the brain’s creation of collagen and protein formation in the targeted area, making the healing process faster.
4. It increases muscle contractibility
Dry needling loosens the taut bands that cause muscle spasm. As a result, improved joint and twitch responses allow for a greater range of motion and show no noticeable strains through the muscle activation process. This improves your flexibility and agility in using your limbs for faster reaction time.
5. It creates muscle re-learning opportunities
Dry needling treatment is comparable to ‘resetting’ your muscles and nervous system. By improving blood circulation and muscle contractibility, the stimulation allows you to re-learn better ways to approach movement and regeneration of your muscle damage.
Conclusion
In dealing with everyday pain, many people attempt to force themselves through the point for the sake of productivity. However, they often forget that their bodies have limits, which can lead to severe and costly consequences when exceeded. Remember that the best way to deal with the build-up of muscle damage is by practising proper self-care in giving you the time to breathe in between strenuous activities.
We focus on treating people with different types of muscle pain through dry needling therapy. If you require physiotherapy in Brisbane, contact us today let our expert team of professionals diagnose and treat your pain away!
