Dry Needling thoughts.....

[Guest guest]

Docs,

I took another class this past weekend put on by Jan Dammerholt. I can say

without a doubt that the information in this class, teaching style and teaching

skills in his series is top-notch. All too often, I return from seminars feeling

like the educational component is lacking even though the skills part was great.

With Jan's class, I didn't get this at all; as a teacher and doctor, I

appreciate when lessons are well-designed and presented. This was THE MOST

well-researched and evidence-based class I have taken with regards to soft

tissue techniques, and the skills learned are 100% applicable, even without

using the needle.

Jan is really an international superstar when it comes to this topic. He has

been involved in pretty much all aspects of TP DN from the technique's inception

and has worked closely with the DN pioneer's like Simmon's, Travell and Gunn.

After taking his class, we must continue to fight for this technique to be in

our scope. Chronic pain is a huge deal and trigger point, then subsequent

central sensitization are big players in the development of chronic pain. DN

helps to resolve both of these issues. I personally saw 2 patients who were

treated by Jan, finish their treatment in tears because their chronic pain had

been knocked-back more than it had in many, many years with just one treatment.

It was very inspirational!

Imagine if our patients who have chronic pain can receive this level of

treatment then also receive the benefit of spinal manipulation before or after

to keep things moving..... very powerful stuff.

I have been a massage therapist for almost 12 years and I can honestly say that

none of my trigger point training was this detailed, this efficient or this

effective. I have been doing trigger point therapy for most of these 12 years

and taken classes by Chaitow, Delany, Davies, and more. None hold a candle to

the instruction I received this weekend. I have been invited to do the rest of

the series (4 seminars in all) and will keep you all posted. It was clear from

this weekend's class that DC's and PT's MUST have the ability to perform this

technique and we have the BEST palpatory skills of any provider out there; this

is paramount to proper TP DN, most other professions who to TP treatments have

fairly poor palpatory and clinical skills. This is what will lead to harm with

patients, not the fact that we are not acupuncturists.

Most of the other classes out there that I have taken did not actually needle

specific or deep enough to affect TP's. None of them taught a system of finding

the point, verifying safety aspects of needling the point and needling the point

with specific outcomes to know when the job has been completed.

And before anyone posts that I should support " one of our own " , this has nothing

to do with a turf battle and everything to do with expertise and educational

prowess.There is no one out there who has Jan's skill-set on both fronts and no

other class that I know of that is this comprehensive, this well-researched and

this tightly-packaged

-Tim Irving DC, MC, LMT