Thursday, April 14, 2011

Dry Needling on ME

  So today, Rich found some time to do dry needling on my leg.  I've had Johanna and Erin do some therapy on my ankle (I'm scheduled to have surgery in January to repair two ligaments and remove an extra bone process).  They both thought that certain muscles in my leg were really tight, most likely from being in a walking boot for a month and a half prior to this internship!
   Rich had me lie face down as he used alcohol wipes to clean off my skin where the needles were being inserted. He ended up needling me in about six different places! For all of his other patients it's usually only two or three places. He started with my gastrocnemius, and did both heads. It wasn't painful when he inserted the needle, I barely felt it.  However I did feel a tingling, burning sensation. He continued to my hamstring. I think he did two or three muscles in my hamstrings, but I couldn't tell exactly where he was placing them.  He then went back down to my soleus.  Lastly, he did my peroneous longus, which Erin had previously mentioned was tight.  For this one, I was laying on my side.  As he inserted the needle, I felt a really strong, sharp "zing" which went all the way down into my big toe!  I immediately jerked my leg back. It really scared me! He said that was either the muscle releasing lots of chemical by products or he possibly hit a nerve.
  Once he was done, I asked if it would be alright if I ran on the treadmill, since I was planning on running today. He said he wasn't really sure how it would feel since there hasn't been much research done on dry needling. I ended up running for twenty minutes. I wasn't in any pain at all while I was running, except for feeling like I needed to stretch my calves.  Afterwards, I iced my ankle and calf for about fifteen minutes.  I got up to go put the ice away, and I could barely walk!!  My calf was so tight, I couldn't plantar or dorsiflex my foot at all. It took about 45 minutes and a lot of light stretching to finally be able to walk normally.  SO, don't exercise the muscles that have recently been dry needled!! Hope it feels better tomorrow morning.  I'm really glad I got to experience the dry needling, despite the pain that I'm currently in!

No comments:

Post a Comment